Have you finished LA Noire? No? Then go away. This is the spoiler thread for people who’ve played through the entire story. Continue reading at your own peril.
-Tom
So I pretty much hate LA Noire as a game. But I love it as a story, and particularly a story about a handful of characters. Cole Phelps starts off as a typical stuffed-shirt by-the-book cop, but by the time the game is over, he’s become a character far too complex for a game as chintzy as LA Noire. He has effectively left the game. The final image of him looking up through the manhole, probably cribbed from the final image of Charleton Heston in Earthquake, is stamped in my mind the way few videogame characters get in there.
I love how Cole starts off as kind of a blowhard. Upright, honest, but still a bit of a blowhard. He doesn’t want to talk about the war because he’s not proud of war. Okay, right, the strong silent type. We get it. But what we gradually discover is that’s not the case at all. He was a failure, a bad leader, and perhaps even a coward. The “reconciliation” scene between Jack Kelso and Cole Phelps is something so rare in videogames because it’s entirely character-driven, it’s wonderfully written and acted (here’s where Rockstar’s facial animation is key to LA Noire working as a story), and it’s based on groundwork the game has laid about two complex and intriguing characters. At that point, I loved LA Noire almost enough to forgive that it was a terrible game. It’s kind of how I felt about the final chapter of Red Dead Redemption. For all its faults, I really wanted people to experience this part of the story.
One of the weird things in LA Noire is that there’s too much story to fit into the game. I can’t imagine why else they have those silly newspapers lying around to play cutscenes. What a weird way to shoehorn in a bit of plot. Each of those cutscenes is crucial, but it has nothing to do with someone actually reading a newspaper, and it kind of breaks the narrative, which is mostly from Cole’s perspective. It’s a sloppy way to connect story and gameplay, which is hardly surprising considering how poorly LA Noire does this anyway. Cole picks up a newspaper and then we see a cutscene about his partner betraying him, while his partner is standing right there? Okay, Rockstar.
It’s also weird how that scene plays out after the credits. It’s the final flashback chronologically, so I suppose it makes sense to save it until the end, when you know how it’s all going to turn out, which further colors the tone of the scene. I would have hated to miss that. I felt it was particularly important to see the role played by Courtney, who is arguably LA Noire’s most tragic character for the gulf between meaning well and causing terrible things (consider, too, how helpless he was as a corpsman to do anything but humanely kill the wounded (which reminds me of a similar scene in The Thin Red Line)). In fact, when you think about how everything plays out, Courtney might be the most important player, from beginning to end. And you’d never guess that until all the pieces fall into place. How fitting that he’s killed by the very morphine he talks everyone into stealing. He can’t escape what he’s done.
When I finished LA Noire, I’d only found 12 of the 13 newspapers. So I went into the case files to see which one I’d missed. Ah, it was in the very first mission! So I replayed it and got to see the cutscene I’d missed. In that cutscene, which is one of the earliest things you should see in the game, Courtney comes to Dr. Fontaine to get help for a friend who’s having trouble dealing with his experiences from the war. If I’d seen that cutscene early in the game, when I was supposed to, I would have just figured Courtney meant himself. You know, his “friend” is having trouble. But since I’d only just finished the game, I realized that Courney’s friend was the Marine with the flamethrower, the one who Fontaine recruits for the arsons that are key to the plot, and the one who Kelso ends up killing at the end. Which is another image stamped into my mind: Phelps carrying Elsa out of the sewers while Kelso lowers his pistol in the background. Courtney had intended to help that guy with the flamethrower, but he instead sets into motion a terrible chain of events that will affect the characters and the city as a whole.
Speaking of which, I loved that angle of the story. Classic noir is about not just characters, but the places they inhabit, and how those places swallow them up in their plots. The most famous example is Chinatown, which balloons into a plot about incest and the growth of Los Angeles and its water supply. I loved how LA Noire tapped into concepts about the growth of Los Angeles and the freeways. There’s even something particularly timely about a plot concerning affordable housing. As I was playing, I just assumed the big reveal was that it was insurance fraud. But Rockstar had me in their pocket for the even bigger reveal that it was an eminent domain plot! What a pleasant surprise. I love it when I think I have a story figured out and the story laughs at me and then shows me a whole new level. I really liked how it tied into the freeways, which could even be a bit of commentary about all the driving around I had to do in the game.
So, a few questions/stray issues:
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Why were there so many thugs in the sewers at the end? Who were those guys? It was cool seeing them get flamethrowered, and I guess I was grateful for a little gameplay, but I thought the encounter was just going to be against the firebug who’s kidnapped Elsa. Suddenly, I’m fighting a hundred guards.
