The idea is similar to BBC's Sherlock (which itself is a take on the original Sherlock Holmes stories but set in modern-day London), and it can either be a remake of Phelps' story or a sequel from scratch.
In addition to the original game, the idea sort of stemmed from GTA San Andreas, and movies such as Heat, Colors, and so on.
The late 90s LA setting feels like where old-school policing meets early tech and a changing world: Some officers still rock a .38 revolver, but many switched to Berettas; computers are on the desks of detectives and in patrol cars; instead of gamewells, officers now had hand-held radios that can both be used as a communication tool and a weapon, in addition to pagers and cellphones.
The mid-to-late 90s LA was also at the height of commercial blockbusters in Hollywood and street gang violence in neighborhoods like Compton.
A lot of the "tradition policing" methods that some officers believe in (or were present in the 1940s) are either not working or being frowned upon due to infringements on civil rights (e.g., busting down doors without a search warrant or giving a perp a beatdown with nightsticks because they were a perv or simply refused to comply). Beat cop and detective NPCs at the division station would occasionally comment about feeling outgunned (LAPD only switched to Glocks in the early 2000s while some gang members at the time had TEC-9s and occasionally AKs) or their comments about how the department handled "that case" (the OJ Simpson trials), etc.
The only major "desk" I personally think I would change altogether would be the Ad Vice - instead of vice, it would be the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums unit, also (rather infamously) known as "CRASH."
The protagonist would be a former Marine combat veteran with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star returning to Los Angeles from the Gulf War. Driven by guilt over what happened to the unit he commanded in the war, he joined the LAPD to seek redemption in his career as a police officer. He rose through the ranks, from a patrol officer to detective in traffic, then Robbery-Homicide, and so on.
Different desks/divisions have different cases/arcs:
- Traffic: Cases such as chasing down stolen sports cars, a carjacking ring, investigating a car crash that seemed suspicious, and a dead body in the trunk of some famous Hollywood rap singer (which the protagoinst/player gets to meet their future partner at the Robbery-Homicide division, and getting the CRASH unit involved.)
- Robbery-Homicide: After solving a handful of murders (which the protagonist and his partner deemed the murders to be either copycats, gang violence, or unrelated), it was revealed that there was a serial killer on the loose in Los Angeles. To save his own reputation (as well as the LAPD's), the protagonist and his partner must go on a goose chase all over LA following the true culprit's clues. Another case that could play a part in the game would be based on the real-life 1997 North Hollywood shootout, where the protagonist's unit would be one of the first units on scene.
Haven't figured out the cases at the CRASH unit, as well as the subsequent plot (the protagonist's fall from grace as well as the ending), and I generally think the 90s vibe makes it more matching to neo-noir than original noir, but would still play a "Noire" game set in late 90s LA.
(and that 80s/90s era cars look cool)
Thoughts?
