L.A. Noire

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/106/1067305p1.html

In the March 2010 issue of Game Informer (on stands this month), the first real details of L.A. Noire are revealed. Developed by Team Bondi (The Getaway), L.A. Noire is an open-world action-adventure game set in the City of Angels in 1947. Unlike previous Rockstar efforts, L.A. Noire exists in a real city, painstakingly recreated for historical accuracy. Don't expect the "shoot everyone" mentality of a Grand Theft Auto title -- this is something completely different.

You play as Cole Phelps, a beat cop looking to clean up the streets of L.A. It won't be easy, seeing as how the L.A. police force is mired in corruption from top to bottom. Phelps has his own issues to deal with, including some very bad things he did in World War II. Though he starts low on the totem pole, over the course of L.A. Noire Phelps progresses through a series of "desks" in the department, including traffic, vice and, ultimately, homicide.

As a detective, you have to solve cases through a mixture of investigations, interviews and interrogations. According to the article in GI, when you come across a scene, you won't find highlighted items sitting in obvious places. Crime scenes are said to look natural and require a deft eye to spot important clues. See a pair of glasses on the ground of a supposed murder scene and you can pick them up, noting details such as the brand etched on the inside of the frame. These little bits of information are jotted down on your notepad, which can be brought up at any time.

Things get a little more interesting in regards to the interview system. Team Bondi is using revolutionary technology that could change the way games are made. The new facial motion capturing system sets actors alone in a giant room with cameras all around. In full make-up, the actor delivers their dialogue. Every facial moment is recorded, from the most exaggerate of motions to the slightest twitch of an eye. The dialogue is recorded at this time as well, creating a seamless scene. All of this is then translated into a 3D game landscape with no animators needed. The result? According to GI, it's a picture-perfect rendering of the actor's scene. That's important to the gameplay.

When you interview someone, you'll need to watch their face and determine if they're lying. Like Mass Effect, your dialogue choices come from a handful of general options: coax, accuse or force. The way you handle an interview or interrogation is greatly determined by the reactions you get from the suspect. You can also refute testimony by selecting clues from your notebook.

Unfortunately, GI wasn't shown any of the gunplay, so the set-up for the action sequences is still a mystery.

This sounds really interesting and might actually be the sort of thing that could get me to start gaming again. I'm hoping for a L.A. Confidential/Chinatown/Dashiell Hammett type feel.

Sounds pretty cool. I like investigative/clue gathering games (though most of them have been point-and-click in the past) so it's good to see that genre brought back.

Exactly the kind of game I've been waiting for. Postwar L.A. is one of the best settings for a noir, and making a noir detective game set there will probably be unimaginably good.

Fuck you. Fuck you for getting me excited, Aaron. This looks brilliant and I'm stoked. And whenever I'm stoked I get horribly disappointed. See, by the time this game's released, the coolest features will have been cut due to the money-men wanting it in stores before the code-goblins are done and whatever's left will have been dumbed down to the point where the general public will buy it - i.e. to an unplayable level. Fuck.

I definitely need this.

Yeah, this definitely sounds awesome. As neobum says though, it sounds like the exact sort of game that they'll have to neuter in order to sell it to the idiot masses. Hopefully they just through in an easy mode or something instead of ruining the whole game.

It's also worth noting that despite initial reports, this will be developed for both PS3 and 360.

It will no doubt go to PC as well.

Timothy Henderson wrote:

Yeah, this definitely sounds awesome. As neobum says though, it sounds like the exact sort of game that they'll have to neuter in order to sell it to the idiot masses. Hopefully they just through in an easy mode or something instead of ruining the whole game.

You can't sell "advanced", man. My money says it'll end up being a generic rail-shooter with trace elements of a beautiful could-have-been.

Timothy Henderson wrote:

It will no doubt go to PC as well.

Yeah, six months to a year later. And, being a port, the controls and menus will be made of unintuitive and maladjusted fecal matter.

I see you've played Borderlands!

Sounds awesome.

Timothy Henderson wrote:

I see you've played Borderlands!

Nope. I hear it's all about the guns. It any good?

Yes.

Though, I still definitely prefer FO3 to it.

They're only vaguely comparable.

It's alright if all you're looking for going into it is a game where you shoot things and watch numbers go up. There is basically nothing else to it. One thing I found really annoying was how dependant damage output was on your level; you could be at level 7 and barely be able to scratch a boss, yet fight him again at level 9 and you can kill him in a few hits. The interface was obviously designed for consoles, and it does that stupid shit Oblivion did where you have a pointer in the centre of the screen that tells you exactly where you need to go to solve each quest, even when you shouldn't logically have that information.

So yeah, try it if you want but don't go in expecting anything other than the usual mainstream stuff. It's not the GOTY material reviews made it out to be.

That sounds like the last thing I'd ever want to play.

That does sound interesting and I do like Rockstar games, generally, however the lack of running around and killing all the civilians are not going to make this a fun game.

You're the reason we can't have nice things!

Yes, but instead we have awesome things. You can't tell me Modern Warfare 2 didn't float your boat, when for the first time you're in that airport and you just slaughter the civillians.

Go the fudge back to GTA and don't meddle with things you don't understand.

MW2 sucks

I had absolutely no interest in MW2. Still don't.

As far as multiplayer FPS goes, it's pretty much the greatest.

Oh guys, you erally don't have to live up to the lame geek loser title just because you post in a forum. Why so offended? Anywho, I didn't say I thought it looked bad. I saw the trailer but it'd be nice to see a more recent one.

MW2 is really good for what it is. Well, it's quite good. Better than many. But in the grand scheme of things... well, it's marketed to the casual gamer and I think that speaks for itself.

Except, it isn't. Casual gamers get steamrolled and then never play it ever again.

Hahaha yeah.

And stop hating on casual gamers. If we didn't have them, developers wouldn't have enough money to finance anything, especially the obscure shit you like.

Hahaha yeah.

And stop hating on casual gamers. If we didn't have them, developers wouldn't have enough money to finance anything, especially the obscure shit you like.

Daisy wrote:

And stop hating on casual gamers. If we didn't have them, developers wouldn't have enough money to finance anything

Financing sequels and remakes doesn't justify this kind of shit.

especially the obscure shit you like.

The "obscure shit" I like is predominantly made by developers who, while they'd probably give an arm and a leg for a fraction of the money companies like EA gladly pour over the developing teams of their best seller sequels, don't see much revenue because, at the end of the day, you just can't sell 'advanced'.

Paul Turner wrote:

Daisy wrote:

And stop hating on casual gamers. If we didn't have them, developers wouldn't have enough money to finance anything

Financing sequels and remakes doesn't justify this kind of shit.

especially the obscure shit you like.

The "obscure shit" I like is predominantly made by developers who, while they'd probably give an arm and a leg for a fraction of the money companies like EA gladly pour over the developing teams of their best seller sequels, don't see much revenue because, at the end of the day, you just can't sell 'advanced'.

Fuck yeah I bought Madden 2010.

And Mirror's Fucking Edge.

Dude, hating on a game because it isn't good? Fine. Hating on it because it's popular? That just makes you a dick.