Eurogamer reporter Chris Donlan talks about the experience of playing L.A. Noire with his dad, a retired beat cop who worked the streets of L.A. when and where the game was set:
We drove about for another hour or two after that, and by this point dad was hooked. Not hooked on L.A. Noire’s narrative, perhaps, or caught up in the complex chains of missions, but hooked on the city, on the fascinating, insightful job that Rockstar had done in stitching the past together. Even though I can’t actually drive, and the car we were in wasn’t a real car anyway, I had a strong sense that I was in the front seat, turning the wheel beneath my hands, and he was riding low in the back, face pressed to the glass. Role reversal. It happens to all fathers and sons eventually, I guess. Why shouldn’t it happen because of games?
Really great writing here. As many quibbles as a had with L.A. Noire as a game, its detail in terms of its setting and place is unbelievable.