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L.A. Noire 'Blurs the Line' Between Story and Game
donniebaseball23 writes "Rockstar, never a studio to shy away from risks, first tackled Westerns with Red Dead Redemption, and is now about to launch a film noir-based title called LA Noire. IndustryGamers posted a feature on the game's unique storytelling method. 'One of the things we wanted to do was move away from exposition cinematics,' said Rob Nelson, art director at Rockstar Games. 'We incorporated the exposition into the gameplay, which blurs the lines between story and game. There's a lot of dialogue and exposition while you're playing the game. This was a pivotal focus for us and I think we've done it reasonably successfully.'"
L.A. Noire has been seven years in the making, and is due to launch in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian recently spoke with two of the developers about the process behind their story-driven approach, and a launch trailer has been released.
Games that try way too hard to be realistic usually don't come out well, but if LA Noire can do the story game thing as well as Heavy Rain then it will be a success.
What makes this any different from the original Half Life?
It was there long ago. Like, how Star Control 2 (now ur-quan masters) did it.
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This article blurs the line between buzzwords and marketing speak.
Has Rockstar given up on the PC for good? Has anyone heard if there will be a PC version of Red Dead Redemption or LA Noire?
There goes my summer...
lucm, indeed.
I'm sorry, but this looks horrible. It's like they took GTA, kept the same shitty combat and driving mechanics, and simply tacked a new highly-scripted story on top. I guess the so-called "AAA" studios are so caught up in their profit margins they can't be bothered to experiment with, I don't know, actually immersing the player instead of making them watch the game play itself.
Like this story blurs the line between story and advertisement!
A pizza can feed a family of 4.
Anyone remember those choose your own adventure books we had growing up? Kinda reminds me of that. I don't know how innovative it's going to be. Lots of games have a working plot and lots of cutscenes. Mirror's Edge comes to mind. Still might be a great game but it makes me cringe that every time a studio brings out a game they want to try to make it sound like it's nothing like anything before it, when in reality innovation is quite rare and usually comes in small chunks, especially in gaming.
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Heavy Rain was a bit more restrictive but it had a real and emotional story. If you check out the ratings on gamefly you will see a pattern, adults who loved the game, giving it a 10/10 rating and children who said it was boring and giving it a 1/10 rating. It really could be made into a movie and the critics would love it.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
In the words of Yahtzee, games are not movies, get over it.
At least it won't suck on the PC, because Rockstar doesn't release PC games anymore. Then again, after the shitfest that was GTA IV, I'm not sure I'm very sad about it.
After the abortion that was GTA IV on the pc... I don't even give a damm about rockstar games anymore.
bloatware crashy buggy drm fucked unfinished piece of shit game for windows live.
It's got a long way to go if it's going to out noir Max Payne. Everyone is talking about that abortion Heavy Rain as if it was the first to do it. Well, I say, "Bah," to that.
And you say it Blurs the Line Between Story and Game?
"Outdated business models" is code for "I don't like paying for things, but want them anyway"
...of the phrase "adventure game". Is this because it truly can't be defined as one, or they're afraid consumers will freak out, say, "I refuse to play a game in which I have to think," and skip it?
If the second case is true, I might actually be interested.
Omnes tuae crepidines sunt nobis sunt. Ascendo tuum!
Let's be honest here, has anyone played a game that "blurred the line between A and B" that managed to do A or B right? A lot of games tried to blur lines only to end up as a blurry piece of junk that didn't deliver either, or at least a half assed combination thereof.
Now, I am not too spoiled by movies anymore, I cannot name too many movies with a good story lately, but games sure take the cake when it comes to half-hearted storylines. It's usually very easy to predict what direction the whole mess is going to take and waiting for the surprising twist usually leaves you disappointed. If there IS a twist in the story, you usually see it coming from a mile away since there's little else that could take place.
So I'd be happy with games with cutscenes that don't bother "blurring" the lines if those scenes are well done and tell an interesting and involving story. Get A and B right before trying to blend and blur.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
i can think of many games that have tried this to some extent, Deus ex, FFVII, the later Ultimas.
some of the big hurdles are
1.player not looking where you want them to when you want them to
2.player not being near enough to hear properly (distance, bad 3d sound, player using headphones (people only have 2 ears) missing dialogue on dropped surround sound channels)
3.player not being in the right place at the right time (my play style has always been slow methodical sneak and snipe, so if a game has real time scripted events i usually miss them and it turns an action game into a more forensic look at the aftermath game)
4. player taking some weird path and avoiding triggers for events
Does it blur the line between sucking ass and blowing chunks too? My guess would be yes.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's kind of weird seeing realistic face motions grafted onto dated looking character models. The whole effect reminds of the old cartoon Clutch Cargo.
Seriously though, I think motion capture is going a bit far here. It gets to the point where if you're going to go with that level of detail in noninteractive portions of the game, you might as well do FMV.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
I can't wait to get my hands on this game, hopefully it gets offered in the 5 games free titles for the playstation customer rewards program :D
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Slashdot blurs the line between article and advertisement.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.