L.A. Noire

A. Noire is an action-adventure game with neo-noir and crime genre elements. Played from a third-person perspective, the game is set in an open-world environment featuring Los Angeles in 1947. The player completes cases to progress through the story, fulfilling objectives in a generally linear order; as they roam the open world, the player can also complete optional street crimes—short, linear scenarios with set objectives—and collect items such as golden film reels, vehicles, novels, and golden records.

The player can also discover multiple landmarks based on real monuments from Los Angeles in the 1940s. For most of the game, the player controls Cole Phelps, a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) patrolman who advances through the police department bureaus (desks) of Traffic, Homicide, Vice, and Arson; in some cases during the final desk, the player controls investigator Jack Kelso. The player has the option to play the game in black and white to imitate film noir.

For most of the game, the player takes on the role of Cole Phelps (Aaron Staton), a decorated United States Marine Corps veteran from the Sixth Marines. The game begins with Phelps as an LAPD patrol officer alongside his partner Ralph Dunn (Rodney Scott), another new recruit. When Phelps is promoted to the Traffic desk, led by Captain Gordon Leary (Ned Vaughn), he is partnered with Stefan Bekowsky (Sean McGowan), a Polish American whom Phelps eventually befriends. Upon his promotion to Homicide, led by Captain James Donnelly (Andrew Connolly), Phelps is partnered with Rusty Galloway (Michael McGrady), a weary and cynical detective who often challenges Phelps's theories and opinions.

In the Vice bureau, led by Lieutenant Archie Colmyer (Steve Rankin), Phelps becomes partners with Roy Earle (Adam J. Harrington), a sardonic and corrupt detective with whom Phelps repeatedly clashes over morality, behaviour, and technique. During his time in Vice, Phelps begins an extramarital affair with Elsa Lichtmann (Erika Heynatz), a German jazz singer. As a detective, Phelps frequently works with coroner Dr.

After the release of The Getaway (2002), writer and director Brendan McNamara left developer Team Soho and moved from London to his native Sydney. In mid-2003, he founded the six-person development studio Team Bondi alongside former Team Soho developers. A. Noire began shortly thereafter, in 2004.

The studio had signed an exclusive deal with Sony Computer Entertainment to develop a game for the PlayStation 3, though the publishing rights were handed to Rockstar Games by September 2006. The development team visited Rockstar's headquarters in New York every few months to exhibit progress. Development was assisted by multiple studios owned by Rockstar Games worldwide. Analyst estimations place the game's combined development and marketing budget at more than US$50 million, which would make it one of the most expensive video games to develop.

L.A. Noire received "generally favorable reviews" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. It was praised for its facial animation, narrative, characters and performances, music, world design, and interrogation gameplay, though responses to the shooting and driving mechanics were mixed. The Guardian's Steve Boxer described it as a "breakthrough for games"; Edge felt most elements are achieved better by other games but "few developers have brought such a diffuse set of genres together so atmospherically, stylishly or cohesively". GameTrailers wrote it "sets a new standard for storytelling in video games", though noted some overall limitations compared to other games.

Reviewers praised the game's facial animation, with several calling it the best in any video game. GameTrailers wrote "it allows a level of emoting that's never been seen in interactive entertainment". Matt Liebl of GameZone felt the interrogation mechanic would have been unrealistic without the use of MotionScan. Joystiq's Justin McElroy considered the technology "nothing short of revolutionary", noting it allowed the player to view "an actor's entire performance"; Edge found it added a "human element" to the interrogations. Some reviewers found the body animations failed to match the faces—sometimes failing to bridge the uncanny valley—but felt the effect added to the realism and subtlety of performances.