More than the frustrating car chases, the poorly thought out interrogation system, or having to comb every inch of the environment waiting for the music to chime, the thing that annoyed me the most about L.A. Noire was the fact that Cole Phelps cheated on his wife and didn't tell me.
I strongly believe that video games have the greatest potential for storytelling of any medium today, except, perhaps, for novels. With settings and themes as varied as any other medium, and little to no limits or guidelines on things like length, stories in video games can range from the latest wartime FPS to the most twisty-turny, convoluted JRPG you can think of.
Now here's the part that's relevant to L.A. Noire. If you're going to tell your story through a video game, you need to take into account a very unique narrative element that you won't find anywhere else: the fact that you are the protagonist. From Pac-Man to Skyrim, video games are about assuming a role. Whether the main character is an empty shell for the player to occupy (Gordon Freeman) or a fleshed out individual with their own personality (Niko Bellic), the protagonist is always embodied by the player. It is for this reason that you ought to be privy to all your character's actions from the time the game starts onwards. Unfortunately, Team Bondi seems to disagree.
In any other medium, the main character is their own entity separate from the audience. They are free to partake in events offscreen that may be revealed at a later time, usually lending to a twist. But since a video game actively places you in the lead role, withholding information that your character learns after the game starts is like keeping a secret from yourself.
Even if a game's story is extremely linear and I have no control over my character's plot-related actions, I still want to be there when they happen, and to know why I'm doing them. I have no idea why Cole had an affair. Had he fallen out of love with his wife? Did he find some reason not to trust her any longer? Or was he simply smitten by Elsa? Maybe if they had shown that Cole and his wife were becoming distant or something, I would have at least understood where he was coming from.
The other thing that I wanted answered was how long the affair had been going on for. Did it only happen once? Or had it been going on since that first time Cole visited the jazz club by himself? This leads me to the cutscene where Cole shows up at Elsa's home. I suppose it was designed as a hint at what was going on, but I certainly didn't think it would go where it did, especially since there had been no indication that Cole would ever want to betray his wife.
Basically, as I've said, the last thing I want to see in a video game's story is ambiguity or omission of my player character's actions. I think this story would have worked better if it were anything but a video game.
