A new videogame offers up another way to experience life on the Los Angeles Police Department circa 1947.
The much-anticipated "L.A. Noire" is out this week. Players are put into the shoes of Cole Phelps, a returning World War II vet who solves crimes and works his way up, from beat cop to detective. He's surrounded by a host of suspects: from a sketchy Hollywood movie producer to crooked cops.
"L.A. Noire" is from Rockstar Games, the company behind Grand Theft Auto. For this latest game, Rockstar meticulously re-created Los Angeles of the late 1940s, using old maps and aerial photographs.Video-game critic and scholar Harold Goldberg, author of All Your Base Are Belong to Us, How 50 Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture, has been playing, and says "it's ... very film-like."
"And it just feels like, you know, anything from Hitchcock to Scorsese," he tells Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne. "Feels like being in a film sometimes."
