L.A. Noire and the tenets of great adventure gaming

Graphic adventures are some of the best games ever made. When LucasArts was king, it gave to the masses Monkey Island, Zak McKracken, Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. The company did release a few blemishes in their amazing 1990s run, particularly The Dig, but for their time, no other company delivered as many hits as they did. Compare LucasArts to Valve, and maybe you have something approaching resemblance, but Valve has not released as many games. LucasArts used to be the best.

Sadly, in an ironic fashion, they remained in the past when they attempted to evolve from the "Star Wars and graphic adventures" company. A former president of the company announced that LucasArts would not hold to its roots and continue to move forward! Or, whatever. What he meant to say is that LucasArts will only make Star Wars games from now on. The liar eventually left the company. Shortly after, the graphic adventures were released on Steam to much acclaim and success.

Since the 90s, Europe has picked up the slack when it comes to making adventure games. A few good games have risen to the top of a, sadly, general crap pile, like The Train and The Longest Journey. But it is not the 90s. Even TaleTale with their graphic adventure game factory cannot emulate the past. Maybe if they stopped and focused heavily on just one game, they would have more success, but they do not for many reasons, most of which is that the genre is not that popular and financially lucrative.

What is popular is Grand Theft Auto. So, it is a treat when the publishers of that juggernaut produce through Team Bondi of Australia what amounts to a neo-graphic adventure set in 1940s Los Angeles, City of the Angels. And, because it is a graphic adventure game, you play as a good guy, specifically a detective. Now that I think of it, I personally cannot recall a successful adventure game where the player is evil (Heavy Rain does not count since the parts where you play as the "villain" makes no sense. God, that dumb clock store scene is so stupid. That game had such great moments that is spoiled by such stupidity and arrogance from the director David Cage. Urg). Anyway, you can read details of the game elsewhere. Button layouts for controllers and product reviews are a bore.

Ultimately, L.A. Noire is a disappointment. Imagine what makes those 90s adventure games so successful. First of all, there are no incorrect answers. Sure, Sierra games had false leads and deaths, but I'm talking about good adventure games (take that, Kings Quest and Space Quest!). What is also important to consider is that because there are no wrong answers or dead ends, the game does not constantly inform you that you have made a mistake and done something not intended by the game designers. Lastly, most take you to new locals where you constantly run into new and interesting characters throughout a great story.

These are the tenets of a great graphic adventure. These are story games, and if you tell the player they are messing up the story or provide an illogical story (logic within the game world), then it is a failure as a graphic adventure game.

Due praise should be given to L.A. Noire for its highly detailed facial animation system during the interrogation sequences in the game. However, any such advances in technology are diminished because the first and second tenets of graphic adventures are broken during these sequences. The musical notifications after each question and answer sequence immediately informs the player that they have correctly or incorrectly chosen a wrong answer. Moreover, the notepad with its checks and x's give another reminder of the player's success or failure. Rather, no audible or visual notification should be given during these scenes because there is nothing to be gained by the player other than the desire to turn off the system and restart the sequence in its entire. Nothing is learned when a question is missed because the player is left with many questions on why they failed. Did the player read the visual ticks of the actor wrong? Well, they may act differently with the next question so it does not give the player a fail-proof approach for the next question. Should I have chosen doubt or lie? The distinction between doubt and lie is already thin, and sometimes the necessary clue to prove a lie is either questionable itself or another piece of evidence might seemingly be the correct option. That second problem is also found in the Phoenix Wright series and not specific only to L.A. Noire. For example, a piece of bloody cloth could easily link a person to the crime scene, but the game requires the shoe evidence because the question sets up that and that alone as the correct option.

