LA Noire

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LA Noire
La noire logo.png
Studio Team Bondi
Rockstar Games
Publisher Rockstar Games
Senior Developer Brendan McNamara
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 PS3 / Xbox 360: May 17, 2011 May 20, 2011 PC: November 8, 2011 November 11, 2011 PS4 / Xbox One / Switch: November 14, 2017
United StatesUnited States
EuropeEurope

United StatesUnited States
EuropeEurope

United StatesUnited StatesEuropeEurope
platform PlayStation 3 , PlayStation 4 , Xbox 360 , Xbox One , Nintendo Switch , Microsoft Windows
genre Open world , third-person shooter , action-adventure
Subject Los Angeles 1947, film noir
Game mode Single player
control Gamepad , keyboard, mouse
medium Blu-ray Disc , DVD-DL , download
language English (audio)
German, French, Italian, Russian (subtitles)
Age rating
USK approved from 16
PEGI from 18

LA Noire is a computer game developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games . Originally announced as an exclusive for the PlayStation 3 , the game was also released for Xbox 360 and PC. LA Noire was released in the US and Europe on May 17 and 20, 2011, respectively, and the PC version was released on November 11, 2011. The game has sold approximately five million times. On November 14, 2017, adapted versions for PlayStation 4 , Xbox One and Nintendo Switch will be released . A special PC version was also announced.

The main location of the game is the eponymous city of Los Angeles in 1947. The player is given the task of investigating and solving a series of murder cases. As the title suggests, the game thrives on themes and the aesthetic elements of film noir - a film genre of the 1940s and 1950s characterized by crime, gloomy image design and alienated, bitter characters. LA Noire uses colors as an homage to the visual style of film noir, but can optionally also be played in black and white . The locations of the post-war period form the background for plot elements such as corruption and drugs, which are related to crime films of the 1940s. It is worth mentioning the use of real-time lighting technology from Lightsprint as well as the motion scan technology from Depth Analysis, in which the facial expressions of actors were recorded with 32 video cameras and digitized in order to enable realistic facial expressions from every angle in the game. The data volume that was required for this was 300 terabytes at LA Noire .

action

LA Noire takes the player to Los Angeles in 1947, a city full of glamor, wealth and prosperity, but where crime and corruption are also the order of the day. The player takes on the role of Cole Phelps, a police officer who lived through his career with the Los Angeles Police Department .

Not only is Cole Phelps 'actual career shown, but the player is also presented with episodes from Phelps' past that he experienced in Japan during World War II . Bit by bit, the player learns a dark secret Phelps, which still plagues him today and influences the way he acts. During his time as a lieutenant in the Pacific War , on one occasion he ordered a large cave to be fumigated, where he suspected many enemy soldiers were. The majority of his squad is held up in the hail of bullets, but one man gets through. He has a flamethrower and is setting the whole cave on fire. Only then does it emerge that Phelps had ordered the destruction of a hospital. Standing in the still-burning cave, he is surrounded by severely burned, but partly still living Japanese wounded men, women and children. Because he cannot bear their screams of pain, he orders that all surviving Japanese should be "freed from their suffering" and that the cave should then be blown up. After all the Japanese have been killed by his squad, he is deliberately shot himself by a soldier from his squad, Courtney Sheldon. Before the massacre, Phelps had asked Phelps to get his hands dirty. Phelps says nothing about this and is carried out of the cave by other soldiers after his sergeant - Jack Kelso - orders it. This still swears the people to secrecy, so that no one ever learns about the war crime. Cynically, after the war, Phelps received the Silver Star , one of the highest war awards in the United States. In the course of the plot, however, he repeatedly emphasizes, since he is referred to as a war hero by the unsuspecting, that he is not a hero.

Due to above-average successes during his work as a patrol officer with his colleague Ralph Dunn, Phelps quickly rises to the traffic department; further successes with his partner Stefan Bekowsky lead him to the burglary department. However, this department cannot be played in the game. You jump straight to the homicide department for six months, where you take over the post of retired Floyd Rose. There Phelps Finnbar gets "Rusty" Galloway as a partner. He's an "old dog" who, if there is a lack of evidence, also likes to convince the accused firmly that a confession would be the better choice. The aim of the homicide squad is to catch the serial killer " black dahlia " (in the game "BD", also called " black dahlia "). While his colleagues assume lone perpetrators and imitators, Phelps smells - rightly, as it turns out - that the serial killer believed dead is active again. In the course of his work there, Phelps realizes how much LA is ruled by corrupt and criminal moneymakers, some of whom are honorable persons and / or hold high offices. After the serial murder case is resolved, Phelps does not get the recognition he had hoped for; rather, it is massively slowed down because - as his supervisor explains to him - the serial killer is related to an important personality “very high up”. The "Black Dahlia" case remained officially unsolved.