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I don’t think I fully grasp the sequence of the flashbacks. They weren’t sequential, right? Cole’s trauma from Sugar Loaf was having been shot by the other Marines and left for dead, right? Or was that something that had happened to him before? I guess it works either way. But was Suger Loaf the episode with killing the Japanese in the caves?
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Am I the only one who thinks there was a huge missed opportunity to show us more about Cole’s family? And also more about his relationship with Elsa? Also, the hinted triangle with Cole, Jack, and Elsa felt really derivative of LA Confidential. When Cole discovers Jack and Elsa in the back alley, he reacts strongly, which I didn’t understand since he was the one who asked Elsa to contact Jack. If the game wanted us to consider some sort of jealous or insecurity on Cole’s part – and this would have absolutely been fitting – it needed to show us more with Cole and Elsa. Furthermore, Red Dead Redemption did such a good job with Marston and Bonnie, and eventually Marston and his family, that I would have loved to have seen more of that in LA Noire. I can’t believe Cole has kids and we find out nothing about them.
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I also feel like Elsa was sadly underdeveloped. What a great character she could have been. Instead, she gets dropped into a thankless damsel-in-distress at the end. She deserved better. How can you make a German expatriate junkie lounge singer uninteresting? Rockstar managed.
-Tom
As I said to my wife when I finished…the best worst game I’ve ever played. The game itself is a stale meatloaf of previous Rockstar dishes, and honestly got in the way.
Now to your questions Tom:
- Thugs in Sewers - I think it was implied that those were all the crooked cops that the Chief brought in when it was obvious their scam was over and the Assistant D.A. knew about it. When you are helping Kelso get to the sewers, your partner says something like “Jesus, who knew they had this many guys on the take”. Followed by the Chief and the Assistant D.A. obviously making some sort of deal.
Honestly, I think it was their way of having a shoot-out akin to the classic L.A. Confidential. Revealing just how deep the corruption goes. And maybe a little too much, because ya…there’s like 30 guys down there.
- Flashbacks - Ya I kinda got lost here too…I think it’s they are boot, Cole is a stick-up-his-ass, by the book, Kelso is realistic, about the men, not the mission. They get to Okinawa, Phelps builds agnst against the men for his pro-japan, oil comments, Kelso keeps them from retaliating. Cole’s hellbent mission only views get his men killed on Sugar Loaf, he gets a medal for nothing, scars him pretty badly. Results in becoming even more mechanical, cleaning out caves even past their lines, gets men killed, everyone hates him. Put’s everyone’s lives at risk to clear the hospital cave, turns outs its all civi’s, gets shot and turns Ira into a psychopath.
At this point, I think he gets sent home as the war-hero in 45, and Kelso and the Sixth stay until 46, which explains how Cole joined L.A.P.D. and was in the paper when they were on the Coollage.
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Totally agree. The wife and kids are talked about maybe twice the whole game, and they really do a poor job explaining why Cole strays. He has that whole “you don’t know what I’ve gone through” line (which I assume means the hiding of the Black Dahlia, Civi BBQ thing), but it was like…what?
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It kept feeling like they had such stronger plans for Elsa but instead focused on her being some form of relationship bridge between Roy, Fontaine and the Highway scam. I was even lost where the hell her friend came from who left her the settlement. I understand they’ve got to get Kelso built into his P.I. angle, but I felt like I was supposed to know who he was?
Up until Homicide, its an amazing tech demo. But when you start realizing that all these Homicides have missing holes that keep showing up…and when the Black Dahlia jumps in…my blood got pumping. Looking back, I LOVE all the little hints they kept sprinkling into the cases that seemed useless but pointed to the larger picture. And one of my favorite moments in my 25+ year gaming history is the entire 4+ case ending…figuring out Elysiums scam, the land registry, getting into Fontaines office, finding the blackmail documents, piecing together the conspirators…putting the highway map together, and Cole finally figuring it out. Amazing experience.
And god, I want another so badly. Kelso is a private PI…Roy had the audacity to speak at my funeral…and the corrupt are still in power.
Best Story in Years. Worst Game in Years.
Ah, I think you’re right-on about the flashback timeline, Pharaoh. I actually kind of like that progression better. Phelps freaks out and cowers on Sugar Loaf and then proceeds through the war as an ineffectual by-the-book leader. Then he gets fragged by his own team and sent home early. Thanks for clarifying that.
