L.A. Noire

Depends if they're using intensive specific optimisations on the console platforms, with a port they would have to make a more general renderer that suits a range of hardware and has a range of quirks or weird configs to deal with too. As far as an announcement, Rockstar have a history of only doing a full announcement when it's really far down the line (this thread is only 6 months old).

Aaron D. wrote:

It's pretty strange stance on the PC front as my limited knowledge of porting has led me to understand that the architecture between PC and 360 is so similar that porting should be a snap.

If they're just using the DirectX interfaces, porting should be fairly easy. However, if they're doing anything more than that, especially assembly(different processor architectures) or specific memory addressing optimizations(stuff that works on the 360 may not work on a PC) it's not nearly as simple.

That's also not counting control porting and testing, deployment differences, etc.

It's not trivial, at all.

I is dumb!

The PS3 version is supposed to have some exclusive content, and because Rockstar's been so tight-lipped about the game, we don't know if it's going to be on-disc or what. Ryan Davis brought this up on the Giant Bombcast last night, it's something I didn't even consider. If that content isn't on the disc, god knows when PSN will be back up. This effects the pre-order bonuses as well.

Pre-ordered (along with Dirt 3). Excited. Should be a good summer, a nice repeat of last year's time with RDR. Can't wait to disc swap like it's 1995.

Yeah, at a high level, I understand that the 360 software interfaces are quite similar to regular Windows DirectX, but if you peek behind that abstraction layer even a little, the two systems are wildly different.

The CPUs are entirely different; the 360 uses a PowerPC variant. And they have some very very specialized memory management hardware... I don't remember the details exactly, but each CPU has some local memory that's unique to it, and special methods of getting that data out to main memory and/or the video card very quickly. You can do some really advanced interleaving logic, where you can actually set up timeslot reservations, and time the flows of data in and out of the CPUs down to a gnat's eyebrow.

The CPUs in PCs are faster, better able to run branchy weird code and deal with general-purpose problems, but if you've optimized your algorithms around the oddities of the PowerPC-variant in the 360, it's probably not going to translate very well. You'll probably have to do sloppier, more general-purpose code. And then you get to deal with the joy and wonder that is the world of PC device drivers, especially video drivers.

Trying to port a really well-tuned 360 game to the PC is like trying to use a hammer to emulate a scalpel. You have a lot more power, but a lot less control. And the further into the 360's lifecycle we get, the harder they're pushing the hardware, and the more involved a port becomes. By now, they're probably well into serious voodoo, doing things that Microsoft never realized they'd be able to.

edit: don't misinterpret me: the 360 processors are actually rather weak in some fundamental ways. That's part of why enemy AI tends to be bad. Those procs are designed first and foremost to be pixel-pushing monsters; that's why everything is super-shiny, because the processors make that easy, but the games themselves tend not to be that complex, because running code to produce truly complex behavior is painful on those CPUs. They're incredibly good at repeating the same operation to a whole bunch of data; they're quite poor at doing a little math, making a decision, doing some more math, and so on. That's why PC games usually have more true complexity to them -- and modern PCs can pump out the shiny stuff to boot.

Oh, I was going to wait for the reviews but finally caved in and pre-ordered to get the Amazon $15 dollar credit. (and special Jacket? okay...)

I like the concept of investigation/interrogation based gameplay, but remain skeptical that it can actually carry a full length game. I'm afraid it might play like a very well voiced and animated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. Click on the right clue, choose the right dialogue option and you get to advance the story. Click on the wrong one, and, sorry, you lose = reload and play the scene again!

The main thing that grabs me is the 1940's LA setting. It looks like they nailed the design and color pallette. Even if it plays like a linear, slightly interactive movie, it still looks like a gorgeous interactive movie.

chaosmos wrote:

I like the concept of investigation/interrogation based gameplay, but remain skeptical that it can actually carry a full length game. I'm afraid it might play like a very well voiced and animated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. Click on the right clue, choose the right dialogue option and you get to advance the story. Click on the wrong one, and, sorry, you lose = reload and play the scene again!

That doesn't sounds bad to me at all. I actually hope it is like that!

SallyNasty wrote:
chaosmos wrote:

I like the concept of investigation/interrogation based gameplay, but remain skeptical that it can actually carry a full length game. I'm afraid it might play like a very well voiced and animated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. Click on the right clue, choose the right dialogue option and you get to advance the story. Click on the wrong one, and, sorry, you lose = reload and play the scene again!

That doesn't sounds bad to me at all. I actually hope it is like that!

That's almost exactly what my wife said when I showed her the last trailer.

Wait - are you sure you're a dude?

This video may shed some light on the detective aspect of the gameplay. It's a few videos strung together, so there may be some information redundancy.

It sounds like your choices lead to branching paths in the investigation, and good perception skills even lead to gameplay perks. I guess it's a question of how diverse your options/paths are because ultimately it will be a 'choose your own adventure'. I'm okay with that as we are talking about finite binary choices here inherent with the medium.

Sounds interesting that you can replay case files to shoot for higher rankings or alternate narrative paths. Pretty cool.

EDIT:

On an unrelated note, I'm also excited that there are consequences for acting out of character in the game world. Bad driving leads to demerits of some sort while outright rampaging on civilians leads to a fail state for the case you're working on. It's ballsy, but I like it. A lot.

