One of the most anticipated games for many gamers this year has to be Rockstar’s LA Noire. Team Bondi has teamed up with the publisher to create a gameplay experience that takes players into an incredibly gritty, dark and crime ridden 1940s Los Angeles. This is not a Grand Theft Auto clone. LA Noire, while being an open world experience, is different that your typical city roaming third person action game.
Gamers and press alike were given demos of the first part of a case, right after the main character, Cole Phelps, gets promoted to the homicide desk. We were shown how exactly the game will play. If you are expecting a lot of crazy driving and shooting up bad guys, you are in the wrong place. Cole Phelps and his partners will spend most of their time doing actual detective work and investigating suspects and witnesses.
The maybe biggest gameplay elements of LA Noire are the interviews and interrogations of suspects, people of interest and witnesses. This could only be accomplished if players could actually read their counterpart’s emotions, twitches, expressions and feelings down to the detail. Team Bondi delivers this with a brand new facial motion scan technology where real actor’s faces will be scanned in a brightly lit room and with dozens of cameras.
During this first case Cole examined a brutally murdered woman and is now trying to find the killer before the leads disappear. Upon arriving the crime scene, Cole first went to talk to a few police officers around the scene gathering information before heading to the body. Cole leans over the body and can interact with different parts of it, the head, arms and so on. Each time a clue can be investigated further a chime will sounds, indicating players can interact further with the object. This goes for objects, dead bodies and so on. Each time players find a new clue, it will automatically be entered in the notebook Cole carries with him. This book will have any type of information in it that players find and allow Cole to follow up on leads, travel to different locations around the city and keep track of all people involved.
Furthermore, when working on cases, Cole will have to interrogate different people all over town. When sitting face to face with each of them, Cole can chose from three overall directions to take the conversation to. If the suspect or witness comes on very straight forward Cole can believe him and carry on but if the person seems suspect he can call him or her on the lie with evidence from the notebook or simply express doubt. Doubting a suspect could bring him or her to admit something or shut down. Depending on how the conversation goes, new clues will be added to the notebook.
Visually LA Noire looks great, the game ran smooth on a PS3 build with an incredibly detailed 1940s LA and nice character models. The facial scan adds a new level of realism to the gameplay experience and will be second to none. I was told hundreds of actors were scanned and will create a most realistic animation, never before seen in a videogame.
LA Noire is a crime drama that will have players make their way through the ranks of several ‘desks’, starting from traffic, over burglary to homicide. Each desk will have its own cases which can go different ways depending on how successful players are in working them. I left the demo very impressed and cannot wait for the final game later in May. Team Bondi was given a great opportunity after Rockstar took over the game and it clearly shows in how polished and quality this game looks and feels.
