Detective work, minus the paperwork: L.A. Noire

If developer Rockstar Games is known for anything, it is their ability to create massive and detailed open-world environments. Games like the "Grand Theft Auto" series and "Red Dead Redemption" delivered some of the most impressive in-game worlds of all time, allowing players to explore virtual representations of everything from the old west to expansive modern cities. The most common criticism these games receive is that while the environments are extraordinary, the games squander their potential by having players repeat the same type of missions again and again. Unfortunately, Rockstar's latest title, "L.A. Noire" suffers just as badly from these shortcomings.

"L.A. Noire" has players stepping into the shoes of returning war hero and rookie cop Cole Phelps in 1940's Los Angeles. The game begins with Cole as a simple beat cop, but after a few successful collars he is promoted to detective. With each new department promotion, Cole is assigned to investigate more high profile cases.

While it would have been easy to make the game "Grand Theft Auto" from a cop's perspective, Rockstar decided to go an entirely different route with "L.A. Noire." Rather than driving around acquiring missions, each case plays out like a chapter in the pulp detective novels the game draws its inspiration from. Players are told where to go to investigate, then spend their time examining crime scenes for evidence, questioning witnesses and trying to draw confessions from suspects. The entire experience feels more like a point-and-click adventure than a "GTA" clone.

The game's major innovation is its motion-capture technology, which manages to make character's facial animations eerily realistic. As Cole questions these characters, players are tasked with watching their reactions, and using their body language to determine if they are telling the truth. If players believe the suspect is lying, they can call them out on it and use collected evidence to coax a confession from them. When it works as advertised, the experience is extremely satisfying.

The problem is getting everything to properly fall into place, which is frustrating.

The act of questioning suspects is essentially like taking a multiple choice test. The characters' body language is often too subjective to properly read, which can lead to false accusations that make the suspect shut down and stop cooperating. Not only that, when accusing someone of lying, corroborating evidence must be presented to back up the claim. Most crime scenes contain dozens of pieces of evidence, and more often than not choosing the right item to back up the accusation is trial and error.

But even if players completely botch the investigation, the game continues anyway. There is virtually no way to fail a case in "L.A. Noire." Cole simply tails the suspect's car until they arrive at a different location and catches them with some incriminating evidence, and arrests them. Or shoots them, or chases them depending on the case. And if players die during one of the tacked on action sequences, they restart from a checkpoint to try again. If players repeatedly die during an action sequence, they are given the option to skip it altogether and advance past it. It makes one wonder why Rockstar included these sequences at all, other than to appease shoot-em-up fans.

This could easily be forgiven if the gameplay remained engaging throughout the game, but sadly, it does not. The same basic mechanic is repeated again and again, with only the slightest variation between cases. After around the second hour, players will undoubtedly begin to feel that they have seen all the game has to offer.

Repetitive, simplistic gameplay aside, the game's biggest problem is the complete waste of the meticulously recreated version of Los Angeles. The game world is positively massive, easily Rockstar's biggest map to date, yet there is absolutely nothing to do in it. The only payoff for exploring the map is a handful of random street crime side missions, which can easily be overlooked since the game gives players the option to automatically move between locations. With such a spectacular world to explore, doing nothing with the majority of it is unforgiveable.

While the game falls far from its intended mark, it deserves credit for originality. The story is incredibly engaging, and the facial capture technology is quite impressive. In the end, it falls into the "Heavy Rain" category, a game with some good ideas that just did not live up to the hype surrounding it.

"L.A. Noire," available for PS3 and Xbox 360, receives a 6 out of 10