To be frank, I can't remember the last time I really had to think, and think hard, during the whole course of a video game for my Xbox 360. I'm one for the standard fare of first-person shooters, blindly storming through levels (done ad finitium ever since Doom came out in 1991), as well as the range of sports games (Madden, Tiger Woods, FIFA). But FINALLY, and unintentionally, I've managed to pick up a game I highly recommend if you feel like giving your brain a workout, and that game is L.A. Noire (Rockstar).
If you own a 360, you know about Rockstar. Hell, even if you don't, I bet you know of Rockstar. Makers of the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto series, as well as Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar has gone through a lion's share of criticism for their GTA series; a lot of it, in all honestly, well deserved. Go shoot cops. Bang some broads. Deliver some weed. You can do it all, and parents don't realize that. But Rockstar's latest release moves from the genre (a little bit), and, surprisingly, produces a game that really requires you to think. This, of course, is L.A. Noire. Created by Team Bondi, a company based out of Sydney, Australia that went belly-up three months after its release, L.A. Noire is a gritty, yet hopeful sleuther which places you in the shoes of Cole Phelps, an officer fresh out of the second World War. In a world full of seedy men, Cole is THE shining epitome of an exemplary man. He wants what's right for the world; it really is that simple. But what about the mental difficulty? That is realized very quickly as you begin searching the crime scenes and interrogating your suspects. I went through the first case again and found four (FOUR!) clues I missed the first run through. With my first interrogation, I accused the poor girl of lying when she was telling the truth. The secret lies in the ground-breaking facial technology that you have to read very carefully in order to determine whether the person of interest has been telling the truth or not.
In the second mission, Cole is called to the scene of a crime outside a bar, where a man has been plowed over by a car and left for dead. You engage in the usual fare; collect your evidence, and be thorough about it; talk to your witnesses and see what you can get. You seem to be running through the motions; after all, the guy's obviously been the victim of a hit-and-run. But a great detective searches for whatever he can. In a trash can behind the bar, you find a steak knife. Seems innocuous enough; it's probably animal blood. Suddenly, the coroner calls you with stunning results. It seems the man was actually stabbed twice before he was hit! Now, that steak knife looks a little more suspicious now, eh? I was able to make the arrest right there and then without any further investigation; my initial fine combing of the scene actually bent the story around, creating a different ending! (Now, if I had only not let the guy that drove the automobile a failure to stop warning. Yep, you made an amazing discovery and feel great about it, but you still didn't QUITE do your job. It's that precise.) It's moments in gaming like that which reassure myself the medium is evolving, and rapidly. Simply a treat
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