It had been tried before with the troubled True Crime games but Noire nailed what most folks thought an obvious idea: a GTA-style game where you play a cop instead of a crook. Rockstar went all out here with a stunning replica of 1948 Los Angeles, nailing the landscape, design and feel of the city at the time. Driving around, seeing famous landmarks, stopping small street crimes and finding classic automobiles, it was a great experience and you truly felt back in the past during it all. The gun battles were well done as were the chases, both car and foot and the fact this was a real city undoubtedly made it more attractive than Vice City or San Andreas in some ways. The real appeal was in the investigations into crimes, as well as the introduction of some of the best character models ever seen in video games. When you interrogated a suspect, you could see every facial tic and thus try to tell whether theyre lying or not. You can check crime scenes carefully for clues to tie in and at times, have to make a tough choice on whether or not to charge the right person with the crime. That's something GTA has still never been able to match: the characters are more human than caricature. That realism, though, is also probably the reason it couldn't overtake GTA in sales and acclaim as the investigations could be repetitive and required far more concentration and patience than the typical GTA mission. And it's just more fun to be the bad guy.
A freelance writer with love of comic books, sci-fi/fantasy, action films, pro wrestling and more. An inventive mind and history major who hopes to bring some of that to readers.
