Rockstar has unveiled the debut trailer for L.A. Noire and damn, it’s pretty impressive. The game looks to blend action, detection and complex storytelling while drawing players into an open-ended challenge to solve a series of gruesome murders. The trailer showcases these objectives in action while delivering what is quite possibly the most convincing digital actors the industry has seen to date.
Set in Los Angeles with a post-war backdrop of corruption, drugs and jazz, L.A. Noire aims to truly blend cinema and gaming. Based on the looks of the debut trailer, Rockstar is off to a good start.
Check it out right here in HD and then sound off with your thoughts in the comments below.
I like pretty much everything about this trailer.
Obviously some new mechanics going on there (lip synch, face expressions. never seen something better before in a video game. “real” acting…)
I’m looking forward hearing and of course seeing more from this upcoming masterpiece(?) from Rockstars Bakery of Guns and Buns. (lol)
OK, i bet anyone a ten-bag that the (poorly VA’d) Irish cpt/chief turns out to be a baddie. kinda like in the Godfather. or in LA Confidential.
reserving judgement on this one but i’ll be surprised if the plot isn’t predictable. ok, so that’s making a judgement. sorry.
Just Awsome , looks like Rock Star Does it again,
All ready PRe Ordered this.
But the big Question is, Will there Zombie DLC LOL
This is looks like something in between Max Payne and Mafia, story-wise and I guess gameplay-wise something like RDR/GTA.
Me likey!
I hope the game does not have a lot of shooting, if it does I don’t know if I’ll be able to buy into the story.
wtf why has no one pointed out how ridiculously awesome the facial animation is? I thought they where real people until I re-informed myself its CGI when I showed it to a friend they thought the same thing, it looks that good. I am gonna buy the game just to see such amazing facial expressions and facial animation, people pointed out the facial animation wasnt up to par with the lines in red dead but this just nuked any hang ups about facial expressions, its even better then uncharted 2’s facial expressions.
Gumshoe partner co-op?
Whimmy Wham Wham Wazzle! You got my money Rockstar.
I’ve been anxious to see footage from this game since reading the Game Informer article many months ago. I must admit, the facial expressions are very impressive and quite naturalistic.
However, the technology behind this technique troubles me. For anyone unaware, the characters’ heads aren’t modeled by an artist and the expressions are not animated by an animator or even captured through traditional motion capture techniques. Rather, actors are recorded from the neck up while delivering their lines and their appearance, expressions and dialog are all captured simultaneously via a revolutionary new camera system. So, literally, an actor will arrive on set, get their hair and make-up done and then get recorded… and that’s it, other than minimal tweaking for continuity (line of sight, etc.) However their hair looked that day, whatever color of eyeshadow they had on; that’s more-or-less exactly what’s going into the game.
Perhaps I’m paranoid, but I see this technology potentially putting a lot of talented people out of jobs and excising a lot of creativity from the industry. I actually hope that Rockstar has a patent on this technology because I somewhat trust them to use it judiciously. If it becomes available to a wide range of developers I fear that this once beautifully varied medium will continue to homogenize to (or past) the point of banality. There’s a lot of talk about the convergence of films and gaming but is that really what’s best for gaming? Is that really what gamers want?
Not on the PC? No thanks.
chia: Not on the PC? No thanks.
This. The facial expressions would be the only reson i would rent a copy and borrow a console from friend. GIVE US RDR AND TIS ON PC! Why do we always get the shaft?!