The city of Angels
User Rating: 9 | L.A. Noire PS3
L.A. Noire is a very ambitious game. It uses the new concept technology of capturing people's expression and faces in a whole new, and very detailed level. The graphic levels of this game alone is astonishing, and makes it stand out from the group of games available. The game is not linear or exact game play to Rock Star's previous smash hit titles like the Red Dead series, Grand Theft Auto series, the Max Payne games or it's infamous game (at its time) Man Hunt 1&2. As you start to play, you play as Officer Phelps, and you'll find yourself as a Patrol man. As the game begins you start to realize your protagonist is as ambitious as anyone can get and he's in pursuit of a promotion. He realizes in order to move up the Ladder, you must have initiative. Your first few cases introduce you to the game and how its played. You interact with items you believe might be connected to the crime scene, interrogate witnesses and leads, and gain levels/ experience that grant tuition points to help remove the wrong answers and evidence when interrogating individuals, as well as helping you find evidence if you're stumped. All evidence is actually important in this game, and in some cases if you find the right evidence it might lead to ground breaking interrogations and leads which solve and close the case. When you finally hit the Traffic desk, that's when you really start playing as a detective. Although some of the cases you work on might seem very repetitive or linear, it is because there's a bigger plot to the case that connects all the previous cases.The game consists of being a Detective that follows the rules of investigation by the text. You really can't play "bad cop" but there are at times where you can put the blame on someone you think is the culprit because the case has 2 (or more) people connected to the crime and because of their background history you might find one man more responsible for the crime than the other. Although freedom is restricted to a certain extent, not being able to pull your gun out when you want or go out on a rampage on free roam, the game still sticks to its main concept and goal. L.A. Noire targets the more mature & patient audience and has a great story to tell. There's also a back drop story in the newspapers in the game that you eventually get involved in during your time as a Vice Detective. You'll find these newspapers while investigating certain crime scenes. It has similar cases as the infamous Black Dahlia and corruption stories of former police chiefs and politicians of it's set time. LA Noire is set apart from its predecessors sister games in many ways, and many of us are used to Rock Star's previous setting in games & game play. The game itself is a whole new category of classification that makes it seem like an interactive movie, but as an action adventure rather than a action sequence game like Indigo Prophecy (also known as Fahrenheit) and Heavy Rain.
---The Verdict----
Game Play&Controls- 9
Game's Story Line- 10
Game's Replay value- 8
Graphics & Animations-- 9
Game's Concept - 9
(Added comment) I forgot to mention that you can also make the game play harder if you turn off the investigation music sequence and control vibration when you walk near a piece of evidence, and you can also make the game black and white to make some evidence stick out even less. 