The closer he gets to his opponents, the more stones Phelps will get in his career. The descent begins with the transfer to the civil affairs department right after the serial killer is done. This is seen as less prestigious than the homicide squad. An obviously corrupt police officer, Roy Earle, who becomes Phelps partner, reveals to him that he personally arranged for his transfer. In the moral department, Phelps must first deal with deaths caused by the abuse of morphine from army stocks. As the investigation turns out, the morphine came from a robbery: a ship with army stocks from Japan was robbed in the port, and the morphine captured there now appears on a street in LA. After an apparent main distributor has been dealt with, morphine still appears on. It turns out that the survivors of Phelps' squad in World War II - including Courtney Sheldon - could be responsible for the attack on the ship. They were brought back to the USA from Japan on the same ship as the morphine that is now appearing on the road. Many soldiers who were from Phelps' unit and returned on this ship were also recently ambushed and shot.

The player also learns that a well-known psychiatrist, Dr. Harlan Fontaine who helped Courtney Sheldon get rid of the remaining drugs and launder the money that was generated. It is to flow into a housing fund that builds houses for returning soldiers to guarantee them a certain level of prosperity. Sheldon's concerns are allayed by the psychologically experienced doctor; the drugs are not to be sold on the street, but rather to be used for medical purposes through him. Helping returning soldiers was one of Sheldon's motives when he committed the robbery, so that Sheldon consented to the deal.

After Phelps has managed to get closer and closer to the main enemies in this department, they resort to tougher means and attack him and his family with violence and intrigue. Phelps begins an affair with the German-born jazz singer Elsa. Phelps' duplicitous partner (still Roy Earle) reveals this to his manager. As a result, Phelps becomes the subject of a preliminary investigation aimed at the end of his career. Until this process is over, however, he is deported to the arson department as a partner of the experienced Herschel Biggs, where he meets the most unmotivated police officers in the entire game.

With this, however, the enemies have played into the hands of Phelps' investigation, since it turns out that carrying out their sinister plans requires a lot of arson. After Phelps investigates the increasing number of cases of burned down houses, it becomes gradually clear that the burned down houses were all in the way of housing projects for the largest real estate company in the area (Elysian Fields). This is currently dealing on a large scale with house building projects for returning soldiers. It is particularly noticeable that all the owners of the burned down houses had recently won a flight for the weekend on which the house burned down. Unfortunately, there are cases in which the residents of the house have not started the trip for various reasons. They then had to pay for this with their lives. Investigations in the company register and the land registry lead to the realization that practically all high-ranking personalities in the city have shares in the real estate company and are involved in the matter. The houses that are being built for the soldiers on the land are by no means habitable. After a friend of Elsa died while working on such a house (a roof beam broke, it fell and the whole house collapsed), Jack Kelso, who was Phelps' sergeant in Japan, investigates the matter (the player slips at this point in its role). He became an insurance detective after the war and checks claims. Interestingly enough, Phelps, since he was no longer allowed to investigate himself, asked Elsa to entrust Kelso with this matter. Phelps could not do this himself, since the relationship between him and Kelso was considered tense after the events of the war and therefore a refusal by Kelso was very likely. Later, at Elsa's request, Phelps confesses his plan to Kelso. Nevertheless, Kelso continues to investigate.

He notes that the wood used to build the houses came from a long-closed film company. It was only intended for building sets, but not for building houses, which is clearly noted on them. When examining a house that was still under construction, Kelso noticed that no electrical cables or water pipes were installed in the whole house, only switches, sockets and water installation dummies. It is therefore clear that all houses are only built to burn down. After learning about Kelso's investigation, the president of the insurance company does everything he can to stop Kelso's investigation.

