L.A. Noire. And how long I can admire this game, although it also has obvious flaws, sometimes struggling in the eyes. But let’s start, as always, with a prelude. Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, or, as it is popularly called, “First Mafia,” remains and remains my favorite game and youth. This was the first game that I went to the PC, but there were no “duckling syndromes”-before that I had Psone and with video games, where there is an interesting graphics, wonderful gameplay and a chic story I already signed up (Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, Soviet Strike, Crash Bandicoot). But the classic story about good people who perform monstrous deeds, the detailed embodiment of the open world, the spirit of that gloomy era, the wonderful soundtrack, the variety of game missions, the beautiful almost realistic machines of those years and adequate weapons are only one and many features that struck me in this game to the core to the core to the core to the core. After that, I went through everyone beloved at that time GTA III, but it seemed to me so miserable, meaningless and stupid as any part of the franchise about superheroes compared to Andrei Rublev Tarkovsky. Of course, then there were many delightful works in the game genre, but in terms of the scurpling of design, a thoughtful plot and delightful decorations L.A. Noire is approaching precisely the very first mafia, although it displays the opposite side of life, namely, the everyday life of a police detective in a restless post -war period.
But what is the “Noir” genre itself? Being a big fan, but by no means an expert on the cinema, for myself, I understand this as a detective story, where some innocent trifle like the loss of a person or a kitten spins into a plot about something huge, unimaginable and terrible, where the main character got involved in his stupidity or courage. As for the main character, then he should be a lonely melancholic with some problems. That the plot should have a tragic heroine in the form of a fatal beauty, whose story will go through a thread through the main narrative (or it will simply be killed in the beginning and we will not remember it anymore). That the villain should be powerful, cruel and almost infernal (or he is only a pawn in the hands of a real villain, who was pretended to the funny companion of the protagonist) and in general, with certain almost integral canons of this genre, play with these canons, turn them out or represent from a completely unexpected side – there is the main canon of the genre Noir. Moreover, you should not think that noir is only a period from the 20th to the 60s of our century. The actions of the beautiful film “Frantic” by Polansky unfold in Paris of the 90s, but the very atmosphere of secrets and the backstage life of “the most romantic place on Earth” is conveyed delicious, as well as the clash of American and European culture in the person of Harrison Ford Heroes and Emanuel. The “Dark City” of Alexe Fance is generally a shift film that begins as the most ordinary detective, and ending … Look yourself, but it is from there that the basis of the story of the well -known “matrix” was taken, because I perceive the “matrix” as not an original and boring bobby, without any revelations. “Lonely Hearts” is also a noir, but unique in his cruel realism, like a re -stained story about Bonnie and Clyide, showing another couple in love with uninverted rebels, and with rigid killers, whose complexes are compensated by their thirst for violence. Even Pushkin’s work “Peak Lady” is quite like a noir story with a taste of mysticism.
Yes, what is there, the word “noir” (can be with e and without at the end) translates from French not only as black, but also as dirty, dark, illegal, hopeless and many more there are meanings, as in English in the word “stuff”. In general, there is nothing unambiguous here, that is the genre and love.
Returning to the plot of the game l.A. Noire, which is not embarrassed to borrow, or even quote ideas from a bunch of films about the same era, starting with “Casablanca” or “north through the north-east” and so all the way to the “secrets of Los Angeles” and “single hearts already mentioned here”. History and fragmented and integral in its fragmentation. In general, all this project is a continuous oxymoron and a game with the viewer, because as a video game l.A. Noir is not perceived in principle, it is something more cinematic, and in places it is literary, like “amnesia: a car for pigs”, where after passing it feels like an excellent monstrous thriller read.
Together with the main character, detective Cole Felps, we will go from the patrol to the detective in different departments. In addition to a completely introductory patrol, where we are introduced to the main mechanics of the game (to which we will return later), there will be a local traffic police department where it will be necessary to investigate crimes related to car transport. This is only an introductory part, where there are 5 unrelated investigations, one of which will appear in the abandoned Packard of an ambassador of a southern country, in another, the mysterious disappearance of a loving husband, and even about film stations, their producers and their dirty customs will be mentioned, because everything in Los Angeles is happening. And already here the game begins to open as a really standing work, because together with the main character we get rid of the uniforms of the patrol and even more tired of it, patrol, duties. Now we have an ironed costume, service Bjuik and a young, but already quite experienced partner Stefan. We spend most of the game behind the wheel of cars, but not at all in chases, but on trips from place to place and, despite the simplest model of transport behavior (not to compare with the same GTA IV), this routine is never bored with me. Yes, this is perhaps to say about the whole game, this is not a carved action, and not even a moderate action, but a calm narrative, where pursuit, fights and shootings emphasize a particular event, and do not serve for stupid entertainment, as in other mass products at least gaming, and even though kinematographic culture.