Good point about Elsa’s beau and the insurance settlement from the construction accident. Yet another example of how Rockstar just skirts around important relationships. That’s too bad. I’d love to see them handle romances, or at least husband/wife relationships. All that stuff is so embarrassing clunky in the Bioware games, so it’s about time someone did it justice.
By the way, I briefly thought the moll who shoots Kelso in the arm was Elsa and the game was setting up the obligatory doublecross!
If I liked the game better, I’d be really looking forward to the inevitable Kelso DLC. I kind of like how he’s the more conventional tough-as-nails detective typical in noir. Calling Elsa “princess”, for example, was kind of a cool touch. But now that we know the full extend of his backstory, I’m not really that interested in following his exploits as anything other than a foil to Phelps.
-TomWhat was up with the collectibles? In the normal course of playing the game, I found 0 badges. At the very last house before the sewers and end of the game, I found my first and only Film Reel.
I mean, I was done with the “game” part and now you tell me there are collectibles. I must have been playing wrong to never discover a badge or a film reel (except that one).
I didn’t bother visiting “landmarks” just for the sake of visiting them unless it was part of a mission, and once I learned how to make my partner drive it was fast travel everywhere all through the game. It’s a shame they had such a huge world that was empty or I may have reconsidered the “let my partner drive everywhere” way I played.
I mean, I couldn’t even buy a damn hot dog! :)
Seriously, most boring but beautiful world EVAR!
There are badges? Well shit, is that even on the stats page? I knew there were film canisters but I didn’t find one of those till I’d already finished the game and was in free roam mode trying to do all the street crimes.
This sounds like something someone (not me) should make a guide for and I’ll walk around and pick these up when I don’t have to hunt for them.
I didn’t find a single film reel or badge either. And I drove everywhere. I even got the 194 mile achievement. I’m guessing they’re tucked back in places you’d never normally go.
Do the film reels do anything?
-TomWe found one of the badges, the one in Union Station, but all it did was give XP.
For those of you talking about badges:
After wasting 30 minutes this morning copying down all the locations from a Youtube video and then wandering around wondering why I don’t see any, turns out after doing some research online the “Find 20 Badges” thing is a Gamestop exclusive.
Awesome. :|
Plainclothes police sent after Phelps and Kelso.
- I don’t think I fully grasp the sequence of the flashbacks. They weren’t sequential, right? Cole’s trauma from Sugar Loaf was having been shot by the other Marines and left for dead, right? Or was that something that had happened to him before? I guess it works either way. But was Suger Loaf the episode with killing the Japanese in the caves?
I thought the trauma was from many things, but mostly torching the civilians.
- Am I the only one who thinks there was a huge missed opportunity to show us more about Cole’s family? And also more about his relationship with Elsa? Also, the hinted triangle with Cole, Jack, and Elsa felt really derivative of LA Confidential. When Cole discovers Jack and Elsa in the back alley, he reacts strongly, which I didn’t understand since he was the one who asked Elsa to contact Jack. If the game wanted us to consider some sort of jealous or insecurity on Cole’s part – and this would have absolutely been fitting – it needed to show us more with Cole and Elsa. Furthermore, Red Dead Redemption did such a good job with Marston and Bonnie, and eventually Marston and his family, that I would have loved to have seen more of that in LA Noire. I can’t believe Cole has kids and we find out nothing about them.
Honestly, I didn’t care too much about Cole’s family. It would be an opportunity if they made something of it, but I’m fine with them existing just to create a sense of loss for Phelps.
They were definitely hinting at the love triangle, but I figured they were being deliberately classy by not following the most obvious course.
- I also feel like Elsa was sadly underdeveloped. What a great character she could have been. Instead, she gets dropped into a thankless damsel-in-distress at the end. She deserved better. How can you make a German expatriate junkie lounge singer uninteresting? Rockstar managed.
I don’t think she’s uninteresting, just mysterious. I thought that what we did learn about her story was interesting, she just didn’t occupy a lot of screen time.
LA Noire’s storytelling makes a big deal about holding back on details and then dropping them on the audience when the time is right. IMO, Elsa was fleshed out in much the same way as Phelps and Kelso, she just wasn’t as major a character.
I finished it earlier, which is somewhat rare for me to just power through to the end but I wanted to see how the story turned out. Man, I wish they had saved Kelso for the sequel. I get that its a big sprawling story that and that to fully emulate L.A. Confidential you need multiple perspectives but I felt like it was Cole’s story and making Kelso the survivor in the manner they did was something I hadn’t seen since Vampire$.
