LA Noire

complete with O_o extra e. First publicized with a BS proof-of-concept video like four years ago and is now starting to look like a game... but is it me or does it look kind of hilariously sucky? This is the screen they choose to publicize?

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2010/02/la-noire-gi-02152010.jpg

Valve, get it?

I'm all for 30s/40s-set video games but I'm thinking Mafia 2 is going to be my flavour for 2010.

is it on PS2?

any game that lets me drive cars with white-walled tyres is okay with me.

but that picture, tho nice idea, is a bit crap

Valve, get it?

Er, no? It's not a valve game, is it?

If this game is a GTAIV in 30s Hollywood I will be disappointed.

but then if it isn't a GTAIV set in 30s Hollywood I will also be disappointed.

m@tt did the gameinformer piece; seemed interesting

New article in Edge makes this sound pretty fucking dope.

Is this going to be a detective video game with actual detecting and procedural stuff, rather than "go to X, find item, go to Y, perform task"?

they turned Heavy Rain into a game!

is it really coming out this fall like they claim in the article?

So far the only thing that really grabs me about this game is, "a near street-for-street recreation of LA circa 1947," but that REALLY grabs me (also is probably bullshit). We'll see.

i guarantee whatever detective work remains in this game will also be plenty watered down so as to not scare anyone away. that is just the way of things nowadays. there is a happy medium out there, though, just waiting to be discovered, somewhere between god of war style "puzzles" (door + lever = ????) and monkey island extreme lateral thinking (of course, put the termites on the wooden leg!!)

http://www.thehouseofgames.net/files/p/police_quest1/police_quest1-3.gif

Let us not forget this game, where failure to properly inspect your vehicle before driving out of the parking lot results in DEATH.

death by mayoral edict

in the above pictured game if one does not go to the shooting range and adjust one's gunsights right at the beginning one dies a horrible death literally hours later. and there's nothing to do but restart the game. god i fucking love old sierra games.

is it me or
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4025/4651749757_dd2dd6ed7b_b.jpg
http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/aaronstaton.jpg

is it me or am I moron; just googled and aaron staton plays the fkn lead in LA noire lmbo

i really hope this doesn't turn into just a load of shooting and fighting missions, and instead includes a bit of intelligent puzzle/crime solving.

but being a big fan of noir, and of course freeroaming, am looking forward to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9IH8fWOwS4&feature=player_embedded

1. Cosgrove!
2. The faces are really nice; just two or three steps removed from indistinguishable from video

this cannot not be amazing

Forreals. Cannot wait.

Sydney-based Depth Analysis has revealed MotionScan, a new system for 3D motion capture designed for the film and video game industries.

The system will make its debut in Rockstar and Team Bondi's L.A. Noire, where all involved say it has streamlined post-production processing and reduced budgets.

"Traditional motion capture could never bring to life the subtle nuances of the chaotic criminal underworld of L.A. Noire in the same way as MotionScan," says Team Bondi founder and director Brendan McNamara.

Thanks to the tech, "the emotional performances of the actors allow the story to unfold in a brand new way," McNamara enthuses. "Through this revolutionary technology, we’re able to deliver audiences a truly unique and revolutionary game."

Depth Analysis explains that MotionScan uses 32 high-definition cameras to capture 3D performances at up to 30 frames per second -- according to the developer, it's able to capture up to 50 minutes of final footage and capable of processing up to 20 minutes of facial animation automatically per day.

It doesn't require phosphorescent paint be applied to the actors, nor staff to clean up data or animate fine details by hand, the company asserts.

"2010 continues the trend of high production values in both triple-A video games and blockbuster movie releases," says Depth Analysis research head Oliver Bao. "Audiences now expect detailed CGI actors and realistic performances that pop onscreen with any game or VFX movie they see, and we developed MotionScan technology with this in mind."

