LA NOIRE 2011 - PS3- NO RESERVE

Budding policeman Cole Phelps doesn't just enforce the law on the streets of 1940s Los Angeles, he worships it. The returning war hero seems the sort who'd be just as willing to issue a citation to a grandma who dropped a gum wrapper as he would to haul in a serial killer. What soon becomes clear is that Cole (played with a chipper sterility by Mad Men's Aaron Staton) isn't just a goody-two-shoes; he's trying to atone for a sin you'll unravel as his career plays out. Though his by-the-books nature drives a wedge between him and any average cop unlucky enough to be partnered with him, it also means he closes cases, taking him from a simple beat cop to a lead murder investigator and beyond as the game progresses.

A typical case for Cole involves combing multiple scenes looking for scraps of evidence (indicated by a buzz from your controller) and trying to use those seemingly unconnected threads both to tie up the culprit and trip up witnesses holding back on information. The interplay between Cole and suspicious denizens of the city is really at the heart of Rockstar's latest, and the greatest part of what makes it so compelling.

When this works, it's really something, like you're working a kink out of some long-dormant brain muscle.

Thanks to the game's MotionScan technology, every one of the game's characters sports an absolutely jaw-dropping amount of detail, letting an actor's entire performance come through as they speak. The effect is nothing short of revolutionary.

Outside of this specific game, the implications of the facial tech for the industry are hard to oversell. Assuming we see this more widely adopted, game stories will no longer have to rest almost solely on the strength of scripts. As it has always been on the stage and screen, actors will finally be able to lend humanity to the efforts of writers.

Though some of the credit has to go to Team Bondi's script, seeing it combined with the work ofFringe's John Noble, Southland's Michael McGrady and literally half the cast of Mad Men makes for one of, if not the, most compelling video game stories ever.

From Joystiq.com