It is in the first branch that https://slotsnogamstop.co.uk/gates-of-olympus/ we understand the main idea that this game needs to be held slowly, carefully and almost meditatively. We have in each of the four departments (traffic inspectorate, murders, drug control, arson) there are 5 cases and almost every business begins this way:
In the site, the chief inspector appoints us to investigate the case, we get into the car and go to the scene of the crime, talking with a partner on the way and discussing personal life, views on life or the outcome of the previous investigation. When we come to the place where, say, a thrown Blue Lincoln Continental with a bloodied interior was found, we slowly walk along the location and collect evidence. Eyes can be anything, from the contents of the trunk of the car to minor objects that imperceptibly lying on the ground. In order to successfully go through the case, it is advisable to collect all the evidence on the spot. From these evidence, we learn a couple of three addresses/witnesses/suspects and, armed with confidence in our own rightness, go to them. While we are going – we are talking again or listening to the radio, where old jazz motifs are playing mixed with a simple advertisement or news that China may become an ally of the USSR in the upcoming cold war of ideologies.
We come to the place where you also need to inspect everything, find more evidence and connect them with the material already found, can solve a couple of very light puzzles in compiling pipes in the San Nazel, and then-interrogation.
Interrogation is the most interesting in this game, it is its main mechanics and the main article in the budget for development. The fact is that with the evidence available or not available, we need to get the information that will help our investigation from a witness or suspect. Team Bondi – the creators of the game, spent a huge bunch of funds and time, so that, with the help of, if I didn’t make a mistake, 32 cameras from different sides to write down the facial expressions of living actors in the form of a reaction to the questions of Cole, and then, with an insufficient amount of evidence, so that we guessed on behalf of the detective, lies with the interviewed or not, looking at its facial gestures and their facial gestures. It is difficult to describe this in words, but in reality everything becomes clear and carries it better than any chases and shootings! So we have three options for raising the question:
– a polite option (good cop), that is, to ask in a polite form about the involvement of Namerek in a crime.
– Not a polite option (Bad Cop) means to exert psychological pressure on the interrogated, focusing on raising voice, high -profile statements and direct suspicion of committing a crime or a conspiracy with criminals.
– accusation. Stupidly convict or blame a person, but then he will say something like “what your evidence is your?!", For which we need to turn to a notebook in which they are all given. If the evidence coincides with the accusation, then the interrogated is already nowhere to go, if not, he will blame you. Although the latter does not affect anything.
Here you need to get distracted briefly and notice that I am writing about the Remaster version of the game for PS4 and XBONE, which was released in November 2017. The game itself was released in May 2011 and there these options were called Truth, Doubt and Lie, but I’m glad that they were renamed here, making a little more clarity in the conversation.
But, you think, that’s it ended? No matter how, interrogations only lead us to other locations, other evidence and other interrogations, from time to time the scenes of the fight, shooting and chases that … can be rewound! Yes, in this game you can not discourage the scorching video, but you can rewind the entire action, returning to, in fact, leisurely, but an interesting investigation. It is this component that I loved so much and this is such a rarity in the modern (even at the time of 2011) game construction that the game is perceived almost as the same art house, where not so much commerce rules as a ball as self-expression of the Creator.
So, at first, in the department of vehicles we can investigate thefts, fraud of insurance (like this), the disappearance of people, and even a certain conspiracy against the movie star. Cole Felps at first seems to be a real idealist who can find evidence and put pressure on the criminal, and quote Shakespeare. But, since the whole action takes place in 1947 and the world only departs from the shock of the Second World War, then our hero has an unpleasant baggage of memoirs associated with the service in the US Pacific campaign, on the island of Okinawa. This parallel history develops in the flashbacks between the main matters and sheds light on a completely different personality of the protagonist and his actions. Here it becomes clear that the whole pretense of the hero’s impulse and moralism is just an occasion to seem to be different, and not to the villain, to whom he completely deservedly believes after what he did in the war. An interesting line that not only reveals to us the protagonist, but, closer to the middle of the game, is woven into the narrative of the game. But there is still a third storyline that serves us from the newspaper articles found, about a psychiatrist and a student of honey.schools, which is also completely revealed to the final of the game, where all lines are intertwined and we can lure the picture as a whole.
