17 June 2011

Random Quasi-Informed Thought

L.A. Noire seems to contain about as much "Noir" as Troll 2 contains trolls.

Additionally, among those who have reviewed the game -- positively and negatively -- I haven't found any great pieces written by fans whose familiarity with Film Noir extends past L.A. Confidential and Chinatown. Not that this is a terrible thing, but it does seem like a wasted opportunity to educate.

Folks, for starters:

Out of the Past
Kiss Me Deadly
Touch Of Evil
Criss Cross
In A Lonely Place
Night and the City
Double Indemnity
The Big Sleep
Murder, My Sweet
The Killers


Back to games, this article is great. Not simply as a review, but as a critical evaluation of the pitfalls and possibilities of storytelling through games.

1 comment:

  1. I think LA Confidential and Chinatown get mentioned so often in LA Noire articles because the game feels like a watered-down mashup of both films, which are already on the fringes of the genre. As you point out, LA Noire's narrative can only suffer further from any comparisons to the films you listed.

    After my own dissatisfying playthrough of the game, I now see the "e" at the end of the game's title as the sign of a cheap knockoff.

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