L.A. Noire

L.A. Noire takes the player to Los Angeles in the late 1940s, casting them as detective Cole Phelps, who gradually works his way through the departments of the LAPD, from Traffic to Homicide. Developed by Team Bondi, the game combines an open world with an investigative adventure, where examining crime scenes, gathering evidence, and above all interrogating suspects and witnesses take center stage. It's the interrogations in particular that made L.A. Noire famous — thanks to the advanced MotionScan facial capture technology, the player watches suspects' subtle facial reactions and decides whether to believe them, doubt them, or confront them outright with a lie. Progression is divided into individual cases organized by department, and as the player's career advances, so does the severity of the crimes, ranging from theft through arson to murder investigations tied to corruption at the highest levels of the city.

On PS3 the game ran smoothly and made use of an extensive recreation of period Los Angeles, complemented by period music and a jazz score that heightens the noir thriller atmosphere. Shooting and action sequences are more of a side element to the detective work, giving the game the feel of an unconventional mix of adventure, action, and driving sim, as the player travels between crime scenes in period automobiles through the city's recreated streets. The individual cases are tied together by a broader story about corruption, postwar trauma, and the dark side of the American metropolis, which gradually unfolds partly through the protagonist's own past.

Upon release, L.A. Noire was praised above all for its facial-capture technology and authentic atmosphere, although the game's pacing and the repetitive structure of its cases divided player opinion. The game became a symbol of how far facial animation technology could be pushed in service of storytelling and inspired later attempts by other studios to more convincingly depict human emotion in games. Even years later it remains a unique experience that has never been fully replicated by any other title, and for fans of detective stories it remains one of the most fascinating experiments of its console generation.

Why play it: Thanks to its unique facial-animation technology in service of storytelling, never fully replicated by any other title, L.A. Noire remains one of the most fascinating experiments of its console generation.