L.A. Noire

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This looks awesome. I love Rockstar games, RDR being my favourite of the bunch. Here's hoping this game has the same magic. (Sorry if there's already a thread for this -- didn't find one.)

New Trailer [Nov 11, 2010]

It looks pretty, but:

Clint Hocking[/url]]if I watch the trailer as a game trailer, I don't see a game. If I watch it as a movie trailer, it is confused, derivative, bad.

Scratched wrote:

It looks pretty, but:

Clint Hocking[/url]]if I watch the trailer as a game trailer, I don't see a game. If I watch it as a movie trailer, it is confused, derivative, bad.

Yeah, I can see his point. At the same time, he was the creative director of Far Cry 2, so I'll take his comments with a grain of salt.

Jokes aside, I want to see gameplay and I just realized Rockstar isn't the dev of the game, just the publisher. Team Bondi is the dev and I'm not sure what else, if anything, they've done.

The videos that sold me on RDR were the "Life in the West" movies. However, RDR is an open world game, so they advertised that world with those videos. I'm not sure if LA Noire will be the same type of game.

I love Rockstar. I love noir. I am very, very interested.

Spring 2011, though...dammit, everything comes out then!

Max Payne 3 or GTFO!

Enjoyable trailer, though, even if I do kind of agree with Hocking's take on it. Interesting to note that it's not a PS3 exclusive anymore.

edit:

ebarstad wrote:

Yeah, I can see his point. At the same time, he was the creative director of Far Cry 2, so I'll take his comments with a grain of salt. ;)

Aw, now why'd you have to go and say that? Them's fightin' words!

I'll be interested to see what they do with it. Investigations in games is something I've been rolling around in my head for a while now, I hope it's not just simple following instructions with each waypoint marked on your map.

Podunk wrote:

edit:

ebarstad wrote:

Yeah, I can see his point. At the same time, he was the creative director of Far Cry 2, so I'll take his comments with a grain of salt. ;)

Aw, now why'd you have to go and say that? Them's fightin' words! :D

Hahaha! No, I liked Far Cry 2, but it had some problems -- problems a creative director should have been able to spot.

Love what I see so far. Got my fingers crossed for decent gameplay.

I watch that and worry it'll be full of long, ponderous, lamely-written cut-scenes like GTA4 was.

Is this basically GTA5?

I love RDR deeply. Probably one of the best games I've played. But all the fun was in the interactivity: running around the wilderness hunting, going after bounties. Watching this trailer...well, I feel like it would be quicker and easier to just watch the movie. And it's not likely to be a real good movie, either.

I'll keep an eye on it, though.

Didn't think much of the trailer, badly paced and derivative. Of course, the trailer isn't any real indicator of what the game is going to be like, but the premise is interesting, so this is one to watch.

And isn't Noir supposed to be, well, dark? That it really brightly lit.

Jesus, but people are awfully cynical.

I love Hammett, Chandler, LA CONFIDENTIAL, and any open world game that dares to do something other than "gangstah." I had no faith in RED DEAD at all until the week of release, but I loved the genre enough to keep me interested. Same thing here. If ALL I get is GTA set in the the 1940s/50s, I'll be satisfied.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

And isn't Noir supposed to be, well, dark? That it really brightly lit.

Well, for one thing they spell it "noirE."

"Noir" has taken on a completely figurative meaning, though-- it's more about the KIND of story and KIND of hero than the literal lights and shadows.

Bit spoilery but there's an EDGE preview from earlier in the year which makes it sound like more of an adventure-game type experience for anyone who was getting a GTA/Mafia/RDR vibe.

SommerMatt wrote:

"Noir" has taken on a completely figurative meaning, though-- it's more about the KIND of story and KIND of hero than the literal lights and shadows.

It's not just taken on the figurative meaning, it's always been like that. Check out classics like Out of the Past or Dark Passage or Kiss Me Deadly and you'll find plenty of brightly lit scenes.

SommerMatt wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

And isn't Noir supposed to be, well, dark? That it really brightly lit.

Well, for one thing they spell it "noirE."

"Noir" has taken on a completely figurative meaning, though-- it's more about the KIND of story and KIND of hero than the literal lights and shadows.

I shake my stick at you. :p

Yeah fair enough, it looks interesting, but no PC release coming by the look of it. Fascists....

Kotaku points something interesting out:

It's worth pointing out that the game will include Mad Men's Aaron Stanton as lead officer, Cole Phelps, Fringe's John Noble, and a cast of "esteemed actors," working alongside director Michael Uppendahl (Mad Men), according to Rockstar.

