L.A. Noire Not Like GTA, Expect A Much Deeper Experience

L.A. Noire

We know L.A. Noire takes place in Los Angeles in 1947, and we know we play as a crime detective. But perhaps we're not fully checked out on the gameplay, and what we should expect...

First of all, according to Edge, those who are expecting a gritty mobster GTA-type game will be disappointed. Instead, you'll gather and analyze evidence, interrogate witnesses, and challenge suspects; in the end, depending on your diligence and observation skills, the case could take any number of turns. Does this remind anyone else of Heavy Rain...? Rockstar's vice president of product development Jeronimo Barrera spoke about how his project is very different from "traditional adventure games" and how the team wants the player to experience "real-world detective work." Co-founder of Team Bondi, Brendan McNamara, added even more encouraging words to the description:

"You don’t have to find an anchor and combine it with a grapefruit. Everyone knows cop shows – I think that keeps it reasonably approachable. Players know if you turn up at a crime scene you usually have to go and talk to someone and look at the clues around a dead body. Even if the game isn’t that familiar to them, that format is. The risk Rockstar took was buying in to my idea – that we could make a huge genre in movies and literature work in games when no one else had."

Barrera says you "could say it's like GTA because you have this open city you can run around in," but besides that, everything is different. There is action involved, of course, but it's more about "the interactions the characters are having." Aaron Staton, an actor who portrayed Ken Cosgrove in the TV series "Mad Men" and voices the protagonist in L.A. Noire, Cole Phelps, added a bit of humor:

"Everyone will initially want to punch old ladies – I probably would – but people are then going to be interested in the story and solving the cases. And seeing what other old ladies they can punch.

McNamara finishes by saying "you should assume your audience is pretty smart," which definitely implies that L.A. Noire isn't being designed for the masses who perhaps only play shooters, or those who have only played GTA for 10 minutes at a time, just so they can run around in circles and shoot things. This is one of the main reasons we're so very interested in the game, and although there's certainly the freedom of exploration involved, it still reminds us a bit of Heavy Rain: the interaction and importance of characters, the dark atmosphere, the emphasis on story and player choice, etc.  Great stuff.

Related Game(s): L.A. Noire

3/16/2010 10:52:59 AM Ben Dutka

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