History VideoGame / LANoire

** There are only about 6 possibilities for which landmarks they can be, they're all in a pretty small area, and they show up on the map was question marks with the full landmark description next to them. More of a GuideDangIt is finding all the golden film reels (I found just one of fifty over the course of normal gameplay.)

* GuideDangIt: If you haven't been sedulously tracking down LA landmarks, solving the Black Dahlia killer's clues fall under this. You're supposed to use the map to solve them, but the only landmarks that show up are the ones that you've already found. Spend enough time randomly driving around LA during the mission and Phelps will eventually solve the clues himself.

* WorldWarII: Cole is a veteran of it, like most men his age.
** More specifically, he was at Okinawa.

*** [[spoiler: No they don't. They accidentally caused the explosion and killed themselves.]]

* FreudWasRight: Rusty boils down ninety percent of the L.A. Homicides to this.
** Rusty's Rule: If he's bangin' her, he's our killer.

** Most of them weren't exactly model citizens. [[spoiler: A child molester, a woman-beater, and at least one of those men ''was'' a killer]].
*** Except [[spoiler: the crazy homeless man that said he's killed other people beforehand was actually in the military, so it's possible he was referring to his time in WWII. It's also possible he murdered people in cold blood after he got back, [[RiddleForTheAges but we never will know, will we]]]]?

** Well, his voice ''did'' seem to get rather shaky towards the end, so it ''could'' be a DoubleSubversion...more likely, though, is that he's just a really ''good'' faker.

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: [[spoiler: Three of the Arson cases have you playing as Jack Kelso, an insurance investigator-turned-Special D.A. investigator and one of the members of Cole's old Marine Corps unit.]]
** [[spoiler: It seems we've left the LAConfidential motif and entered more of a {{Chinatown}} scenario.]]
*** [[spoiler: It's not quite Three of the arson cases: you play about one third of the final arson case as Cole Phelps in Doctor Fontaine's Office.]]

* HideYourChildren: Played straight during general gameplay, insofar as children do not appear as regular pedestrians. Averted however wih child characters appearing in cases. For example:

* TrailersAlwaysLie: Some of the commericals and trailers make the game out to be more GTA in the 40s, rather than a slower narrative game in the vein of HeavyRain.

** Rusty's Rule: If he's bangin' her, he's our murderer.

''L.A. Noire'' is a video game by [[TakeTwoInteractive Rockstar Games]] and Team Bondi, released on May 17, 2011 in North America and May 20 in Europe. You play as Cole Phelps, a ByTheBookCop in [[WorldWarII post-war]] LosAngeles, before the freeways and the Dodgers came over. You start out as a beat cop, slowly working your way up the ranks of the LAPD and investigating crimes that range from the lurid to the disgusting to the truly bizarre.

** Ironically, [[spoiler:all of the corrupt officials that Cole and Jack try to put out of power were there]].

* InsufferableGenius: Grosvenor McCaffrey is a big one. [[spoiler: To a point where he flies into a violent rage towards anyone who outsmarts him.]]

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: [[spoiler: ...however, Cole's reassignment to arson due to said affair puts him on the trail of the serial arsonist linked to the conspiracy that is the focus of the main plot. Note that his reassignment had been carried out by members of the same conspiracy in order to deflect publicity from their corrupt dealings.]] Thank you, [[spoiler:Roy Earle]].

* OfficerOHara: There are plenty of police officers with Irish surnames, but DaChief Donelly of the Homicide Desk is OfficerOHara gone ''retro''. He has a thick ([[MostWonderfulSound and catchy]]) Irish accent, calls Phelps "''ludd''" or "''boyo''", refers to criminals and the Japanese that Phelps fought against as "heathens", and calls the work at the homicide desk something along the lines of "God's work". Furthermore, he is fond of shouting and drinking on duty. Well, not that no one else is...

* RevolversAreJustBetter: Averted with Cole's 1911 and Jack's BAP. Played straight with all the partners.