Wait, so the protagonist's voice AND looks are pure Ken Cosgrove?

sounds like it will be mostly investigation-focused, with shooting and fighting in the background:

http://kotaku.com/5691769/the-bold-gamble-of-la-noire

The trick will be making investigation fun, which is not easy.

sounds pretty sweet tbh

hey y'all i forgot forks wanted me to jump on...can't say too much outta school (esp on a r* game)...but anyway

my cover story on the game is up online now, prolly the most info anywhere:

http://gameinformer.com/games/la_noire/b/xbox360/archive/2010/11/11/l-a-noire-preview.aspx

and a new preview:

http://gameinformer.com/games/la_noire/b/xbox360/archive/2010/11/18/la-noire-second-look.aspx

anyway...i'm genuinely excited about this, with some question marks...

it's VERY MUCH a game about having conversations with people and gathering info etc...the big question is how compelling this is over the long term...but it's a cool risk to take i think, it's definitely not just GTA with fedoras...

i got to see all the facial capture analysis stuff live working, saw tapings of actual actors..the whole system is p amazing and very cool tech that i think def pays off in the game. the expressions seem very human, but not in a uncanny valley hyper realistic way...rockstar never seems to go for the photorealism thing, but this is probably the most in that direction they've gone.

as far as atmosphere, setting, soundtrack, etc., it's def top notch, they do such an amazing job with that stuff...

fun fact: in the last demo i saw one of the actresses was the girl that grinded on jonah hill in superbad and got period blood on his pants.

"it's definitely not just GTA with fedoras..."
^in a nutshell what I was afraid of. Cool to hear that reassurance

m@tt, do you think the tech they're using for this game is likely to become an industry standard? It's hella impressive looking.

yeah it's hard to say, because so many companies as so invested in their own pipelines at this point...but rockstar doesn't own the tech, and team bondi is def. shopping it around though, also to hollywood

it essentially works like "filming", there are essentially no hand animations done. was pretty impressive, as was the 2001 space pod that they film in (picture in the cover story)

the big thing is that it allowed them to do such a greater volume of capture and dialogue, like there are no "random" peds, each one has actual lines, etc

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/developer-diary-l-a-noire/708504?type=flv

those facial expressions are pretty rad, shame they still have puppet body movements lol.

lol otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yZ0T_t5j4s&feature=player_embedded#at=150

damn, the facial subtleties are fucking impressive!

yeah those facial movements are somewhat amazing really

I hope the investigation part of the gameplay works. I'm anticipating good things with this one.

this is exactly the kind of game i've been waiting to play all my life.

i hope it lives up to those humble expectations

might well be the game that finally persuades mrs. ofthenest to let me buy a PS3

this is exactly the kind of game i've been waiting to play all my life.

― it's not in the Wu-Tang Manual (latebloomer), Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:18 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark

is it getting reviews yet?

3 discs for 360!

wauuuu

Yeah I'm not even much into the GTA series and stuff but this looks SWEET. The facial expression tech is amazing.

although I enjoyed RDR and the GTAs, I kinda got bored and feel like I'm a bit over these games (and games in general except maybe football games). I couldn't bother finishing RDR and the gay tony extension for GTA for instance. Couldn't take more of the same kind of missions and all the riding around (even using taxis and camping). that said, this seems interesting and I might give it a try...

this looks interesting and i will defo buy it. loved rdr when i started playing it, but grew tired of the horse riding after a while and couldn't be fucked with it/never completed it. it got all the non-gameplay aspects right though - graphics, soundtrack, atmosphere, plot etc.

also 3 discs ffs

i thought this would be a day one purchase for me, but i find that as we get closer to release i want to wait to see reviews more and more. i'm not totally certain rock star can pull this thing off. tho if it's just GTA + noir + realistic faces that might be enough

it definitely seems like it's more than that

3 discs = can't load to HD?

so 1 disk on ps3, heavens the fanboys are going to go nuts!

not made by rockstar so i imagine quite different.

shooting looks to be aiming rather than lock-on, which is a plus.

otoh as you're a polis i doubt you'll get to beat up prostitutes :/

hit the homicide point and its improving

tackle mechanic is like 1000% bullshit tho. fuck u i cant tackle an old slow dude running away - bullshit.