I thought I recognized a face or two.

My main question is were those cutscenes in engine? If so, that's the most crazy detailed motion capture I've ever seen.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

My main question is were those cutscenes in engine? If so, that's the most crazy detailed motion capture I've ever seen.

Yep. Says so at the end of the video. I'm guessing they must have borrowed a few tricks from LucasArts' Force Unleashed games.

I've been looking forward to this game ever since the article from Game Informer months ago.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

And isn't Noir supposed to be, well, dark? That it really brightly lit.

Yeah.. Noir as a genre is incredibly loosely defined, so that works as diverse as Bladerunner, Chinatown, and The Maltese Falcon are all considered perfectly good examples. Whenever people try to pin a stylistic definition to it, there are always counterexamples, i.e. Chinatown is brightly lit the whole way through.

That is some crazy uncanny valley sh*t right there.

Some of it was a bit rough, but most of it was the best mouth/talking animation I can remember seeing. Can we let Quantic Dream use that tech for their next game?

Tanglebones wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

And isn't Noir supposed to be, well, dark? That it really brightly lit.

Yeah.. Noir as a genre is incredibly loosely defined, so that works as diverse as Bladerunner, Chinatown, and The Maltese Falcon are all considered perfectly good examples. Whenever people try to pin a stylistic definition to it, there are always counterexamples, i.e. Chinatown is brightly lit the whole way through.

The term "noir" is a double joke--referring originally to both the physical darkness of the visuals, and the moral darkness of their world. I'd call the key traits of noir are urban confusion, crime, moral greys, uncertainty, distrust of authority and power, and self-reliance.

Chaz wrote:

That is some crazy uncanny valley sh*t right there.

Some of it was a bit rough, but most of it was the best mouth/talking animation I can remember seeing. Can we let Quantic Dream use that tech for their next game?

I think the mouth movement is what pushes it into the valley. The mouths are great, but the eyes and the body language are off.

The voice work for the main character seems underwhelming (as if he doesn't have enough substance or authority behind what he says, and the trailer didn't convey any sense of that being subtle characterization on R*'s part), and the direction and overall style (the dialogue, the other characters, the settings) seemed more derivative than they did re-imaginative. I was not impressed.

Edit:

Rat Boy wrote:

Kotaku points something interesting out:

It's worth pointing out that the game will include Mad Men's Aaron Stanton as lead officer, Cole Phelps, Fringe's John Noble, and a cast of "esteemed actors," working alongside director Michael Uppendahl (Mad Men), according to Rockstar.

I thought I recognized a face or two.

That guy isn't the actor I would cast for that role, unless Rockstar means to take the game's tone in an entirely different direction than what they hinted at here.

A Rockstar take on Chinatown/LA Confidential actually sounds pretty awesome.

I'm a great fan of Chandler and Ellroy, but it's difficult to see how to fit that into a game. I could see an open world game as a private eye (since the side missions make more sense there), but not as a police detective investigating a single case.

There is some real uncanny valley on the main character there, I think Red Dead had that balance right, and this seems too far towards trying to make it realistic and failing.

I really liked the equivalent of James Cromwell's Irish captain from LA Confidential.

Ok, I'll hold out final judgement until I see actual game play but the look & style is awesome. Exactly what I would want for a pulpy crime story.

ebarstad wrote:

Team Bondi is the dev and I'm not sure what else, if anything, they've done.

I looked at their official site and wikipedia page and didn't see any mention of anything other than LA Noire, even though they were founded in 2005. Since Rockstar is involved, I'll keep this on my radar.

The Game Informer preview of this awhile back was so bad that I didn't renew my subscription to the magazine. The game was so early that I couldn't even believe GI squeezed 8 pages out of it, they only had one mechanic working, the interrogation stuff. It kind of soured my opinion of the game by association, although I recognize that that isn't exactly fair. I wonder if the game wasn't actually early, and that this game is just going to really suck.

MeatMan wrote:
ebarstad wrote:

Team Bondi is the dev and I'm not sure what else, if anything, they've done.

I looked at their official site and wikipedia page and didn't see any mention of anything other than LA Noire, even though they were founded in 2005. Since Rockstar is involved, I'll keep this on my radar.

They were formed by ex members of the Sony studio that did The Getaway. According to a Twitter feed I follow is kind of an "inside dirt on the industry thing", the studio's missed tons of deadlines and they say that the game coming out in Spring 2011 is a very optimistic thing. This isn't a reliable source of course but they've been right on a bunch of other stuff they've said recently and predicted some things happening before they did.

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