That always bothered my about recent GTA games that try to develop a sympathetic protagonist with well-written narrative. It looks great on paper and in cut scenes, but the minute Niko goes out the front door donning an RPG to wreck senseless (non-story) havoc, that narrative character building goes right out the window.

chaosmos wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
chaosmos wrote:

I like the concept of investigation/interrogation based gameplay, but remain skeptical that it can actually carry a full length game. I'm afraid it might play like a very well voiced and animated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. Click on the right clue, choose the right dialogue option and you get to advance the story. Click on the wrong one, and, sorry, you lose = reload and play the scene again!

That doesn't sounds bad to me at all. I actually hope it is like that!

That's almost exactly what my wife said when I showed her the last trailer.

Wait - are you sure you're a dude?

Want to play some Uno?

chaosmos wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
chaosmos wrote:

I like the concept of investigation/interrogation based gameplay, but remain skeptical that it can actually carry a full length game. I'm afraid it might play like a very well voiced and animated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. Click on the right clue, choose the right dialogue option and you get to advance the story. Click on the wrong one, and, sorry, you lose = reload and play the scene again!

That doesn't sounds bad to me at all. I actually hope it is like that!

That's almost exactly what my wife said when I showed her the last trailer.

Wait - are you sure you're a dude?

Remember that the gameplay has been described as being like the Phoenix Wright games. What you wrote above seems pretty in line with how PW works.

First online review is in:

Guardian UK - 5/5

Aaron D. wrote:

First online review is in:

Guardian UK - 5/5

:drink:

Gameboner growing...!

SallyNasty wrote:
Aaron D. wrote:

First online review is in:

Guardian UK - 5/5

:drink:

Gameboner growing...!

IMAGE(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/Gumbie84/fap.jpg)

Unless the reviews for this one pan it across the board (and I mean like Big Rigs bad), I don't think there's a whole lot that's going to stop me from enjoying this game. I've enjoyed pretty much all of Rockstar's recent major releases from both a storyline and gameplay aspect, so it'll take something awesomely dumb for Rockstar to turn me off this one. I've already got my preorder in, the problem will be trying to resist playing it until next Thursday night when i'll actually have the time.

The departure from traditional Rockstar gameplay is one of the big reasons I'm so excited about this one. I got sick of the gameplay mechanics in Bully, RDR, and GTAIV within 8 or so hours, and had to play at least double that to get through the story.

Aaron D. wrote:

First online review is in:

Guardian UK - 5/5

:drink:

Looks like the review has been pulled Was there any talk of performance differences between 360/PS3?

Dyni wrote:
Aaron D. wrote:

First online review is in:

Guardian UK - 5/5

:drink:

Looks like the review has been pulled Was there any talk of performance differences between 360/PS3?

It was of the ps3 version, and was pretty glowing. It told me everything that I wanted to hear.

Dyni wrote:
Aaron D. wrote:

First online review is in:

Guardian UK - 5/5

:drink:

Looks like the review has been pulled Was there any talk of performance differences between 360/PS3?

No, but they did say that it was reviewed on PS3, IIRC

Seems my shipping address isn't eligible for release day shipping, so, f*ck that, basically. To the brick and mortar I go!

Funnily enough, my book club is doing The Big Sleep right now.

I just pre-ordered, although (weirdly) Amazon wasn't doing day-off delivery. It's been a long time since that happened--and I get it for games all the time, unlike Mr. Booky-Book above me.

Guess I'm out of excuses then. Preordered.

CptGlanton wrote:

I just pre-ordered, although (weirdly) Amazon wasn't doing day-off delivery. It's been a long time since that happened--and I get it for games all the time, unlike Mr. Booky-Book above me.

Yeah, I just went with site-to-store at Best Buy because of that. Weird.

I did the Best Buy pre-order as well. They will ship me a $15 GiftCard and all I have to do is stop on my way home from work to pick up my game.

*sigh* Did every seller wait until I had preordered to drop their prices and add gift cards?

Doesn't Amazon give you the current pre-order deal regardless of when you ordered yours? Or do you only get the deal that was offered at the time of order? I ordered LA Noir about a month ago, and Amazon was only offering a $10 gift card at the time. I wonder if I'll get the $15 gift card instead?

PS. They had release-day shipping for me (maybe because of Prime membership?), but I'm wondering if it'll actually arrive on time. Brutal Legend didn't show up until two days later, after I ordered release-day shipping. But that was because UPS lost the package between the delivery truck's driver seat and sidewall. F*cking UPS.

I have Prime, and I still didn't get day-of shipping. I was very surprised, given it's Rockstar.

And Amazon will always give you the best deal they offer for the game, regardless of when you pre-ordered.

I have release day shipping on this one..maybe only certain warehouses are shipping it Tuesday.

I went ahead and pre-ordered at GS to get the extra case. I am quite excited for this game.

Just a heads-up, Amazon just added $.99 release-day delivery for Noire. That's on top of the $15 gift card offer.

Another side note, looking at NeoGaf's official thread, I read that there was an online stream of the 1st hour of the 360 version of the game not long ago. The consensus seemed to be that I looked equal to all the PS3 footage released thus far, though I didn't watch it myself. I decided to stick with 360 on my Amazon order.