Cops feature pretty heavily throughout Rockstar Games' back catalog, but usually they're out to stop the player's criminal ways. L.A Noire flips the tables and sees you playing as Cole Phelps, a police officer who rises through the ranks to become one of the top detectives in Los Angeles. Seeing what life is like with a siren on your car is an interesting enough premise but developer Team Bondi added in a decent story that deals with corruption and menace within the police force itself; even Cole himself ends up with dirty hands. L.A Noire's detective-inspired gameplay works like a treat too. Cole has to scour crime scenes for anything that could be considered evidence and then use any information gained to piece together a story and find the criminal. Often, it's pretty straight forward but there are times where it's possible to miss a vital clue and end up chasing the wrong suspect; the game won't fail you for this but your in-game stats will be affected. Of particular note is the facial tracking technology that's used to allow players to judge a character's guilt from their body language and expression, just like a real-life detective. It actually works really well and it helps L.A Noire look far more realistic than anything that had come before. Unfortunately, due to the nature of L.A Noire's gameplay, running through the game a second time is pretty pointless. You'll know where all the vital clues are; you'll know exactly who did it; and you'll know how to corner them and break them down in interrogations - where's the fun in that? Plus, with the twists of the story, you might find Cole to be pretty loathsome on a second playthrough; his goody two-shoes act falls apart early on.