L.A. Noire

Rockstar Games released the highly anticipated first trailer for L.A. Noire, coming to PlayStation 3 in 2011, and it looks to be an absolute ‘stunner’. Developed by Team Bondi, a new Australian based studio founded by Brendan McNamara of The Getaway, in conjunction with Rockstar Games, L.A. Noire is a dark and violent detective thriller set against the backdrop of Los Angeles in the post-war years of the late 1940s, the most corrupt and violent period in the city’s history.

One look at the trailer and it becomes quickly apparent why this game has been so long in development. Movie-quality voice acting and dialogue is combined with what can only be described as some of the most realistic in-game visuals yet seen in a console game (certainly as far as character animation goes).

Based on groundbreaking performance capture technology that goes beyond traditional methods to render every subtlety and nuance of an actor’s facial expressions and emotions, L.A. Noire is the first game to truly explore what it means to be a detective, offering players the opportunity to solve crimes through a blend of classic action, clue-finding and interrogation, allowing players to analyse every subtle nuance of an actor’s performance in order to get to the truth.

Set in a perfectly recreated Los Angeles before freeways, with a post-war backdrop of corruption, drugs and jazz, L.A. Noire truly blends cinema and gaming, and will be available on PS3 in 2011.