Rockstar first released LA Noire in May of 2011 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and has seen a recent re-release on the Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game are sitting at a solid 89% on Metacritic, which shouldn't be much of a surprise as Rockstar games typically always fall somewhere on the spectrum of "really good" to "great." As the title not-so-subtly hints, LA Noire distills basically every film noire trope into a video game where you'll be driving around Los Angeles solving crimes as a larger overarching plot line reveals itself as the crimes turn out to be related.

LA Noire was a technical feat when it was first released, and unlike many older games that lean heavily on a specific technical showpiece, the game has aged surprisingly well. Basically, by 2011 motion capture technology in both video games and movies was getting pretty good. Sports games of the time, in particular, were really starting to look far more lifelike as developers continued capturing more and more movement data points. LA Noire was the debut title of a technology called MotionScan: The characters in game are played by real actors, and the facial animation seen in game is a composite of 32 individual camera feeds capturing even the smallest facial movements. Quick sideways glances, small facial ticks, and other unbelievably subtle movements are all captured with shocking amounts of clarity. Rockstar and Team Bondi paired thi...