L.A. Noire: A Game With Unmet Potential

When they announced L.A. Noire, it seemed like a sure-shot success. The game followed Cole through his journey as a cop in Los Angeles. Cole proves himself to be an excellent investigator as he solves multiple cases with ease. The missions are fairly well-written, and the game benefits from the technology that was used to capture facial expressions. As a detective, players need to follow those facial expressions to find clues.

It seemed like a hugely promising game. L.A. Noire delivers on most of its promise but it eventually falls flat. Let’s have a look at why.

Cole is not exactly likable

One key to a great game is a lovable or at least relatable protagonist. Think of Kassandra from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey or Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2, who did much of what he did for the sake of his “family”. Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn is another good example, a character who wanted to learn more about where she came from and sacrificed much for the good of her people. Players often go back to those games because of the leads.

That is not the case in L.A. Noire.

Cole is a private person who is often rude. His rudeness is usually visible when he is alone with his partners. He gets agitated or defensive too quickly. His partners mostly meant well but he made things unpleasant for them.

Cole’s private life suddenly becomes part of the story during the third act of the game. It comes as a surprise even to the player, and given how Cole has been portrayed up to that point, this development in the story doesn’t mesh well with what has come before.

Uneven third act

The game progresses pretty smoothly in the first three segments: Patrol, Traffic, and Homicide. But from the final mission of Homicide, the game starts going downwards.

That final mission made it too easy to find an elusive killer. The killer didn’t appear to be believable enough to pull off such feats. There were so many open threads that were not addressed. On top of that, the mission ended with Cole getting transferred, or promoted apparently and with a disappointing finish.

Homicide was a high point in the game. Vice completely ruins that momentum. The missions Cole managed seemed to be beneath him. Surprisingly, the writing and stakes in the final chapter seemed to have improved. But that was again destroyed by the final ending of the game.

Cole, despite his shortcomings, deserved a better ending and redemption.

The game had grey elements throughout. The final mission suddenly became black and white. Even the final chase defied physics to some extent, as you can see below.

Dumb or corrupt policemen and officials

I have no idea why most of the NPCs were so dumb or seemingly corrupt. It started showing in Homicide when they just ignored clue after clue. Maybe this was how things were back then, but I certainly hope not.

The corruption tangent gets a boost in the final chapters of the game, as Cole and Kelso were fighting against corruption. Although they manage to salvage the situation a bit, the game needed a better ending to justify their efforts.

Kelso the superhero

Jack Kelso was too overpowered.

We played as him in the final missions and he was quite different from the rest of the game. For him, everything was possible. Suddenly, we were playing like Tommy Angelo from Mafia 1 or someone from GTA series.

Kelso could do anything. Yet in the end, he curbed his superhero enthusiasm when the story needed that. The result was that he felt like a very uneven character as well.

Too many storylines

The game had both a serialized storyline and various overarching narratives. In my view, it had too many of the latter to allow focus on the serialized plotline.

• The story with the morphine
• The narrative with Black Dahlia
• Cole & Kelso’s war backstory
• Dr. Harlan Fontaine and his schemes
• Cole’s war buddies
• Corrupt government officials
• The plot with the houses and arson

I guess the developers wanted to create a rich game. But by adding too much, they missed out on the opportunity to flesh out and make better just a few of those stories. The emotional aspect of the game was never strong as a result.

Compare this with Red Dead Redemption 2, where players go through the journey and various changes as Arthur Morgan. In The Last of Us Part 2, even though there are multiple narratives at play, only two are in focus. This was the biggest missed opportunity of all, in my book.

L.A. Noire had all the elements to be a superhit and a masterpiece. I think it needed a bit of better planning and trimming in the story for it to really have maximized the potential it showed from the beginning. It has gone down in history as a technological marvel for the capabilities of the facial rendering system that was used, but it could have been so much more.

This article was first published in Medium