* TrueCrime: All of the criminal cases you investigate are based on real crimes that occurred in 1940s Los Angeles. Additionally, a few cases pit Phelps against notorious real-life L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen.\\
\\
[[spoiler: The game provides a fictional solution to the real-life unsolved Black Dahlia case: The murderer is Garrett Mason, a bartender you meet in your first Homicide case who works as a temp at all the bars the murder victims attended. Unfortunately, he also happens to be the half-brother of a powerful federal official, so all the previous suspects are quietly released through a series of department tricks, the truth is covered up, and the original case is left open. Still a BittersweetEnding though, since you know you've put a stop to his murder spree for good by killing him.]]

** ItGotWorse when Team Bondi was [[http://kotaku.com/5847883/la-noire-studio-owes-1-million-to-employees++and-a-quarter-of-that-is-claimed-by-the-boss liquidated. Most of their employees ''still'' haven't received their back pay.]]

** The forthcoming DLC only covers cases cut from the desks that actually made it into the game. The Burglary and "Bunko" (fraud) desks were cut entirely, and although the developers have hinted that the ''might'' complete them and release them as DLC, their future is as yet (June 1, 2011) unknown. The game hints towards this when you first switch from Traffic to Homicide, subtly by noting a 6 month gap between the two and explicitly when the chief informs the staff that Phelps was promoted from Burglary.

* DevelopmentHell: Beyond the obvious fact that the game took over seven years to make, there's a literal example here. Team Bondi was by all accounts... a shitty place to work. Plus, Brendan [=McNamara=] is a tyrant.
** It even worse when Team Bondi was [[http://kotaku.com/5847883/la-noire-studio-owes-1-million-to-employees++and-a-quarter-of-that-is-claimed-by-the-boss liquidated. And most of their employee is unpaid.]]

* BigBadDuumvirate: [[spoiler:Dr. Fontaine and Leland Monroe]].

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Cole sacrifices himself to save Elsa and Kelso, but the adultery charges are posthumously dropped and made out to be fraudulent by the department, the Suburban Redevelopment Fund conspiracy is exposed and many of the surviving conspirators are implied to have been brought to justice.]]
** [[spoiler: The Homicide desk also ends on one of these. You find and kill the murderer of all the victims, but due to being the half-brother of a major politician he can never be brought to justice and the identity of the true killer never gets released to the public. Meanwhile, the 5 innocent men on death row are acquitted due to the prosecution sabotaging their own case.]]

* ByTheBookCop: Cole, but he is not afraid to go against police code if the situation calls for it.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Phelps, in both his role as a Marine Lieutenant and as a police officer he uses both insistent terminology and a by the book procedure refusing to go outside the law. However, in the former example he is an ineffective commander and the marines only put up with him because he is their CO. He is however, an excellent police officer and as a result his partners put up with him despite their constant disagreements.

* CastingCouch: "The Fallen Idol"

* TheConspiracy: [[spoiler: Here's how the Suburban Redevelopment Fund scam works: the SRF buys up land that the city plans to repossess through eminent domain for the new freeway project, burning down the house of anyone who refuses to sell. Then they put up cheap houses using substandard materials to boost the land's value, which will force the city to buy it back from them at a massively inflated price.]]

* CoolOldGuy: In spades. Fire Chief Lynch, Carruthers, and Captain Donnelly to name a few.

** Well, his voice ''did'' seem to get rather shaky towards the end... so maybe it's a DoubleSubversion.

* AssholeVictim: Everett Gage was a MeanBoss and an anti-semite.

* AuthorExistenceFailure: On October 5, 2011, Team Bondi Closed it's Doors.

** In one of the Vice cases, gangster Bugsy Siegal is mentioned as if he was still alive, although in reality he was murdered on June 20, 1947, months before the Vice cases take place.

** A few cases are named after famous noir films, such as ''The Black Caesar'' and ''The Naked City''. Additionally, a DLC case is named after the (in)famous 1930s anti-drug film, ''ReeferMadness''.

** [[spoiler:Harlan Fontaine]] stikes Elsa with a glass ball in an attempt to kill her.

* LargeHam: Captain James Donnelly and Jermaine Jones, oh so much.