The third tenet is a bit more subjective since it requires someone to have decent enough taste to discern a good or interesting story, characters, and locations from bad ones (or normal game ones). L.A. Noire lives entirely within the confines of 1940s Los Angeles, so its singular location should not be held against the game. Rather, the characters are wholly derivative of L.A. Confidential, and when the story pushes certain plot devices onto them, they clearly do not match. Consider the love triangle (affair?) in L.A. Confidential. Russell Crowe is in love and sleeping with Kim Basinger when Guy Pearce forces himself (not entirely unwelcomed) on Kim Basinger. It is somewhat of a sudden scene, but Basinger says to him as he forcefully kisses her that "fucking [her] and fucking [Russell Crowe's character] aren't the same thing". Immediately, the audience understands the dynamic being set up and the motivations of Guy Pearce. This never happens in L.A. Noire. Rather, Phelps is thrown rather quickly and clumsily into an affair with a german singer that leads to a demotion, blackmail, and divorce. In fact, the first time the character is explicitly shown to be in the middle of the affair is during an important case. Right after interrogating mobster Mickey Cohen, Phelps becomes angry and annoyed, and tells his partner to pick him up early tomorrow because “he has to go see about something” or whatever. Well, Phelps goes straight to the german singer. Why? To have rough sex with her? To be consoled? No indication is given because prior to this important scene; he’s barely spoken any words to the lady. It is bizarre, and it does not work.

And ultimately this leads to the greatest problem with the game, and games in general, is that everything must compound into a finale. Imagine Law and Order if each season culminated into one giant case and each season led directly to the finale. It would be a disaster. Sure, The Wire was able to achieve this, but that is because it was conceived from the beginning to do this. Law and Order could never do this because it did not start off with that goal. Same for the Sopranos. Same for Lost, which is a crappy show that people liked and retconned their affinity for it after the finale left them with all of those questions (people watched for answers to the shows questions, not the poorly developed characters. Anyone who tells you they watched for the characters is a liar and is only justifying their wasted years watching that garbage). In a previous blog post, I suggested that developers should model their games in the episodic format. Alan Wake and L.A. Noire do this. However, Alan Wake was bogged down by stupidity and an overly complicated story (hi again, Lost), and did not really see the thing through to the end. L.A. Noire could have just been episodic, endless, and a cash cow for DLC for the developers. Each case should be its own story. Maybe have 2 or 3 case arches to push a "grander" story forward, but the entire game does not need to have an overarching plot.

The game should not have the stupid war stuff either. It should not try to be L.A. Confidential. It should not ape the conflict in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It should have been just 10 or 15 episodes in the life of one particular cop. And it should just end. No grand finale. But, if an ending is needed, have the final case by multipart with the cop getting shot. Maybe he dies or lives, it does not matter, but it ends.

The endgame of Red Dead Redemption will be a case study for years to come that flawlessly resolves a larger story in a satisfying manner that is entirely consistent with the entire game.

Sam and Max are tone deaf

Graphic adventure games live and die on the written word. That’s it. The games can be ugly. They can be janky. They can feature some of the more annoying controls in gaming (GRIM FANDANGO!!!) but as long as they are written wonderfully and have excellent stories, they can get by with a whole heck of a lot.

During my break from updating this website, I went and played some adventure games. Specifically, I played for the first time Sam and Max Seasons 2 and 3, The Dig, and I went and replayed Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Here are some micro-reviews along with what I learned about the genre overall.

Let’s begin with the goods. Monkey Island 2 is an undisputed masterpiece (at least, undisputed by non-idiots). It’s funny, charming, and features clever puzzles without the need of any frustration. Now that Dom Armato has gone and recorded voice for the new special editions, much of the jokes come alive due to the talkie aspect of these re-imaginations. I still maintain that the correct order of Monkey Island games remains 3>2>1>Tales>$, but the fact is that the gap between 3 and 2 is much shorter now that we have vocalized acting on all the characters (even though I don’t think Wally is voiced correctly, but whatever).

Sam and Max Season 2 is also great. The first season was clunky as hell to control, the puzzles simple and lame, and the written dialogue and story forgettable at best, obnoxious at worst. Season 2 is a wonderful refinement, fixing the graphic/control/setting issues and increasing the pace of the story, the jokes, and the characters. Sequels should only exist if they improve, not continue, a story. Sam and Max Season 2 probably inches past the original 1993 classic Sam and Max Hit the Road for the best entry in the series.