Kelso suspects that the built-up plots will increase the price of the plots tenfold in order to commit insurance fraud of astonishing proportions. He tells this to Courtney Sheldon, who robbed the ship and helped finance the building fund with the drug sales. He is outraged, wants to confront the psychiatrist, but is murdered by him - after he realizes that Sheldon can no longer be reassured. When Phelps' dubious colleague from the customs department arrives at the location of the murdered Sheldon, Phelps, who is also present, threatens him with his weapon and threatens him not to touch the body. In addition, Phelps alludes to Earle's corruption.

After Sheldon's murder, Kelso drives to the mansion of the manager of Elysian Fields, Leland Monroe, and with the help of other former soldiers, shoots all his bodyguards and shoots him in the leg. The search of the building leads to evidence that every important person in the city, including the Chief of Police, is on Monroe's payroll. Meanwhile, Elsa has gone to the psychiatrist who realizes that she already knows too much because Phelps told her. Unfortunately, she does not yet know enough to assess Fontaine's role. He then tries to kill her with a crystal ball. After he has executed a blow, however, he is grabbed and killed by his own arsonist, a mentally unstable patient ("Neck broken like a chicken" was the undertaker's diagnosis later). The unconscious Elsa is kidnapped by him.

His former partners Rusty Galloway and Stefan Bekowsky, who were actually responsible for this case, have Phelps examine the psychiatrist's premises. He finds out that it wasn't even about the insurance fraud, but only about the acquisition of the land. These are all on the route of an already planned motorway - the state would now have to pay a considerable sum for the acquisition of the land.

Now a hunt begins:

Kelso finds out the identity of the arsonist and drives to his residence. Then he finds out that the arsonist is hiding Elsa in the LA sewer system. He informs the applicant for the office of the district attorney because he hopes that this clears up the corruption. Thereupon Kelso and Phelps rush towards the sewer system, although they are followed by the police. Phelps and Kelso are expecting gangsters in the tunnel system. After all obstacles have been overcome, Elsa, Phelps, Kelso and the arsonist, who in reality Dr. Fontaine rescued, together again. The arsonist is soldier Ira Hogeboom, who Phelps ordered to fumigate the cave hospital. He desperately asks Kelso to free him. After Elsa and Phelps have left, you can hear the shot with which Kelso shoots the soldier Hogeboom.

Elsa, Phelps and Kelso now flee through the sewer system, which is filling with water. With Herschel's help, Phelps first brings Elsa and then Kelso to safety. He can no longer save himself to the surface and only say "Goodbye", then he will be caught and carried away by the tidal wave thundering through the sewer system.

Cynically, Roy Earle, Phelps' corrupt ex-partner in the civil affairs department, is currently holding the obituary for Phelps. Elsa, who is also present, cannot take it and leaves the church where Phelps is laid out. She also blames Kelso. In a short conversation between Kelso and Herschel it becomes clear that Kelso was never a friend of Phelps, but never his enemy either.

In the background sit all the corrupt dignitaries of the city and the police who are still alive. The new public prosecutor, in whom Kelso has put his hope, shakes hands with the other corrupt, and it becomes clear: everything is as always, only Phelps is dead.

Game principle and technology

Essential game elements are the search for clues at crime scenes as well as the questioning of witnesses and suspects. For the latter, the so-called motionscan technology was developed, with which the facial expressions of actors are transferred to the digital characters in the game. So it is possible for the player to judge on the basis of the facial features of his counterpart whether he is lying or telling the truth. In order to convict potential gangsters of the lie, however, tangible evidence such as objects from the crime scene or witness statements must be used. Those who are correct in the interrogation rise in the ranking system and receive hidden vehicles, different outfits or intuition points, which are helpful for further interviews. Otherwise, ridicule and scorn or a lecture from the chief of police await the player.

Production notes

Team Bondi controversy

The Australian development team Team Bondi was already under heavy criticism before the game was released. Employees complained that they were under heavy pressure and poor working conditions to complete LA Noire. In addition, employees who left the studio before the release were removed from the credits. In particular, company boss Brendan McNamara was the target of this criticism; he then published a reply. In August 2011, Team Bondi filed for bankruptcy. Before that, even Rockstar Games distanced itself from the studio. Total debt is estimated at A $ 1.4 million, with many former employees on the list of creditors.

occupation

DLC

The following are available as downloadable content :

  • The Consul's Car
  • False papers (A Slip of the Tongue)
  • Reefer Madness
  • The naked city
  • Nicholson Electroplating

reception

The first test reports were very positive. So awarded IGN Entertainment 8.5 out of 10 and Gametrailers 9.1 / 10 min. At Metacritic , the PS3 version achieved a Metascore of 89%, the version for Xbox 360 90%. The newly released version of LA Noire for Nintendo Switch scored 79%, while the PS4 version scored 76%.

