GTA IV saw strip away much of the chaotic, tumbledown fun of the series to produce a far more straight-laced affair, effectively taking it from b-movie exploitation to Scorsese seriousness in the process. The result was a game that discouraged you from carefree romps around the city, instead plonking a newfound sense of responsibility on your shoulders.

I wasn't so keen on this development. While the narrative, for the first half of the game at least, was compelling, it quickly lost its impetus. This was never a issue with previous games in the series - you could get all the enjoyment you wanted from just pratting around. But in IV, for me, it was a real problem.

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Furthermore, the gameplay mechanics, when stripped down to their constituent parts, were underwhelming. The driving was a chore, the lock-on targeting system was poor, the shooting was unresponsive and the joy of just moving around was lessened by a touch of over-animation and a whole load of clunkiness.

But the world... oh, the world. In Liberty City, Rockstar created the most impressive environment even burnt to disc. It was utterly wonderful, from a technical perspective at least, a feat only matched (and later surpassed) by the games. It was the nearest we'd ever had to a living, breathing environment.

L.A. Noire shares many of GTA IV's qualities, both good and bad. And in some cases it even accentuates them. Overseen and published by Rockstar, Team Bondi's creation has a fantastic sense of place, decent characters, some dizzying technical wizardry and gorgeous, cinematic presentation - but it's a bit dull. As an interactive experience, L.A. Noire is utterly unique. As a game, it fails to excite.

Strip away the frankly stunning facial animation of the core characters, the detailed, open 1940's Los Angeles environment and the waft of cash hanging around L.A. Noire and what you are left with is essentially a AAA console version of Pheonix Wright, but with more guns and cars. It has been identified many times before, but despite its modern trappings L.A. Noire is basically an old-fashioned point and click adventure game, with a few tacked-on elements that don't get it quite right.

L.A. Noire's mish-mash of evidence-hunting, interrogating, driving and shooting could have been a compelling mix, but sadly every single one of these elements is lacking. Mechanically, L.A. Noire is poor.

So let's boil it down. You are Cole Phelps, the psychopathically dour policeman who works himself up through the force and an alarmingly rapid rate, from desk to desk, within a lovingly realised post-war L.A stuffed with intrigue and conspiracy and accidental road traffic incidents.

Phelp's progress up the career ladder is accelerated by a succession of cracked cases, each of which follow the same formula. You drive to a crime scene, have a poke around for clues, question some witnesses, then use all the evidence you've gathered to interrogate the suspects. This is interspersed with the odd shoot-out (which is unmistakably ripped from the code of its forebears), the occasional fist fight (dull, dull, dull) and some on-foot chases (yawn).

Expect to pick up a lot of beer bottles and other useless street detritus. The crime scene element of the game sees you wandering around, waiting for the tell-tale buzz of the controller to indicate if there's something within reach that might be evidence. Pick it up, waggle it around a bit and Phelps will either say, "Yay, evidence!" or "It's just a bottle, innit." Words to that effect anyway.

Which is all fine, but it's almost aggressively slow and painstaking, an exercise in oh-so-dull location-trawling. This isn't helped by the fact that you'll often have to manoeuvre objects around to get them at just the right angle for Phelps to register a marking or some writing, even though you can clearly read it yourself. Frustrating.

Then there's the interrogations. These are the perfect showcase for the new facial animations, where they're not merely an opportunity for technical willy-waving but an actual aid to the gameplay. What you are supposed to do is read a character's facial tics and nervous shuffling to ascertain whether they're lying or not.

After each short statement you have the opportunity to respond, choosing from Truth, Doubt and Lying. Now when clicking Doubt you may expect Phelps to politely enquire if the suspect is actually telling the truth, but it usually results in an explosion of anger. Phelps is highly strung. You get used to it.

The biggest issue with the interrogations comes in the way you can often find yourself in murky grey areas where you know the truth but can't seem to weasel it out of the suspect, even if they are twitching like Harry Redknapp on the receiving end of a 3-0 drubbing by Arsenal. But then perhaps that doesn't even matter, the storyline plods on regardless even if you do screw everything up. Which begs the question - what's the point?

It's certainly not the more action-oriented bits. The is that Rockstar bundled into the offices one day and insisted that the game feature some more uptempo shooty and/or driving bits to keep the kids happy. Which makes a certain amount of sense. It would certainly explain why these aspects feel so underdeveloped. Not broken, not even close. Just slightly clunky.

Instead, L.A. Noire relies on it's atmosphere to pull it through, something it does wonderfully. Impressively, even the open world is not the be all and end all that dominates what the game is, it's a show of immersive force. It combines with the characters and the narrative and the tone of the game to create a memorable experience. These elements alone have been enough for some critics to laud the game as a triumph.

And perhaps they're right. But those elements do mask for a plethora of failings. And beyond that, there's a more intriguing development going on within L.A. Noire's code. L.A. Noire represents the pinnacle of a certain movement in videogames. Largely, the one that worships film above all else. It pretty much nails it in this regard. But it goes too far. In attempting to ape the triumphs of another medium, it overlooks the triumphs of its own. The result is disappointing game, but an impressive interactive experience.

75%

By Lee Bradley