Illusions - LA Noire: An interesting criticism.

One of the main criticisms about LA Noire is that during interrogations, the way the Cole reacts or speaks does not entirely match the kind of prompt the player gave.

During interrogations, the player can choose 'truth', 'doubt', or 'lie' to determine whether or not they believe the statements a witness is making. These are fairly inaccurate descriptions, as many players found out. When choosing to 'doubt' a person, the player would often end up watching Cole fly off into a rage that seemed a little over the top for something that was meant to be the unsure, middle option. Additionally, the player would sometimes choose 'lie' in order to indicate that the witness was lying about a specific statement. However, the game will sometimes choose to have the detective accuse the witness of lying about everything and of being the murderer. Different interpretations cause frustration.

Doubt and Lie.

A slight overreaction. 

Brendan McNamara, the main man behind LA Noire, was asked about this oddity.

Meanwhile, McNamara explained why central character Detective Cole Phelps, played by Mad Men star Aaron Staton, sometimes responds with particularly aggressive lines of dialogue when prompted by the player in interrogation scenes. 

"It's funny. A lot of people say Aaron turns into a psycho," he said. "When we originally wrote the game the questions you asked were coax, force and lie. It was actually force because it was a more aggressive answer. That's the way we recorded it.
"But when the game came out it was truth, doubt or lie. Everyone always says Aaron on the second question is a psycho. So that's not his fault."

Yin, Wesley (9 November 2011). "McNamara: why you thought LA Noire's characters were "dead from the neck down" •". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 20 November 2012.

This inconsistency between the names of the 'questions' and the fact that the 'questions' were outright vague in both forms meant that players would often select an option they thought would give one result and get a completely different one. I wanted to use a question and interview system in my game, and this problem influenced me to make sure that questions in the game would be specific.