LA Noire
From: Rockstar
For: Xbox 360, PS3
LA Noire didn't so much arrive on a wave of hype as it was propelled to shore on a flood tide.
Rockstar's success with the Grand Theft Auto series has created a situation where each of the company's new releases is greeted with early and loud shouts of "game of the year".
It happened with Red Dead Redemption ("Grand Theft Horse") last year, and that did actually turn out to be the most interesting and absorbing gaming experience of 2010.
Hot on the horse's heels comes LA Noire, Rockstar's take on a classic 1940s crime-solving drama.
The build-up to the game has been long and intense.
A drip-feed of information built anticipation to the point it seemed Noire had earned game-of-the-year honours without having been played.
The thing with pre-release hype is that a game really can't win.
It either fails to live up to the hype, or merely matches it.
LA Noire slots into a sort of grey area: it's an extremely impressive game, but I don't see it knocking too many socks off.
The game has you playing detective Cole Phelps, an ex-soldier battling a few demons but generally an arrow-straight lawman determined to clean up Los Angeles.
Starting at the lower ranks, you work on a few traffic cases and aim for promotion to join the big boys in homicide.
There are a stack of main cases, each of which unfold with swags of cutscenes, as well as dozens of one-off minor street crimes to halt.
Like Grand Theft, a part of the game is jumping in a vehicle, consulting a map and driving around a massive open-world city.
My knowledge of post-war LA is not flash, but the city certainly lives and breathes and seems appropriate for the era.
There are also regular chases on foot and a few gunfights as part of the action.
But the real heart of the game is in searching for clues at crime scenes and in interrogation, solving mysteries through reading people's reactions and using evidence to decide whether they are lying or telling the truth.
The hunt for clues is very simple: you wander around a bit and tap a button when the controller vibrates.
Interrogation can take a bit more of a deft touch.
As conversations evolve, you are given button options for "truth", "doubt" or "lie", and the subject's helpfulness (or willingness to confess) will rely on your accuracy.
The strength of the interrogation segments is in LA Noire's graphics.
Much has been made of the revolutionary face-scanning technology developed for the game, and it is no idle boast.
The characters must be the most realistic yet seen in a game.
Many have been captured by real actors Phelps, for example, is the bloke who plays Ken Cosgrove on the outstanding Mad Men and the likenesses are extraordinary.
I do wonder, though, if all the attention lavished on every last facial tic and grimace might have affected other areas of the game.
It's quite glitchy.
More than once I have checked out a crime scene with a colleague, and I have turned a corner to find him standing, completely frozen, on top of a hedge or a wall.
And occasionally I have jumped in a car with an NPC, given him our destination and been dropped off at a random spot.
Things also get a little repetitive.
Even with the one-off minor crimes thrown in, the game is basically a series of similar body searches, house hunts and interrogations.
Occasionally it's all a little slow-paced.
For all that, LA Noire is a very good game.
It might yet turn out to be the game of the year.
And with plenty of extra material to be added on, it's going to be around for a while.
