Playing around with established history is always fun, especially when certain events have multiple loose ends that afford huge amounts of creative interpretation. Whitechapel's Jack The Ripper is probably the most famous example of what I'm talking about, but the U.S. had a spate of crimes that whipped up a media frenzy big enough to rival Jack; the Black Dahlia murders. L.A. Noire doesn't just perfectly capture an image of 1940s America, it lets the player live it through detective Cole Phelps, and that includes getting your hands dirty with some grisly murders. Despite the concerns of many that video games desensitises people toward violence, L.A. Noire proved everyone wrong by evoking strong responses to severely mutilated bodies. Sure, as gamers, we may mow down endless amounts of soldiers, monsters and even innocents in our daily routine, but when faced with just one cadaver that's been severely mutilated - strong emotions follow. Its allure may have tapered-off towards the end, but L.A. Noire's portrayal of the Black Dahlia murders remains as one of the goriest and unsettling moments in gaming history. https://youtu.be/hqfnANi8iTU
Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.