Magazines especially praised the cinematic atmosphere, the facial animations and the voice output. However, spongy textures, logic errors and weaknesses in the controls were criticized. The GamePro awarded a rating of 85 points. The website Videogameszone.de rated the title with 86%. Eurogamer.de awarded 9 out of 10 possible points.

Spiegel Online described the game as “an almost old-fashioned-looking adventure game , in which the aim is to solve puzzles, collect evidence and thus solve criminal cases” . Other game elements such as shootouts and car chases seemed “out of place” and were “concessions” to the players who expected from Rockstar games like GTA .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ LA Noire Information . Rockstar Games . Retrieved February 22, 2011.
  2. ↑ LA Noire No Longer PS3 Exclusive, Hitting Xbox 360 . Shacknews. February 5, 2010. Retrieved February 6, 2010.
  3. ↑ a b Ted Thorsen: LA Noire due in Sept. for PS3, 360 - Report . GameSpot . February 13, 2010. Retrieved February 17, 2010.
  4. ↑ LA Noire delivered almost 5 million times . eurogamer.de. February 3, 2012. Retrieved February 3, 2010.
  5. ↑ soprao: LA Noire is coming to the PlayStation 4 . Article from ps4info.de , September 7, 2017, accessed September 7, 2017
  6. ^ "Thrillingly Lifelike" - Latest Press Previews for LA Noire from Around the World . Rockstar Games. December 2, 2010. Retrieved January 24, 2011.
  7. ↑ Why Rockstar's “LA Noire” Won't Be Another “GTA” or “Red Dead” - Techland - TIME.com . Techland. November 24, 2010. Retrieved January 24, 2011.
  8. ^ LA Noire Debuts New Animation Capture Solution From Depth Analysis . Gamasutra . Retrieved February 23, 2011.
  9. ↑ Carsten Görig: Crime game "LA Noire": "I would like to tell a love story". Spiegel Online , May 24, 2011, accessed May 24, 2011 .
  10. ↑ http://www.videogameszone.de/LA-Noire-PS3-147643/Tipps/LA-Noire-Komplettloesung-Alle-Faelle-Filmrolle-Autos-Cheats-Tricks-Tipps-825182/
  11. ↑ LA Noire - The Test: Phelps. Service number 1247. . Gameswelt.de. May 16, 2011. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
  12. ↑ http://www.areagames.de/artikel/detail/LA-Noire-Arbeitsumstaende-fragwuerdig-hunderte-Namen-fehlen-in-den-Credits/114265
  13. ↑ Eurogamer.net: Brendan McNamara: "I'd rather people just ring me up and tell me to f *** off". Retrieved April 7, 2017 .
  14. ↑ http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/la-noire/news/team_bondi,45399,2560606.html
  15. ↑ http://www.onlinewelten.com/games/la-noire/news/rockstar-beendet-zollerarbeit-team-bondi-105001
  16. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated November 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gamesindustry.biz
  17. ^ LA Noire Review - PlayStation 3 Review at IGN . Uk.ps3.ign.com. April 29, 2011. Archived from the original on May 30, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 17, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / uk.ps3.ign.com
  18. ↑ LA Noire Review . Gametrailers.com. May 16, 2011. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
  19. ↑ LA Noire Playstation 3 . Metacritic.com. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
  20. ↑ LA Noire XBox 360 . Metacritic.com. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
  21. ↑ LA Noire Switch. Retrieved May 28, 2018 .
  22. ↑ LA Noire Playstation 4. Retrieved May 28, 2018 .
  23. ↑ http://www.gamepro.de/test/spiele/ps3/action-adventure/la_noire_test/1969953/la_noire_test_p6.html
  24. ↑ http://www.videogameszone.de/LA-Noire-PS3-147643/Tests/LA-Noire-im-Test-Kein-neues-Meisterwerk-von-Rockstar-aber-ein-sehr-sehr-gutes-Spiel -825019 / 2 /
  25. ↑ http://www.eurogamer.de/articles/2011-05-16-la-noire-test?page=3
  26. ↑ Spiegel Online: Angespielt LA Noire