I was thinking back to when I tried to play LA Noire and realized that in my short time with it, it never at all felt "noir."
Now, I'm not sure how qualified I am to say that, cause I honestly haven't seen L.A. Confidential or Mulholland Drive or anything, but I HAVE played Max Paynes 1 and 2, Yakuzas 1 through 3 and some of 4 (Some of Akiyama's bit, which is actually hella noir,) read Sin City, seen Batman: The Animated Series and Cowboy Bebop, read a lot of Batman Elseworld and a little bit of canon...
So I'll tell you what my idea of "noir" is:
Exaggerated shadows, strikingly colorful sunsets and twilights, imposing cities full of life and full of stories, femme fatales that'll kill you as soon as they fall in love with you, trenchcoats, gravelly men with gravelly pasts seeking revenge for losses and injustices, dark nights with darker plots lurking beneath them, campy one-liners about how shitty things are, sleazy music along the lines of jazz, blues and rock n' roll (if any...)...
I mean, did I have it wrong when I expected at least some of these things out of LA Noire? Granted, I didn't finish the game. Hell, I didn't even make it halfway due to how unrewarding the gameplay was for me. When I realized the art direction was unremarkable at best and boring at worst, I kept trudging through the cases, hoping for some of the tropes I'd built up in my mind to pop up. But then I realized that LA Noire wasn't the "noir" I'd hoped for, so much as a "1940's detective simulator." I really wanted to see those exaggerations in its style, and it's a shame that they didn't extend farther than the title sequence and the main menu.
Was it just a swing and a miss on my part? Did I have the wrong expectations? Do I even have a clue as to what noir is?
Now, I'm not sure how qualified I am to say that, cause I honestly haven't seen L.A. Confidential or Mulholland Drive or anything, but I HAVE played Max Paynes 1 and 2, Yakuzas 1 through 3 and some of 4 (Some of Akiyama's bit, which is actually hella noir,) read Sin City, seen Batman: The Animated Series and Cowboy Bebop, read a lot of Batman Elseworld and a little bit of canon...
So I'll tell you what my idea of "noir" is:
Exaggerated shadows, strikingly colorful sunsets and twilights, imposing cities full of life and full of stories, femme fatales that'll kill you as soon as they fall in love with you, trenchcoats, gravelly men with gravelly pasts seeking revenge for losses and injustices, dark nights with darker plots lurking beneath them, campy one-liners about how shitty things are, sleazy music along the lines of jazz, blues and rock n' roll (if any...)...
I mean, did I have it wrong when I expected at least some of these things out of LA Noire? Granted, I didn't finish the game. Hell, I didn't even make it halfway due to how unrewarding the gameplay was for me. When I realized the art direction was unremarkable at best and boring at worst, I kept trudging through the cases, hoping for some of the tropes I'd built up in my mind to pop up. But then I realized that LA Noire wasn't the "noir" I'd hoped for, so much as a "1940's detective simulator." I really wanted to see those exaggerations in its style, and it's a shame that they didn't extend farther than the title sequence and the main menu.
Was it just a swing and a miss on my part? Did I have the wrong expectations? Do I even have a clue as to what noir is?
