Good detective game that lacks sufficient supporting evidence.
Crime scenes are extremely detailed and searching for clues drives the case forward. Turning the default controller vibration off and actually looking around for clues feels natural. Police crime scenes place yellow markers next to clues and directed lighting makes it obvious which objects are important. Some crime scenes might have a blood trail to follow, others might have clues inside victim's clothing or on their person. There are even some simple puzzles to solve like joining objects or opening a box with a combination. These detailed interactions make the items more tangible and could have been used more.
Some items need a further level of investigation before they actually become clues that can be used against suspects. Turning over a completely plain statue and looking at the face seems unnecessary but the game insists. You'll need to read letters, look inside objects, find hidden rooms and even compare ligature marks. Clues are rarely difficult to find but you can use intuition points, gained from levelling, to locate every clue in a crime scene. These limited intuition points are more useful when you choose to remove a false answer during a tricky interrogation.
The game revolves around the interrogation process of suspects and witnesses. You investigate an area, a crime scene or place of residence, and then use what you've found to further your case. Cole asks a few predetermined questions and you identify truth, doubt or lie for each. Characters lie in different ways although shifty eyes are a dead giveaway. If the person stares straight at you it's pretty much a certainty that they are telling the truth. These shifty eyes may be a formulaic game feature but without them the interrogations wouldn't flow very well.
Cole approaches interrogations in a Jekyll and Hyde type manner and you never know which side you will get. Even when you select the lie option he will calmly spin the suspect into a trap. But when you doubt the witness report of an old woman Cole launches into a tirade befit for the worst criminal offenders. He even interrogates a young girl shortly after explaining that her mother had been murdered. Although these contrasting mannerisms don't alter the final result they don't paint a balanced picture of Cole. Cole's character is further clouded by a few absurd decisions he makes during the story.
The most difficult part of the interrogation is choosing the correct piece of evidence when accusing a suspect of lying. Due to the unpredictable and restricted way Cole approaches questions he can sometimes eliminate evidence. During the longer cases you will have quite a lot of evidence to decide from. The suspect will direct you towards the piece of evidence after you accuse them. The nice thing about selecting a Lie is that you can always back out should you have no contrary evidence. Even still not knowing how Cole approaches the questions prevents some success.
You can do poorly in interrogations but many cases still play out in exactly the same way. The difference between failing an interrogation and passing it might be just the number of cosmetic stars you receive at the end. The game funnels you toward the solution and it gives you a false sense of making choices. L.A. Noire is a very linear game with only a few minor alterations between events that have no major bearing on solving cases.
The final act of getting the murderer is never as satisfying as the individual steps taken to get there. Evidence is usually strong but also circumstantial and extremely convenient. In a few situations you are forced to charge one of several innocent individuals with virtually no evidence because the game forces you to. You can't opt out of this decision as you cannot progress without charging one suspect falsely. Perplexingly the game even rewards you with more stars for arresting one of the two wrong suspects.
Once you catch the genuine bad guy, however unusual that may be, there is rarely an admission of guilt. The only real feedback you get from cases is from random civilians in the street mentioning previous cases you "solved". The lack of satisfying conclusions during important cases almost makes them a waste of time. Instead you find clues, catch the bad guy via some arbitrary chase scene and he is taken away (or killed) never to be heard from again. As Cole says hilariously during one particular chase, "why do they always run?"
Facial recordings of real actors certainly helps sell the game's interrogations. With such believable faces the game will give you a feeling of watching a movie and playing a game. The facial recordings aren't perfect but they certainly look more natural than hand crafted animations. Lips look slightly strange on some characters and at certain angles the faces don't match well with the heads. These visual oddities are few and far between and are probably just indicators of the technology in its infancy. Considering how much the game depends on interrogations, recording a vast array of actors was certainly a worthwhile task.
When Cole is not investigating a crime scene, interrogating a suspect or re-watching an unskippable story cut scene you'll be doing disappointing game type things. Car chases, foot chases, shoot-outs are the core action experiences you'll be involved with. It seems mandatory that all foot chases involve at least one downpipe to climb during the first half of the game. Many end with some hostage scenario that forces you to restart the whole sequence if the hostage dies. Some of the action sequences are indeed impressive, such as a shootout in an ice factory. However when the game strings together dull, scripted car chases it completely loses appeal.
Absurdly controlled suspect cars are impossible to catch until you reach a certain point when they slow to a crawl or crash. You can skip these action sequences once you fail them several times but they are rarely difficult. Labouring through them once is more than enough. There was even a very arduous treasure hunt type quest near the end of a long case. Needless to say these types of things were far from a game highlight.
These formulaic game structures feel repetitive when each case is unique with new clues, characters and crime scenes. The city of Los Angeles is so immense that it takes minutes of driving to reach each destination. The best option is to let your partner drive so you fast travel to the location. The city is far too big to navigate and there is no need to memorize any of it. Once you start using the fast travel system there is very little reason to drive anywhere yourself. The open world framework just gets in the way more than it enhances the experience.
L.A. Noire is a fine game trapped by some rigid and boorish game structures that it repeats far too often. Formulaic and scripted chases often detract from the experience even though they try to provide action. The consistent lack of satisfying conclusions to cases is a huge problem when the journey is very good. It is extremely irritating to be forced to charge the wrong suspect when it is so obvious the evidence doesn't add up. It's a pity the ambitious and enjoyable interrogation system is so frequently wasted during big cases. L.A. Noire, like Cole himself, is both good and bad wrapped into one impressive visual package.