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.

Comments

LA Noire

[aahpandasrun]

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.

Re:LA Noire

[macshit]

Eh? Heavy Rain had great intentions, but the actual game was a huge mess -- hard to control, frustrating. If anything it shows how difficult it is to really do this sort of thing well...

I actually have some hope that RockStar will do a better job, though, as they've got a lot of experience with sandbox games, and so will probably not screw up so many of the boring but critical details that Heavy Rain did...

Games like Red Dead Redemption do essentially fit in quite a bit of narrative and direction while still allowing the player a lot of freedom and control; L.A. Noire sounds like it will simply ratchet up the narrative side a bit, but won't really be fundamentally different from their other games.

Re:LA Noire

[bigstrat2003]

I disagree. There were occasional times I felt the controls were bad, but on the whole I felt they were very suitable. In general, I was very happy with the game. I don't know that I'll ever be able to play through it again, because it's not nearly as much fun knowing who the killer is at the end of a murder mystery, but it was an amazing game nonetheless. Worth the $60 I spent, certainly.

Re:LA Noire

[Stormwatch]

I had to play it in French

Since it's made by a French developer, that is the CORRECT setting.

Welcome to 1998

[heptapod]

What makes this any different from the original Half Life?

Re:Welcome to 1998

[Lord Byron II]

Um, facial expressions, interrogations, plot-driven instead of action-driven, etc.

Re:Welcome to 1998

[AdamHaun]

The Rockstar guy doesn't say it's new, he just says that this is what they're trying to do. IndustryGamers layers a bunch of superlatives on top, then the summary adds some more. Bad article.

I'm glad that more studios are listening to Valve, though. I was starting to think that cutscene-heavy, gameplay-light was the mandatory style of this generation.

Re:Welcome to 1998

[gman003]

As usual, the summary completely misses the point.

The thing I would call the "big deal" in LA Noire is the facial animation technology. For (AFAICT) the first time, actual facial mocap is being used. While mocap isn't that new for broad animations, its use for facial expressions really could be revolutionary. Just watch some of the gameplay trailers - the facial animation in them is literally better than some pre-rendered cutscenes in other games. Hell, it's better than some CGI movies I've seen. The ability to make faces that genuinely seem alive like this is potentially game-changing (if you'll pardon the pun). I've done stuff with facial animation in other game engines - even with a HUGE amount of work, they still don't seem quite right. If you could just record an actor's performance, instead of having to make ramps for every muscle in the face...

The summary seems to be claiming that, in LA Noire, cutscenes ARE gameplay (and vice versa). Half-Life was the first game to have the cutscenes be continuous with the gameplay (there's no break, and there's no shift in view), but the cutscenes are still segregated from gameplay. You aren't playing the conversations, just watching them. If LA Noire actually pulls this off, it would be another potential revolution. It's a longer shot, though - it would require drastic changes to game design to make it work, and even then many players may not like it. You'll note that, even a decade after Half-Life, many games still use the "end level, break to cutscene" style, because it does have it's own advantages.

Re:Welcome to 1998

[mustPushCart]

If you have watched the trailer or the gameplay video you would not be saying something daft like this. The whole game is plot and not action driven, the facial expressions are.... because theres no better phrase.. fking A, they are so good they are an actual gameplay element here. You need to watch peoples facial expressions for clues of guilt etc. It quite likely revolves around a massive story presented through lifelike cutscenes with GTA like free roaming. Nothing like HL2.

Re:Welcome to 1998

[novium]

John fuckin' Noble.

In fact, that's the one thing I know about this game: John Noble's got a role in it. Everything about it could suck, and that alone would make it awesome.

PC version?

[Lord Byron II]

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?

Re:PC version?

[filthpickle]

They usually release a half assed PC port about a year+ or so later. If you are excited to play those games...get a used 360 and play it on that.

I admit that it looks amazing, and it may very well be a great game...but I couldn't be less interested in it. I'm sure I'm in the minority there, they will make a ton of money on it.

long way to go

[bhcompy]

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.