L.A. Noire - Reception

Reception

L.A. Noire received critical acclaim upon release. It holds an overall score of 89 out of 100 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and an overall score of 83 out of 100 for the PC on Metacritic. GameRankings rated the PlayStation 3 version 88.12%, the Xbox 360 version 87.76% and the PC version 81.70%. L.A. Noire has been widely praised for its advances in storytelling and facial animation technology.

The first review was published by UK newspaper The Guardian, which awarded the game a perfect score, and stated "Ever since it first worked out how to assemble pixels so that they resembled something more recognisable than aliens, the games industry has dreamed of creating one thing above all else – a game that is indistinguishable from a film, except that you can control the lead character. With L.A. Noire, it just might, finally, have found the embodiment of that particular holy grail."

IGN gave the game 8.5 out of 10, stating "L.A. Noire may not reach the emotional heights of a game like Heavy Rain, but it's something everyone must try out. It reaches high and almost succeeds as a brilliant new type of video game narrative." GameTrailers gave the game a 9.1 out of 10, concluding that "L.A. Noire floors you out of the gate, loses some steam due to repetition, but eventually wins the day thanks to its subtlety, attention to detail, and stunning character interaction." Gamespot's Carolyn Petit awarded the game a 9 out of 10, concluding that "L.A. Noire's absorbing investigations and intoxicating sense of style make it an unforgettable journey through the seamy side of the City of Angels." GameZone gave the game an 8.5/10, stating "The story is intriguing, albeit a little slow at first. L.A. Noire takes an old school approach toward its storytelling. It’s a much slower approach, similar to older movies, with a heavy emphasis on detail. It is that attention to detail that sets L.A. Noire apart from other games and makes it enjoyable to play."

Edge praised the facial technology, and pointed out that while there are no other major aspects of the game that had not been done better elsewhere, the fact that Team Bondi had brought together such a wide range of game genres in such a stylish, atmospheric, and cohesive manner was an achievement that few developers had managed. Joystiq gave the game a score of 9, and stated that "L.A. Noire may not always be 'fun' in the traditional sense, but it's also unsatisfied with being 'merely fun,' and the result of that aspiration is something that no one who cares about video games should miss."

Official Playstation Magazine gave it 9 out of 10, and stated that "In many ways, L.A. Noire is similar to an AMC series... It's a slow build, but once hooked, we couldn't get enough of this provocative adventure, with its compelling characters and innovative gameplay. It's not perfect, but it's also unlike anything else on the PS3 right now." Official Xbox Magazine gave it 8 out of 10, and concluded with "Yes, it's flawed, but L.A. Noire is an honest-to-goodness detective crime thriller – a genuine breath of fresh air that values narrative and story above all else in an age where scripted action sequences and online deathmatch rule the day. It's the closest thing Xbox has to PlayStation's unique adventurer Heavy Rain." GamesMaster gave the game 92%, and concluded that L.A. Noire is "Rockstar's most mature take on open-world fun to date, brought to life with incredible tech."

Despite the overall positive reception, some reviewers thought that the game had too many redundancies in the cases and left too little control to the player, leading to the game being boring at times. Although 1UP gave it a perfect score, they also warned that the extended cut-scenes in the game could make some players feel they lost control of the action.

Responding to criticism that accused the character's bodies of being lifeless, despite the game's use of motion capture, Brendan McNamara stated in an interview with Eurogamer, "People were saying people were dead from the neck down. That's because we had all this animation in the neck and all this animation in the face, but the clothes don't move. Once you get to the level that people can actually see that level of realism, then people expect to see clothes moving and the rest of the body moving in a way we can't replicate in video games." In the same interview McNamara also responded to queries about why Phelps sometimes responds with particularly aggressive lines of dialogue during interrogation scenes. "It's funny. A lot of people say Aaron (Aaron Staton – the actor who portrays Phelps) turns into a psycho. When we originally wrote the game the questions you asked were coax, force and lie. It was actually force because it was a more aggressive answer. That's the way we recorded it. But when the game came out it was truth, doubt or lie. Everyone always says Aaron on the second question is a psycho. So that's not his fault."