Lastly, I wrote earlier in another blog entry about Fate of Atlantis, so I won’t go much more into it except to say that I understand, replaying it, that the issues people have with the voice dialogue are more valid than I previously gave credence to; yes, some of the voice actors are plain bad, and the sound quality fluctuates greatly at time.

Now, let us examine the bad (or, rather the “not as good”). The Dig was envisioned by Steven Spielberg as a game because the movie budget would be too great. They got homophobe asshole Orson Scott Card (his books aren’t that good, people) to write much of the dialogue, and veteran Loom designer Brian Moriarty to head production. Well, things aren’t that simple, and after many tonal changes, along with complete rewritings and the eventual departure of Moriarty, the game was released in a bastardized form. Perhaps this is the problem with the game. As a LucasArts graphical adventure, it just isn’t that good. The main issue is the tone. The game takes itself too seriously (which happens to be my major trepidation regarding the new Tron movie and The Expendables). If the game wants to be serious, that’s fine, but it damn well better have a good story, good dialogue, and a good scenario. None of these things exist in the finished product. A major character dies (and gets resurected), and I don’t care about either situations because the writing is flat, emotionally bankrupt, and dead (deader than the character). I guess there is a reason I never played this LA game, and why I probably never will again. To think, this came out after the great, but short, Full Throttle.

Then, there’s Sam and Max Season 3. I guess I should write that I haven’t finished the 5th part because it hasn’t been released yet, but my faults with the season lay outside of this minor technicality. To begin, the tone is all over the map. Graphic Adventure games don’t need to be only funny or only serious. However, when you mix the two poorly, it’s a travesty. This is the problem with the last 2 chapters of the Tales of Monkey Island game. You cannot simply go “LOOK AT ME, I AM SERIOUS! THIS IS SERIOUS AND IMPORTANT!” and shoehorn in a serious plot development. Killing Morgan LeFlay was dumb, not just for a story plot device, but because it tried unsuccessfully to manipulate the player into feeling sad and caring for an already beloved character. Well, the idiots behind that decision decided to do the same in Season 3 of Sam and Max. This time, they kill Max (briefly) in Episode 3. Filled with anger, Sam goes on a rampage smacking and beating characters. While it is sort of sweet that you see the extent of how Sam loved his partner Max, that relationship was already established, and underlining it and highlighting with with the brightest magic marker available by killing off Max doesn’t make it any better, and in fact makes it worse. It’s clumsy, and amateur. Whoever keeps doing these things should stop, watch a movie where no one dies, and realize that it’s okay to establish emotional connections with characters through good writing and not death or troubled situations. Even the joke of having Sam recite “Noir” dialogue (an actual choice in the game) is ruined because he’s suddenly punching and slapping people, which is out of his character. It’s a mess.

It’s a sticky situation. LA created a world where Adventure Games were full of whimsy and comedy. Then, they tried to undue this with The Dig and, to a lesser extent, Full Throttle. We, as a creative society, think that “serious” material is better and more deserving of praise than anything which we deem “light”. Heavy Rain isn’t a good story just because it is serious. The Dig isn’t better than Monkey Island because it is serious, created by a brilliant filmmaker, and written by an author. Tales of Monkey Island, and Season 3 of Sam and Max, get drugged down because they are striving to be taken seriously. Well, stop striving for that.

Plus, the forced “episodic” nature of Season 3 and Tales of Monkey Island are annoying, but I’ll write about that more in detail later.

Tales of Monkey Island, briefly

It's over. The last installment of Guybrush and company is over.

Chapter 1 was a breath of fresh air. After being in a Monkey Island drought since MI3 (MI4 was like drinking sand), the first episode, though not the greatest, was serviceable. It had some funny lines, satisfying moments, and new characters that were palatable. It was an above average hit that made the series get started on the right foot.

