10 Simple Questions That Break Famous Video Game Stories In Half

6. Why Is Cole Phelps Such An Infuriating Mess?

Despite proving himself to be exceptionally intelligent and a methodical thinker in his time with the LAPD, Cole Phelps was infuriatingly flawed and managed to cause himself an awful lot of hurt during the course of L.A. Noire. But for such a smart man, how did he manage to do this?

Cole's ultimately fateful digression is to get himself wrapped up in both his affair and in plots by members of the SRF. A tenacious thirst for justice forces Cole into action against the crooked Suburban Redevelopment planners, yet he was supposedly completely oblivious to the very obvious ways in which the criminals could hurt him in turn.

Perhaps Cole Phelps' flaws are part of a larger question about the follies of man, but in strict storytelling terms, his fluctuating intelligence severely affects the credibility at the end of the story. Phelps had managed to alienate nearly everybody close to him as the events approached conclusion, yet he was still caught out by trying to rely on those same people.

For the man who solved and deduced so much earlier in the game, this sudden stupidity is very difficult to understand, and it slashes the integrity of the game's ending.