Especially when having served in the murder department and even finding the mysterious killer of Black Georgin, we fall into the drug fighting department and we have to investigate the cases associated with former fellow soldiers and the Morphine Project in a particularly large. In this we will “help” the cynical corruption-Detective Roy Earl, who takes bribes, steals evidence, hates work, loves expensive costumes, is friends with Meyer Cohen and travels on a dark bordard Cadillac.
It is here that the main character and we will have to understand that corruption is everywhere, and especially in the police, that some criminals are simply released, before that he literally caught the hand and that the world is not a fair place.
And what will happen in the arson department – you will see for yourself when you go to this place. My beloved, but the most gloomy, even compared to the murder department, the plot interval. I would write more about the plot, but you need to go and feel it how simple, but everything is great there is realized there.
It’s just that the game does not bypass sharp corners and shows that sometimes it is easier for the police to blame an innocent person than to admit their mistake, that jokes can be extremely cynical when you see corpses every day and that all surrounding people sooner or later become suspects, and surrounding objects – true or false evidence.
Another point that I am delighted with is the 1947 Los Angeles recreated from the photographs and documents. Not all, but only three districts: Hollywood, Wilshire and the city center. But, believe me, there is something to see there. Many in the press scolded the game that, they say, the open world here is only the decoration and in itself is empty and bored, but I see in this dignity, not a disadvantage, because this game is rather an interactive film and the city here is true for the background, but for which background and how it is recreated! And I’m not only about the streets and courtyards, but in every business we have to spend time in different rooms and you would see with what love and fanaticism the authors recreated the rhythm itself and the type of life of the time in which the phones are luxury, and television is the luxury of the unacceptable! Где нет карты GPS и направление нужно искать самому или следовать указаниям напарника, где негров открыто называют ниггерами даже в полицейских протоколах, где к женщинам относятся как аксессуару для мужчин, где все еще по старому, «как раньше». During the search for evidence in the apartment, in the allege or in warehouse, I catch myself thinking that the design of interiors and their filling is not particularly necessary in the plot, but very accurately emphasizing the lifestyle of their inhabitants with details, the work has been done fantastic. For all 25 hours of the game there was not a single typical room, all, even three police sections, are very different from each other and just walk there – already a pleasure. True, it seems to be at another time. Of course, I can’t imagine what life was like at this time, but if everything was at least like that, now it is much better and easier in any plan, although cars, then, of course, were more beautiful.
Oh yes, cars. The authors were confused by licensing 95 games for the game. There are no left brands like Ulver or bolt, as in the same mafia, these are quite real cars, and with each department not only the partner and costume of the protagonist, but the car on which he drives is changing. Yes, you can theoretically steal or even take away any car in the city, but we play for an exemplary policeman who will not do that, because we only go to what they will give to us, and this will be Ford first, then Buyik, then Nash, and even Cadillac with Hadson. But no matter how well the cars were drawn outwardly, apparently the forces and budgets have gone to create an engine for the game and digitize the animation of persons, so that it is not believable for arcetric vehicles in arca. But in all of the splendor of the sun filled with the sun, hiding the vile gattle of the city of the city of angels, I somehow stopped paying attention to the management of cars and the physics of their behavior on the road and simply drove to the next crime, supporting the conversation with a partner.
Of course, and there are shortcomings in this game, but I do not want to think about them, and even more so – to list, I’m not a journalist and I don’t write a review, but only a note about my own impressions. And the impressions are:
When I went through this game for the first time, in 2011, I was in a pleasant shock from what I saw. When I returned to her now, I liked her even more than before. And I really envy you who will play it for the first time, because you can’t return the first impression anymore.
A real masterpiece in its genre and if this note is of at least one person to play in l.A. Noire, then I wrote it all evening not in vain and my conscience is clean. There would be more quality products in any field of life, and life would be even better.
The main character Cole Felps, an extremely ambiguous protagonist
Sometimes the game throws simple, but original riddles leading to evidence, clues and evidence
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