Few places or periods in history so perfectly encapsulate the fine line between glamour and sleaze than the sweet promise of Los Angeles following World War II. As America motored to be the eminent super power of the world, individuals wanting a piece of the action flocked to the city of angels chasing fame. The combination of wealth and desperation created a world that seemed like a dream factory on the surface but stank of corruption and cruelty just beneath the skin.

As an experience LA Noire captures this turgid world and immerses you in it, but the gameplay elements some times just get in the way.

Mildred, bring me my beer, don't make me cap you in front of my guests

The crime genre has always fascinated me; particularly in the way it so often holds a mirror up to the culture it represents making Italian Gallo stories starkly different but still eerily similar to American dime store detective novels. Plenty of authors have made careers out of this as it applies to Americana, guys like James Ellroy (whose thumb prints are most obvious on LA Noire), Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet. Even though each wrote a generation apart they used tropes and characterisations that were easily recognisable to readers and are just as familiar to players of LA Noire. The game is choc full of femme fatales, smug villains and every shade of corrupt cop from the sleazy vice guy to the burnt out detective against the wall with debt. Crime games generally boil down to ridiculous playgrounds of stunts and exploitation; they're fun but hardly fit into the genre of a crime story. LA Noire on the other hand, is easily the best crime game ever made and does a superb job of capturing this part historical, part fantasy view of Los Angeles; it’s the greatest success of all the titles achievements.

At five minutes to four the bank is always murder

Cole Phelps is your character, a beat cop back from a rough tour in the Pacific. He’s been awarded the Silver Star and returned a modest man who doesn’t like to talk about the war. He takes a job with the LAPD and after a short term as a street cop quickly rises through the various detective desks investigating increasingly malicious and brutal crimes. Flashbacks to Phelps training and deployment hint at links to some of his cases and a larger conspiracy. Phelps is frankly, a bit too upstanding. He never compromises and stays resolutely morale in the face of a police department rife with corruption, greed and political manipulation. Your partners are either crooked as hell, or too world weary to apply themselves as meaningfully to the job as Phelps.

And then this one armed man threw my wife out the window and emptied her trust fund account and went to Aruba and he told me you guys would never catch him... true story

For a video game LA Noire is more like an interactive film than a game. The story is largely a straight and narrow path with several plot twists rendering all your previous work as a waste, which can be frustrating. Your time will be split roughly half between the good stuff, interviewing suspects and searching crime scenes, and the awkward stuff, car chases, shoot outs and chasing suspects as they flee. For game veterans the style of play is almost identical to the old point and clickadventures of yesteryear, Secret of Monkey Island style if point and click isn't familiar. You spend a lot of time exploring and finding items, then trying to deduce which item is appropriate during future challenges, in the case of LA Noire the items are evidence and the challenges are interrogations. One of the key wins for the plot is a mature tone that doesn’t feel embarrassingly exploitative as so many mature titles turn out to be (Duke Nukem). It’s the kind of game you’d recommend to your mystery novel loving grand dad.

First the good stuff. The actual faux police work parts are titillating good fun if you have the mind for it. As you comb crime scenes audible cues and controller vibration indicate you're close to a clue or an object to be investigated. When the eerie piano music fades away you’ve found all the pertinent clues at the scene. Clues go in your notebook to be used for the other part of your police work, interviewing witnesses.

'Man she looks great in this light', 'your a good crime scene photographer Teddy', '...crime scene?'

The interview gameplay is straight forward but gripping stuff. The much talked about facial animations are entirely worth the price of admission, characters squint, bite their lips, twitch, frown and even hold their breath, with spectacular detail. Easily the most enjoyable part of the game is watching characters for their tells to see if they're bluffing or out right lying. One memorable sequence has you interviewing a friendly but sinister real estate mogul played by actor John Noble (Denethor from Lord of the Rings), he has an extremely good poker face and it’s difficult to catch him out. Each question you ask gives you the option to agree with the suspect, get aggressive and doubt them or accuse them of lying, at which point you need to bring up a clue that proves their lie. It should be noted that on occasion the body language doesn’t quite gel with the facial animations due to the actors only having their faces mocapped. Usually it’s not noticeable, but there are a few instances where the body animations look decidedly wooden next to the amazing face animations.