I really hated the ending, in part because it was so sudden; you spend 16 of 21 missions getting to know Cole, lumps and all, and then he becomes a bit player in someone else’s story and dies with 20 seconds left on the clock. Then the terrible funeral bit. I understand what they were going for with the way it worked out. I just wish they had found a less kludgey way of doing it. I also wasn’t real keen on the “betrayal” of Phelps. In a city filled with all of the vices (no pun intended) the manner in which putting Phelps’ in the doghouse was very underwhelming/jarring/disproportionate to me.
What jumps out at me about the game and the essentially empty open world is that really this is a Max Payne game where you can drive between locations, rather than GTA: Los Angeles 1947. It wasn’t the story they were telling but I can see a game with the main character as a P.I. rather than a LAPD detective with much more open world potential but that would take away from the main story’s narrative focus. Viewed from that perspective, the fact there was really not much to do outside of the main story line didn’t bother me at all, whereas in the GTA franchises while I may or may not like the story, I could drive around and just find things for hours at a time.
Unlike Tom, I didn’t hate it as a game. I never got tired of looking for clues, punching people in the face (in fact, I wish there was more of it; the action in the game is very backloaded) just so long as I didn’t try to drive between assignments or take street cases. Nothing like trying to solve a string of serial killer murders, only to get a call in the middle of a deranged treasure hunt to drive completely across town to stop an armed robbery and pass six or seven police cars on the way. How about at least in the same police division for the radio calls?
I thought the acting along with the mocap was great; how did they manage to get a cast of what felt like 75% recognizable working actors in this game? It was amazing not knowing who was going to turn up next.
I thought the comments on the replayability while I was playing it were incorrect but now post-ending, I don’t know how much I will go back and play this, given the eventual outcome. It really does hurt DLC prospects for me.
Still, all in all, I would have to give the game a 9/10. The story was incredible right up to the end and while I didn’t like the final twist, there was so much to like its hard to rate it any worse. There is still so much more to be done in the genre/series, though. So much wasted potential here as well.
I just finished the main story this morning. I’m not one to finish many games, but the story kept me coming back to LA Noire. The eminent domain twist at the end was great - I totally didn’t see that coming. Thinking back, however, there were highway maps throughout the entire game.
But is it a game? More than anything, it reminds me of interactive fiction and/or point and click adventures. With such a heavy narrative, however, it’s more of an interactive story than anything. I won’t really think back with “I finished the game,” but rather with, “I finished the main story.”
LA Noire represents a step forward in the integration of narrative in games. I would love to see more games push to include meaningful narrative. The troubles of soldiers returning home are timeless (see today’s CNN article, for example: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2011/war.at.home/part3/index.html?hpt=C1).
As Tom mentioned, there’s too much story for the game, though. Little of it was wasted, since Cole developed throughout the entire main storyline. I also thought it was a poor decision to have the final cut scene come after the credits. That scene establishes a lot of sympathy for Courtney and really sets the tone for his character throughout the game. Why “hide” it?
Phelps’ interaction with Earle when Courtney is dead in the alley was my favorite part of the game. He FINALLY lets loose and takes a firm stance on something.
The way the narrative built up and pulled together across the entire game was really quite masterful. There were surprisingly few boring spots (in the story). The acting was fantastic. The guy from Fringe who plays Leland Monroe did a fantastic job with that role. I also really liked the partner in Arson (can’t remember his name - I’m terrible with names).
The following didn’t work for me:
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The first tutorial at the very beginning of the game. Sure, nighttime is moody, but I really really wanted to be able to see more.
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The scavenger hunt at the end of the homicide desk and the mechanics used during the gameplay parts of it really cheapened the entire homicide story. Crawling out on a chandelier that falls? Wading into the tar pits when there obviously is a row boat nearby? Really?
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Moving from desk to desk to desk. Why was this necessary? There were aspects of traffic and homicide in every case (even if it was just me driving like shit). I did enjoy having different partners, but I would rather have remained in a single office.
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The wasted city. I couldn’t shake the feeling, throughout the entire game, that the city deserved more content or more stories. Perhaps they can create LA Noire 2 without rebuilding the environment.
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I was controlling Phelps, but then again, I wasn’t. I felt like I was helping him grow into a role until he hooked up with Elsa. Only then do we really find out about his family. The story narrative and my player narrative diverged at that point.
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The shift to Kelso’s perspective was really jarring for me (and then having a Phelps flashback). I didn’t want to leave Phelps behind. Kelso’s interrogation style and general demeanor for interacting with the other characters was a pretty big departure from the Phelps character I felt I had helped develop.