Looking back, I was probably a little harsh on Chapter 2. The repeating models were annoying, and the lack of environments was a drag. The merfolk turned out to be kind of funny in retrospect, especially after it turns out that the bland Wally replacement named Winslow is in a romantic relationship with one of them. LeChuck was fun, but underused since he was only in that 1 section on top of the cliffside.

Chapter 3 is still the best chapter in my opinion. Murray is a great character, and it was good having him be back with the original voice actor. All of the three new characters were fun as well, and the character models were different! The jokes were fun, the tone of the episode lighthearted and in congruous with the entire Monkey Island series, and it was a satisfying middle chapter in the arch of Tales of Monkey Island.

With that in mind, Chapter 4 couldn't be anything but a letdown, which it was. Stan was awful. The voice actor was not the appropriate choice considering that all of Stan's lines were spoken so slowly and without the gameshow/salesman inflections. With the fantastic return of Murray, Stan's return is just aggrivating. Moreover, the death of Morgan LeFlay was in poor taste and not appropriate for a Monkey Island game. This type of drama is not intended for the series. It was a mistake on the part of the writers. On the positive, the puzzles in this chapter were probably the best and most fun to solve.

And, lastly, we come to Chapter 5. Having to wrap up a story that has taken months to tell is a difficult task, and the chapter did its best. I don't want to spoil it too much since people are still playing or waiting for the disc release, but of course everything is returned to normal - sort of. Elaine and Guybrush are back together, but Morgan is still.... And that's probably the most frustrating thing with this series. The story is a mess. People play and enjoy the Monkey Island series for its puzzles and jokes, not for plot twists and cliffhangers.

If you make a good game, people will play the next one. It is that simple. However, Telltale thought they needed to make things convoluted and drawn out. Guybursh and Morgan didn't need to die in Chapter 4. The "final" ending of Chapter 5 doesn't need to set up the sequel. This is poor writing because it is not in tune with what Monkey Island is. Sure, people can note that MI2 had a strange, ambiguous ending, but it wasn't setting up for a sequel. Even if MI3 turned out what the originals wanted it to be, it wasn't ever going to be a direct sequel to MI2. Telltale made their ending short and brief to wrap up things hamfistedly with Guybrush and Elaine, but then it makes another turn to set up Sam and Max 2010 and another Tales of Monkey Island game.

Still, it's nice hearing Guybrush speak again. I just hope the storytelling isn't as cheap next time.

The great adventure

I have never played a Sierra adventure game. Tis true, I must admit. For whatever reason, I never even heard about them until I was much older and the company stopped making them. If I remember correctly, my gateway into adventure gaming was a demo disc that came in some Lucasarts game I bought, probably Tie Fighter, Rebel Assault 2, or Dark Forces. Regardless, it was the demo of Full Throttle that made me a believer in the genre of adventure games. Too bad it took a decade for me to finally play Full Throttle, but in the interim, I played Day of the Tentacle, the Monkey Island series (1 to 3), Sam and Max, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

Actually, Fate of Atlantis was the first adventure game I played. I bought it from a Scholastics Books catalogue for fairly cheap. I was so impressed at the time, and later moreso with the talkie version. On a recent Squadron of Shame podcast, they lamented the voices and harkened back to the silent version, but with most gamers, and especially the folks on the podcast, there is a desire to hold in reverence the old while damning the new. Yes, some of the german accents aren't good, but this was before Metal Gear Solid when voice acting in games wasn't very good and rare. Indy's voice was great, Sophia's was too, and since you were with them the entire game, that's all that mattered.

The game features one of the best introductions to a game ever, and doesn't let up in steam. From New York, Indy will travel to Central America, Iceland, the Azores, Cairo, Greece, and Atlantis. The puzzles aren't too obtuse, save for any involvement of the Atlantian stones; the Atlantian stones are a set of three circular stones that must be arranged properly at the outpost of Atlantis and various places inside Atlantis. The story is probably the second best in the Indiana Jones franchise (yes, including the movies). Also, a rarity in Lucasarts games: you can die in the game. As evident from the above screenshot, the pixel graphics are detailed and set in reality, but, from the temples in Central America (which I have seen in person since last playing the game, and they are fantastic) to the design of Atalntis, the artwork is inventive and appropriate.