also some of the clever lines like that whole yorick thing w the shrunken head are so so bad

p sure he was meant to look like a toolbag on that one. missing a reaction shot of the coroner going smh tho.

ha. yeah maybe.

i would dig there being a few more street crime moments where the resolution isnt shoot dude in the face tho - i was kinda hoping that the failed holdup would involve subduing crazed gas station owner instead of pwning fools

yeah i kept wondering if there was a way to resolve those missions that didn't end with me shooting all suspects in the face but i guess not huh?

also i think it's sort of a bold move that the main character is a clearly-labelled tool for the majority of the game, weird as that feels.

plodding thru trying to 100 percent it now and it's hard to be bothered tracking down another 40-odd cars. haven't even seen a film reel, do i have to start a block by block search or am i missing something obvious?

Arrgghhhh just nailed a case 100% on clues and interviews but got boned down to unbecoming 1star ranking thx to vehicle damage Fuuuuck you game.

plodding thru trying to 100 percent it now and it's hard to be bothered tracking down another 40-odd cars. haven't even seen a film reel, do i have to start a block by block search or am i missing something obvious?

― SB OK (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, June 29, 2011 2:06 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

yes, you should start by looking on the internet

grabbed a bunch of the hidden cars last night, they look cool but seem kinda pointless? esp since you can just mappoint them, make your partner drive there, get them, rinse repeat. this game is super odd wrt some of the choices it makes - like the hidden cars are way easier to get than figuring out if thatr is a slightly different blobby sedan you just passed.

another weird quirk - has anyone noticed that the game seems to constantly reset the intersections behind you when youre driving in free mode? spotted odd cars about ten times waiting at intersections i was crossing, hit the brakes and spun around and they were completely gone.

the more i read on this thread the less i look forward to the next gta installment

it's a sandbox with no toys in it really, just aggravatingly tedious behind the prettiness. i've just remembered i assumed there was gonna be an airplane involved in one of the cases cos i'd driven across the airfield a few times but no, you can't even get in the planes?

gotta reiterate i really enjoyed the main story and the cases but nobody's gonna keep coming back to this the way you do with San Andreas

next GTA won't be made by these guys tho? a lot of the scaffolding of greatness is in this thing, it just needs a deeper game on top of it.

i'm rationzlizing the flaws in this by thinking of exactly what i'd do differently, if i were the design team...

from what i've read tho the final product might well have been rushed cos of too many years fannying around with the tech?

yeah maybe...

to people moaning about the driving, i can tear round the city and the damage is so minimal that it doesn't have any impact on the final score. also there's a trophy for scoring a huge damage bill on a case that i haven't had a go at yet.

ha apparently that one is a real bitch -- there's no measure anywhere of how much dmg you've done yet, and you have to attempt it during a case, and finish it, to find out.

well i figured from my usual damage totals that i was gonna have to take out 3 quarters of the city and christ knows how many civilians just to get near the required target.

i'm thinking now that it's a sign of bad faith on the developer's part that the climax of the game more or less stops being about detection and turns into a ropey FPS. and there is NO EFFING REASON for dude to take that flamethrower.

hey team bondi psycho dude, here's what you should have done:

* let phelps pick his car from 'discovered' cars, instead of driving around in your partner's by default. at least make all those car models worth something.

* blend the side-mission stuff into cases a little better. somehow. down time or patrol duty or just schlepping following up dead cases as part of the plot? idk

* higher penalties for failure across the board -- gun fights more lethal, interrogations more make-or-break. you really ought to not be able to take a bunch of bullets, nor blow every question, and be able to move on in the plot.

* maybe script a few of these scenes so that doubting or suspecting someone of lying doesn't mean being aggressive and threatening. unless the subtext of the game really is that phelps is a bullying creep with a chip on his shoulder (not out of the question).

* make conversations more branching-linear instead of a list of q's. it's weird to accuse someone of lying on one q then just breeze to the next one off the list. putting these more on rails (with an off ramp to failtown if you get nothing) would make them more human.

