The Art Remains

I recently finished my second playthrough of LA Noire, and I was once again impressed by the game's quality. The attention to detail, the story, and the gameplay are all top-notch.

I wanted to take a moment to talk about the creation of art, or anything for that matter. While it is possible for wonderful works to come easily, it is often the case that they come from tribulation and hard work. For a single artist, the pain is obviously only felt by one person, but for many artists working on a single vision, such as a video game or movie, it can be shared among many.

Some might not like to carry that burden, especially if the vision isn't their own. This might seem like basic stuff to most, but it really appears to be a discussion that is lost on non-creatives (the real ones, not the growing army of faux-creatives that like to decorate themselves like a LOL doll or Monster High character—I have a six-year-old).

The point I'm getting to here is that for all the problems I remember Team Bondi and Brendan McNamara had with creating LA Noire, most of the complaints are fading away. Not just in memory, but in broken links and lost websites.

Dig deeper past general employee complaints to find the actual hard evidence that the workplace was toxic, and you'll find that three-quarters of the links are broken. There does appear to be actual legal issues that sank this promising company, but again, poof! Difficult to find. I suspect that Rockstar made a lot of these problems go away after the game sold well, which might have been the plan all along.

All of this doesn't excuse crappy behavior toward employees and their families, but it is a reminder that all of it fades into the distant background once the dust settles and time advances.

Games are in a constant state of newness, sort of like a phoenix rising from its own ashes over and over. Making something new is hard, but that's where you get the gold dust.

I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts on LA Noire in a future review.