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The surveillance on foot was crazy. I sailed through the other gameplay and failed repeatedly when I came to that part. It’s the only part of the game that I skipped. I also didn’t love the front loader chase through the ditch.
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No cold cases or ones without a perp arrested? The game is built around a narrative partially constructed of colossal failure. I’m sure detectives aren’t always so successful in their work. It would have been interesting to have a case that didn’t pan out or to have one of the cases from early in the game go cold only to return later. Likewise, I would have liked to see some of the aspects of the housing developments appear earlier in the game.
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Not enough diversity of evidence. Most of the cases were straightforward and none of the evidence was particular interesting. I would have like to see a bit more interaction with the technical forensics team and with the morgue.
So… will I play it again? I don’t know. Maybe in a year or so. I’ll play the DLC when it’s available (PSN…). I probably won’t do the street crimes or find the collectables, however.
Overall, LA Noire is one of the most memorable gaming experiences that I’ve ever had, even though the game parts of it had little to do with that. Here’s hoping they tighten up the game parts, figure out how to keep the player and main character narratives in sync, and come up with a better way to take advantage of the beautiful city they built. I was never bored while playing – something that I cannot say of any other Rockstar game. I’d love to be able to rewind and play it again; knowing where the story goes, maybe I can spot earlier clues. I’m afraid, however, that the game’s greatest strength – the narrative – is also what makes it less of a game and ultimately will prevent me from returning to it.
My rating would be 9/10.
Also, for whatever reason, finishing this made me want to go back and replay The Last Express…
This was the most disappointing missed opportunity for me, if only because the story heating up at the end heightened my expectations. I went in to that sewer and saw that I had no minimap in a dark and disorienting tunnel complex, expecting to face a mentally unstable soldier armed with a flamethrower and holding a hostage. A clever level designer and director could have done a hell of a lot with very little assets to manipulate tension with that kind of setup.
Instead, I round a corner and get a bevy of boilerplate “There he is!” thugs to shoot. Really? There goes all of the tension. Now I know I just have to get to the end of the shooty bang bang sequence to trigger the next cutscene. Oh, what could have been.
Also, a gameplay wrinkle that Tom mentioned and that can only really be touched on in the spoiler thread: Having to make a choice between two suspects when you pretty much know that neither is guilty. This happens once in homicide, and I happened to make the “wrong” choice of not fingering the pedophile. When I got chewed out by Captain McMumbles, I went back just to see what happened if I picked the other dude, and I got a great performance review that felt rather arbitrary. There’s solid evidence for both suspects. Is the star rating at the end of each missions supposed to reflect the corrupt, attention-seeking nature of the police in LAN since locking up a pedophile is better publicity? If so, it’s a bad idea to make me distrust the ratings that the game is giving me since it’ll pretty much just make me resent it for any deductions.
A similar scenario with two suspects occurs later in arson, and I got particularly annoyed at that juncture. It was obvious that the story hadn’t developed towards the true culprit, but I was still expected to charge one of two clearly innocent suspects. Both choices seem equally bad, but there is still one “correct” and one “false” choice judging by the performance reviews. The star ratings felt completely ridiculous to me at this point, which is a further disincentive to replaying along with the mysteriously unskippable cutscenes.
I’d be interested in hearing what you guys picked in those two choices, and what you felt about the result. The first is the choice between Eli Rooney and Hugo Moller in “The Golden Butterfly”, and the second is Matthew Ryan and Reginald Varley in “The Gas Man”.
Edit: Also, one minor point that kinda bugged me as a native German speaker: If you get somebody to play a German expatriate, you should probably make sure that they know how to pronounce “Untersturmführer”. :(
Rhino, glad to see your point about Phelps’ downfall. So he’s cheating on his wife? That’s enough that the war hero is suddenly the disgrace of the LA police force? Really, Rockstar? So contrived. Ugh.
Clay, I thought the shift to Kelso was jarring, but in the wake of Red Dead Redemption, I could pretty much see that coming, particularly since the game is so – derivative of? influenced by? – Ellroy’s LA Confidential. I actually liked how it played into the confrontation between Phelps and Kelso, because by the time it happens, Kelso isn’t just some NPC. And if I’d actually liked the game part more, I’d be able to enjoy some Kelso DLC as well as the emotional impact of the main character’s death.