I struggled with the fighting controls as a child for whatever reason, so I initially chose the teamwork path. About a third into the game, you are read your fortune by Sohpia, the psychic that accompanies Indy on the adventure, and you are given the opprotunity to either take a path featuring more combat, more puzzles, or a balance. While the other two options provided some differences in the game, the differences weren't that great, and more importantly, the game strongly encourages a canonical playing in the team path. At the end, several endings provide the opportunity for strange twists, such as Indy or Sophia becoming an Atlantian god or Indy failing to save Sophia earlier in the game, resulting in her death. It's important to note that the game, like with the great Indy movies, has its story positioned in reality. Plato did write about Atlantis, and in fact got me to read Plato at a young age. I was probably one of the few 6th graders who voluntarily read The Republic, Timaeus, and Critias!

The game is recently released on Steam. It deserves an update like Secret of Monkey Island, and remains as one of the top 5 LucasArts adventure games made.

That's not the Guybrush you're looking for...

I knew it was going to happen. After the delicious Episode 3, the next chapter just couldn't hold up. And, it didn't.

After arriving on Flotsam Island, a nicely named island that is very boring, Guybrush is immediately arrested for various crimes. It's all very fun, and calling yourself as a witness while acting as your own lawyer is great. However, while Stan is in the chapter, it isn't Stan. Sure, he looks great, with the coat being perfectly recreated in 3D, but the voice is garbage. Stan talks way too slow, and his inflections aren't manic enough. I guess the voice actor is a staple of TellTale and was used previously in the Sam and Max games, but considering the voice is so underwhelming and bland, I don't remember who he played. This was a huge disappointment, especially since they got Murray for Episode Three and a certain big name for the end of this chapter. But, despite this being a huge letdown, it wasn't the biggest disappointment.

That dubious distinction goes to the handling of the Threepwood-Marley-LeFlay love triangle. Elaine is on the verge of insanity thanks to the Pox of LeChuck, and Morgan is justifiably morose for her betrayal of Guybrush. But, rather than explore this in greater depth, Morgan is killed off by some unknown assailant offscreen. Now, the circumstances of her death are purposefully murky, with the supposed killer not quite denying it, and the body of Morgan disappearing. However, it is still treated as a serious moment. A serious moment in a Monkey Island game. No. No. No. No. No. No.

As soon as this cutscene occurs, Guybrush is back to cracking jokes. His biggest fan just died in front of his very eyes, and he's making jokes about the doors in the room. That's jarring and wrong. You can't have a serious moment in the midst of an irreverent comedy, or at least without seriously altering the mood. Brutal Legend, for recent thought, has some great tragic elements in the midst of a comedy adventure, but Eddie Riggs isn't making jokes immediately after the sorrow. The death of Morgan, which shouldn't have been done, especially since it is a red herring and while be fully explained in the next episode, is a waste and a black mark on the series.

But the drama continues, as LaSinge is killed along with... Guybrush. Yes, Guybrush dies. Not fake dies. Not dies in a funny way. No "goodbye cruel adventure game!" He really dies. LeChuck stabs him, and he breaths his last breath while in the arms of Elaine. No No No No No No No.

The chapter, The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood, certainly keeps to its name. The puzzles are a trial to finish due to their confusing and obtuse nature, and the series is prematurely executed with the clumsily handled drama. Chapter Three made me want to play the next chapter right away to see what is next. This chapter makes me want to play the next one just to get it over with.

Sure, the handling of Big Whoop in Curse of Monkey Island wasn't that great, and the "Toothrot is Elaine's father" nonsense in Escape From Monkey Island was garbage, but this was worse. The story handling in this chapter is the lowest the series has ever been. It'll take all of the Voodoo Lady's magic to save this.

Oh, and did I mention that the Voodoo Lady is now supposed to be a bad guy? Seriously, what the fuck?