L.A. Noire's Style

When I look at L.A. Noire, something triggers in me. After watching people play it for 15 minutes, and after the QL before, I got this weird clean feeling in my brain, like seeing all those period clothes, artifacts, hairstyles, and landmarks was a fully realized Other World that was still instantly relatable. The amount of detail I've seen so far is extraordinary, and Brad was right, they even achieved that different feel using the fonts common in the period. I used to look through old books and feel that, or our Monopoly or Risk instructions.

I don't delude myself; there's no ideal period in history. Some things may get worse, but others get better, and while '47 is some people's idea of the golden period for the U.S., plenty of others don't share that, both those who grew up there and those where growing up in other places, whether or not they were ravaged by the war. Still, I guess it's the myth of that speaks to me, and I like how L.A. Noire, in the tradition of other period crime dramas like the excellent L.A. Confidential, cut to the core of the period they're creating, showing us the myth and the dark side at the same time.

After watching that fifteen minute clip, while getting dinner ready, I imagined all the stuff a homemaker then might have to go through to get a decent meal ready. I think of my grandparents, how they might have spent a Saturday; and my parents-- what the world looked like as they were growing up, all the things and places they were expecting to inherit when they grew up, but by the time they had  grown up, those places and things, and all of the people, had changed.