* make every interesting object "lookable" and skip the beer bottles and cigarette butts. fill environments with useful but non-pertinent objects, and don't tell the player the difference. it is supposed to be a mystery, no? allow the player to mark which ones are really pertinent in notes and dump the rest.

* why not have a climactic choice at the end? maybe (w/o spoilers) some characters ought to have the choice to kill other characters, or not?

good god why am i doing this

* make it possible to run out of ammo (ok i have managed this once with a BAR but only because i basically just sprayed away endlessly to see if it was actually possible)

* why not let the player at least cockpunch annoying characters and then get demoted/jailed?

yeah you should be able to pull your piece even if everybody just flips out and the case fails. why not? maybe at some point that wouldn't be a problem (like when shaking down the non-whites e.g.)

yeah i thought they could've gone harder on the racism and misogyny. for an 18 it's often as coy and straitlaced as Phelps himself. in the end it really isn't Noir enough.

see why don't they come to us before releasing these things

i am so irritating about this stuff, and i recognize that, but yeah there lost of dumb little things that bug me in such a "fully realized" world i guess - like the fact that a car going 80+ mph cant drive through a wood fence, or when i found some tennis courts and it wouldnt let me climb into the bleachers on the side or jump over the net when i can like hop chainlinks like its going out of style

the PS3 version seems quite buggy but I am new to the PS3 so idk

yeah you should be able to pull your piece even if everybody just flips out and the case fails. why not? maybe at some point that wouldn't be a problem (like when shaking down the non-whites e.g.)

I haven't played the game but i was pretty surprised to learn this kind of stuff isn't possible considering the setting.

Bought this on Steam for twelve-fiddy; currently unplayable on my hardware, even tho I can get shit like Arkham City/Shogun 2/Portal 2/Tropico 4/Witcher 2 to run at decent framerates with little feature disabling.

Bah. Will probably uninstall this until I upgrade.

went back to this because of the piece nhex posted, and because since i last played and disliked it i've gotten super into los angeles. def having more fun with it than i did before but man the interrogation stuff is fucked, and the way it's fucked is really ironic: instead of having the problem every other adventure game ever made has had, where you're presented with a list of specific things to say and the Correct Answer is always to say all of them, this game presents you with juncture after juncture where you're given three things to say and only one of them is correct, AND IT DOESN'T TELL YOU WHAT THEY ARE. like, i found some taped glasses on a crime scene, and later the missing guy's wife said yes, he was wearing his glasses, he just bought new ones, and i clicked "doubt" because aha i know the glasses are not new! and my douchebag avatar was like STOP LYING TO ME MRS. WHATEVER. YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT GLASSES HE WAS WEARING, BECAUSE YOU WERE THERE. needless to say this approach was not effective. this kind of i-fucked-up-because-i-had-no-idea-how-my-character-would-interpret-"doubt" thing happens to me over and over.

i know this was endlessly talked about by everyone at the time but seeing it as a bizarre overreaction to typical adventure-game risklessness hadn't occurred to me.

and again, despite all of that, no matter what happens in the interrogation, the game will play out exactly the same.

execution of this game is fucking horrible

yeah. it's amazing how far the atmosphere goes for me now tho.

also (w polyphonic's help) i kinda figured out how to handle the interrogations. the trick is to not give a shit.

still thoroughly enjoyed it, yeah

Playing the game with someone who grew up in LA during the 1940s: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-09-night-and-the-city

Nice mention of the engine sounds being off

This game drove me crazy. Got tired of doing the same thing over and over again. What a waste, it could have been fantastic.

Rockstar should just put out maps of different cities, no storyline necessary.

YES. just vehicles, weapons, online multiplay.

When I was a kid there was this text-based adventure game I liked called Deadline where you were the detective and your job was to solve a murder case by interrogating suspects by typing in your queries and the characters would respond, often differently depending on how close you were to solving the case. I remember thinking how cool this game would be if it had realistic graphics, which of course didn't yet exist.

I was hoping L.A. Noire would be that game. I'm a total non-gamer but when I read the pre-release hype about how all those actors were having their eye movements and facial expressions photographed from different angles for realism, with the player left to decide who was being honest, I was sure this would be intense. I was bummed when everyone I knew who bought it told me not to bother.

deadline! deadline was the one infocom mystery game i actually beat. someday i will not be overwhelmed by suspect.