Oscar, excellent point about the scripted failure masquerading as choice! I was pretty keenly aware in both instances that the game was forcing me to pick someone who wasn’t guilty. In RL, I’d be all, like, “But Captain, I don’t have enough properly answered questions to convict either of these dudes!” I’ll have a bit more to say about that later in the week.
Clay, I might be misunderstand what you’re saying, since I agree that LA Noire is a great example of narrative inside a game. But I strongly disagree that it’s a step forward in the integration of the two. If anything, I think it’s step backwards and one of the worst examples of the integration of narrative and gameplay, primarily because one is so great and the other is so bad. In fact, I’d argue it’s the main problem with LA Noire. Rockstar has written a great story and they have no idea how to build any sort of meaningful gameplay around it, much less integrate the story into the game.
-Tom
I agree with you, yet having worked in a position where we had to make important analytical judgements based on frequently tenuous evidence, I can only imagine that being a detective is similar. The problem here isn’t necessarily that the character has to make that choice because I think detectives are trying to make those choices daily – the problem is that as player, you feel that it’s a false choice but the game doesn’t provide you with the option to express that opinion.
I chose Eli Rooney and Matthew Ryan as my natural choices for those cases. I felt that Rooney was creepy enough to have done it while Moller’s daughter might be a disincentive. I felt that Matthew Ryan had an idealistic revenge motive lurking in there somewhere, in spite of a lack of straightforward evidence.
This reminds me of another nitpick. I had a really difficult time differentiating the marines from each other when they were wearing their helmets. I was pretty confused about who was doing what to whom during the war scenes for the first 2/3 of the game. The colors seemed washed out during the war scenes. Nevertheless, I agree with your point – he’s not just another NPC. He was more brusque than I imagined he should be and more prone to violence than his character suggested. The experience of interrogating individuals as Kelso was most jarring.
I wondered many times while playing how it would be possible to integrate a story as strong as the LA Noire story into a game without compromising the freedom a player needs to feel engaged. Heavy Rain went the multiple endings route to allow players to make decisions with consequences. That is completely absent in LA Noire, so from an integration standpoint, I think that you’re correct and my wording was poor.
I never have been a particularly skilled gamer, so I’m ok with easy games, but it’s off putting to realize that there are no actions in LA Noire with real consequences. This is where my experience as a player diverged from the character’s experience, unlike it might in an RPG. MMOs are the other end of the spectrum; I need narrative structure to remain engaged and most MMOs I’ve played are too open to provide that. Even GTA tickles my ADHD too much for me to hook onto the story. As for RDR, I’ve played it to about 60% complete on 3 occasions, only to move on to something else.
I want more games to have stories as strong and engaging as LA Noire. I would love for them to be better integrated. I just haven’t figured out how game mechanics would support that without going the Heavy Rain route of multiple endings (which then leaves players wondering if they made the ‘correct’ choice to see the ‘best’ ending, thereby ruining some of the immersion of the story).
Actually, the confusion from watching helmeted dudes is pretty much a problem with any war movie, whether it’s Generation Kill or The Thin Red Line! :) But, yeah, it’s a shame that you can’t really appreciate some of the character dynamics in the flashbacks because a) you don’t have all the info yet, and b) it can be hard to tell the guys apart.
I briefly alluded to this in my review, but LA Noire should have used the Heavy Rain model instead of the Grand Theft Auto model. And not necessarily in terms of the branching storyline. I mean more in terms of being a straight-up adventure game without any open-world pretense. They had the writing, they had the expressive characters, and they had a sort of rudimentary puzzle structure. Just layer that stuff into some up-close-and-personal interface shenanigans and I’m convinced it could have been everything Heavy Rain wasn’t.
-TomTeam Bondi wrote the story, not Rockstar.
In fact it might just be one guy. The credits for writing is Brendan MacNamera, and that’s it. If so that’s one amazing feat.
I’d love to see the content they had to cut.
Honestly I have a feeling Rockstar brought many of the worst elements of the game. I kept getting this feeling that Rockstar tried to shoehorn their GTA formula into Team Bondi’s vision.
That’s incorrect. LA Noire has at least four writing credits, and I also see guys at the NYC Rockstar studio with the last name Houser as the executive producer and creative VP. Furthermore, having played every game Rockstar has ever made that didn’t revolve around ping-pong, I see a pretty consistent creative thread running through them. Ambitious stories about intriguing characters that don’t quite fit the gameplay is pretty par for the course for Rockstar.
“You have a feeling”? I don’t pretend to know who did what to whose ideas. So if you don’t mind, I’ll just keep referring to this as the Rockstar game that it is. :)
-Tom