By about halfway through the game you’ll be tired of the last generation controlled action gameplay. Driving is frustrating, the controls feel floaty and the camera pans far too slowly so you often crash into an obstacle when going round a corner, add these controls to a high speed car chase through back alleys and train yards and you have issues. The fighting sections are the games low point where Phelps and his opponent turn into Rock em Sock em Robots; every confrontation can be completed with a dodge, punch, dodge, punch, finisher button press, they’re about as exciting as vanilla yoghurt. Foot chases are a little more fun but the same slow camera problems associated with car chases persist and there’s an odd mechanic where you can target an enemy for a few seconds and then fire in the air to get him to stop, but firing wildly into the air doesn’t get the same result. It’s one of a few disconnects in the game logic.

Simple moments like a debrief over coffee shine as great, memorable scenes; far over the hammy action sequences

The occasional shoot outs are a little more fun, but the reality factor is ratcheted way down. Phelps faithful automatic never runs out of ammo and you can soak up a few bullets and walk away unharmed. I would have preferred the reality of limited ammo and less invisible health. Overall the action scenes have little depth and feel tacked on, like an attempt to sell a few more units to people looking for the next Grand Theft Auto. The game seems to feel the same way as failing an action scene three times gives you the option to skip it completely. You can also opt to have your partner drive every where so you never have to deal with the random crimes that pop up while driving that focus on action.

As with many open world games the world itself is the most important character and the Los Angeles of the forties is beautifully realised down to the tiniest level. It's clear Team Bondi put a lot of time and research into getting the mood and atmosphere just right. The world is just as hypocritical, seedy, racist and sexist as you expect the 1940’s to be, no punches are pulled or nasty elements white washed over for political correctness. The nation is drunk on its success and economic strength following World War II and McCarthyism, Ponzi schemes and Adam Sandler movies are dark clouds far on the horizon. It’s a world both desirable and repulsive with beautiful women walking the side walks and corpses tucked in the bushes.

It's worth the price of the game just to see the MotionScan technology convey ever twitch and grimace

The music and dialogue play a huge part in this; you’ll recognise dozens of film and tv stars giving small but exquisite performances. It’s one of the few games where actors have clearly been brought in and worked hard to get pitch perfect performances and it shows, every inflection of emotion is perfectly captured with the voice and facial capture technology. There really isn’t a bad performance in the game, Aaron Stanton’s protagonist Phelps only coming of the worst because you grow tired of his smug, self righteousness. One small issue with the game graphics and its cinematic style from me would be that the opening scenes for each case often telegraph the killer’s identity in far too much detail, it takes the pleasure out of busting a case when you know the guy you charged isn’t the killer and that the real killer will be unveiled in a following case. There’s all together too much information made available to the player but not to Phelp’s, the game would have played tighter and plot more exciting if you knew only as much as the character.

L.A. Noire is a benchmark in many regards, the MotionScan face capture technology is fantastic and definitely the games well deserved selling point. Likewise the recreation of post war L.A. and the mature and well executed plot are some of the most impressive elements of any game you’ve ever played. It’s also that rare game for non-gamers, my wife gets bored with most games in minutes but L.A. Noire held her attention for days. L.A. Noire does drags its feet on its basic game elements, and frankly I think it would have been a better game without them and the option to turn off action from the start would have been well received. Even with its faults L.A. Noire is a compelling title anyway you cut it and if you’ve been clamouring for a mature crime game that isn’t about dick jokes and car stunts, or even just a game that demands your attention and intelligence to succeed, this is your game.