I bought LA Noire on sale, several years ago. But I did not actually dig in to play it until last year. 68 hours of game play later, I completed it the second week of January, this year.

LA Noire is one of my all-time favorite games. It’s not perfect. But my goodness, what an experience to immerse yourself in. With a couple exceptions in the final chapter, you are Cole Phelps, a Marine and WW II war hero, starting out in the Patrol Bureau (known as a ‘desk’) of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). It’s 1947, and LA is a terrifically rendered city.

You move up the ranks, to Traffic, Homicide, Vice, and then down (bit of a career hiccup there), to Arson. You solve multiple cases working from each desk. With the Complete Edition, there are about two dozen cases, which do vary, and usually involve some violence. There are random crimes that come over the radio and you can choose to take them or not. They usually involve killing people, though there are quite a few high-damage chases.

There is an overarching plot that gives a Chinatown vibe to the game. I recognized some screen actors, who look like the characters they voice in game, which is cool.

DRIVING

In my first LA Noire post, I raved about how much fun it is just driving around in this game. It is absolutely awesome. You will drive all over 1940s LA. There are 90-something cars for you to discover throughout the map. You can drive any car you find. Or, any car that you decide you want to get in and drive. Official police and fire vehicles sirens, which are extremely useful. LA traffic sucks!

‘Regular’ cars have horns, rather than a siren. It’s a lot more dangerous driving like a madman, and ignoring red lights, with a horn, not a siren. The cars look good, and they handle very differently. I spend a lot of time driving fast. And there really are a lot of high speed chases. The car you’re driving impacts how chases go.

The variety of cars are cool. I took black and white patrol cars, the old-style morgue vehicle, and even a fire truck (yeah, that handled the way you’d expect).

The chases are insane. There’s a lot of damage done, and you get an on screen lecture when you hit a civilian. One mission involved chasing a hijacked trolley car. That was insane.

I thoroughly enjoyed driving around in this game, day or night, rain or shine. I took most of the radio calls, because it gave me more siren driving time. The driving in LA Noir is a superior feature.

THE RADIO

Now, there’s some nice period-appropriate background music most of the time that you have a case marked on your map. But if you jiggle the map a little, but you can listen to K.T.I. Radio. It’s got classic forties songs, radio dramas (Jack Benny, The Bickersons), news, and commercials. I tried to pay attention and listen to the radio while I drove. It adds authenticity to the experience.

THE VIBE

This game drips hardboiled/noir. There is totally an LA Confidential feel (especially in the Nicholson Electroplating case late in the game). One case is a recreation of the noir movie, The Naked City. Easter eggs and references to classic hardboiled and noir abound. I accidentally went into the wrong apartment building (I needed to be next door) and looked at the tenants list. There was a Miles Archer (Sam Spade’s partner in The Maltese Falcon). I shouldn’t even have seen that. But that’s how deep the detail goes throughout the game. One company listing had Waring Hudsucker. Cool!!!

The story definitely made me think of Chinatown here and there. LA Noire is as story-rich as any game I’ve ever played. And it totally gives the forties hardboiled vibe. I don’t think they could have done it much better, honestly.

MOVING ON

For me, this game doesn’t have a lot of replay value. The story line is fantastic, but knowing all of it now, I’m not too enthused to go through the whole thing again. However, there’s a free roam feature you can select after completing a desk. You can replay the street crimes, discover landmarks, collect hidden vehicles, and find badges. All while listening to the radio. THAT seems like it could scratch the itch, if I get one.

LA Noire was not a big hit. Gamers bought it expecting it to be like Rockstar’s massively successful Grand Theft Auto. But this was a different kind of game. However, it still is very much a Rockstar game. For me, it’s like being in an LA Confidential-type movie. And I frigging love it.

Team Bondi, in Australia, made the game. They had internal – and external – issues that kiboshed a proposed sequel. The company disbanded, though the founder did create a VR version of this game, for Rockstar, later. I think this engine would be terrific for another game like this.

As it is, it’s made me want to play Red Dead Redemption II, which is also from Rockstar,and which I got on sale. I cannot recommend LA Noire enough for somebody who wants an in-depth police game, with an extremely rich story. And if you like James Ellroy, or WW II America, you won’t get a better game like this. It’s frequently on sale on Steam. And even if you didn’t want the whole story, if you like driving games, I think Free Roam might work for you as well.

Five stars.

IT’S ALWAYS TOUGH TO START A NEW GAME

A lot of times, when I finish a book; or a series of books; or several books in the same genre: I don’t know what to read next. I often have multiple false starts.

Same thing happens when I finish a long run with a particular game. Might be Total War: Warhammer II, or Elder Scrolls Online. I wasn’t sure what to play when I finished LA Noire. I’m not quite ready to sink into Red Dead Redemption II, though I definitely want to play it. Hit a tough fight in Robocop that has stopped that play through. Hard West II is still sitting there. The randomness of City of Gangsters put me off. Nordic Warriors is essentially Myth Lords (which I wrote about here), but hasn’t grabbed me.

However, Grim Dawn has, at least temporarily, hit the spot. I did not know that it used the Titan Quest engine. Titan Quest replaced Diablo as my point-and-click of choice. Aside: Titan Quest II is another game that I haven’t managed to get immersed in.

The whole PAC thing doesn’t do for me what it used to. But this is working (I stalled out on The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing a couple years ago. It was neat, but the repetitiveness wore me down).

Grim Dawn has the dual-class approach of Titan Quest, which I like. The graphics are nice. And with new DLC dropping and a recent significant update, it’s still getting supported ten years later. The setting is sort of a dark Victorian fantasy-ish world. I finished Act One, and it’s a neat game. Visually, it’s pretty cool. But I always zoom out to see max range when I play a point-and-click, and I lose some of the visual benefits. I’m tinkering with that.

I foresee a point-and-click Steamed in the future, digging a little deeper into Grim Dawn, Titan Quest II, and Diablo 3.

PRIOR STEAMED/GAME COLUMNS

Steamed: Gaming with Bob (all my videogaming posts in one)
Hardboiled Gaming: LA Noire
Guns or Butter: Total War Warhammer II
Looking Back at RTS: Myth Lords
Fortnite (one of several short looks I’ve done at it)
What I’ve Been Playing: December, 2023 (Hard West, Curse of Feldar Vale, Solasta, Dungeon of Naheulbeuk)
What I’ve Been Playing: October, 2022 (Elder Scrolls Online, Total War: WH II, Conan Exiles, Titan Quest)
Mount and Blade: Part Two
Mount and Blade: Part One

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.