I was able to identify the culprit (two of them iirc) but there was like one piece of evidence i was missing that kept me from ever winning

The George character was hilarious

http://youtu.be/jUSilu2kLDI

Man I know this is old news but this is such a shitty, disappointing game. I like easy games but there is almost no challenge at all, no consequences if you fuck something up. I got in a fistfight yesterday and completely blanked on which button I was supposed to hold down to fight for a full minute and still ended up winning the fight. It's an "open world" game that gives you nothing to do in the open world and never gives you any time when you aren't on a case where you could even just drive around the city without feeling like you're supposed to be doing something more important. So much wasted opportunity, given that the city looks pretty cool and investigating murders in 1940s LA was such an awesome premise.

I also like how you start off on the automotive cases squad and then you get promoted to homicide but in the "six weeks later" cut scene they reveal that you were on the burglary squad in between, but for some reason they decided to not have you actually investigate any burglary cases in-game? So weird.

i bought this game the day it came out, started it up, got to the first interrogation. fucked something up. dude starts his whole 90-second spiel AGAIN, unskippable. fucked it up again. dude starts over, unskippable dialogue. i took the game out of the ps3 and sold it on amazon. complete garbage.

sticking with my rant for the 2011 coint and plick biggest disappointment

LA NOIRE came out this year.

Lets just get this out of the way first HEY DUMMIES ITS NOT A GODDAMN GAME. Just because you can jam the disc into your gamebox doesnt make it necessarily so, and this is a throwback prime offender like i havent seen since the deathly awful cdrom era of the late 90s. I am not sure what kind of ball-lapping coke baggie gift pack they sent out to reviewers for this utter piece of unfun, but it must have been pretty amazing considering the metacritic score. Basically its GTA4 with all the levity, lightheartedness, and good times removed, but this time you dont even have to actually play a game in order to get bored out of your fucking skull. Protagonist is dull, driving is wait hold on a second WHY AM I DRIVING AT ALL THERE IS NEVER ANYTHING TO DO and the free roam aspect is WAIT WHY CAN I FREE ROAM WHAT THE FUCK. This is a game for the people out there that think that the gta series would be greatly improved as a travelogue, sorta a rick steeves of the 1950s. So ok fine you say what about the amazing crime scene investigation where you meander around a scene until some random
object of great import presents itself because shit that never happened in like a million point and click adventure games before, but this time instead of glowing halos they use this amazing new-fangled vibration technology, or do they i cant remember because the shit was so fucking dull it made no impression whatsoever. Oh and did we mention that through next gen facial wank wank avatar magic dot camera face technology we have created the most terrifying facial animation on the planet? Imagine if you will that we take ACTUAL ACTORS and cover their face with REAL RUBBER MASKS OF THEIR FACES and then have them emote with the amazing magical power of OVERACTING and then we dump that into our super-pixelator machine and let you ask them SEVERAL QUESTIONS! In a row! And if you somehow miss the fact that they are eye-twitching and wiggling their face around like a meth-binger at a broken traffic light, don't worry, you get to do it OVER and OVER until you get it right. ITS LIKE YOU ARE ACTUALLY THERE except it isnt because the clues are about as subtle as a hammer to the fucking face, and honestly there was one lady that i interviewed where i swore her head was going to whip right off her neck because of her furtive glancing. But wait, I am being unfair, because i forgot
to mention the totally pointless side missions which seem to entirely involve climbing buildings or shooting teenagers in the face for joyriding a car and cracking wise. And yeah, I know, its all about the story or some such bullshit but man cmon i got 400 movies on my netflix instant queue and none of them make me patiently drive a car around or meander around a railroad yard until i find a wadded up tissue of great importance, so no thanks. IT SUCKS. ITS AN INTERACTIVE MOVIE. GET OVER IT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1va8FxBl7Cg

you know what's a gag reel? the metacritic page for this game.