Context of Practice AAA Research: L.A Noire

The next game that I wanted to look at was L.A Noire, quite a different game to others that I am looking at, but for a good reason. L.A Noire is a Rockstar game that came out in 2011. It is an action-adventure, crime video game based around the film noir genre, which is very nice and interesting. You play as Cole Phelps a recently promoted detective that works for the Los Angeles Police Department in 1947 and must help solve a range of cases as he moves across five different departments in his career. The overall base of the story means investigating crime scenes for clues, following up leads from the scene and interrogating suspects that could be involved.

What makes this game really nice is the investigating scenes as you are able to gauge what the character is thinking as you investigate them by there facial movements, any twitches that may happen and also then judge whether they are innocent or not. This investigation stage can then be used to go softly to gain information on those who just know information but then you can hammer home with the potential murderers if they have definitely done it.

What is really nice about this game is also the environments, although it may not be environmental storytelling at its best, the environment is rich with things to do. Like any Rockstar game the environments are huge and extensive but well designed and fit the theme of the rest of the game. The 1940's really do shine through well and look very impressive with the olden day cars chundering down the street. It really oozes class as well, as most things did in the 40s, but there are shops that you can go in and then also bars, making the world really come alive and making it that little bit more special to explore around. Although this may not be like the Indie game Gone Home in terms of the exploration and finding out information, but it does have it in its own unique way of doing this when you start an investigation, as you are able to examine the crime scene in such detail it just makes it come alive.

This game is definitely worth looking at for this module as it offers a different look into the genre of environmental storytelling and can be looked at in a different light. Instead of just giving us an environment and making us look around it to find out the information for ourselves, we are given the freedom of this but at the same time goals and objectives are put into place to ground us slightly more, making the experience fun at the same time. Although the environment doesn't quite match up to the standards of some of the other games I've looked at, despite how gorgeous it is to look at, the story that is used is so superbly written that it doesn't matter. The whole game is done to such a high standard and the story flows so easily, if your good at the game however.