Rockstar has put together a “Technology Behind the Game” video for the upcoming 1940s crime-drama game L.A. Noire. If you have caught any of the teasers so far, the first thing to hit you or anyone watching the videos is how unbelievably realistic the facial animations look; better than GTA IV, better than the fantastic Red Dead Redemption (and better than Heavenly Sword if you want a comparison to another mo-cap facial animation title that wasn’t from Rockstar).
At around 2:50 in the video the Rockstar director makes the point that the technology was necessary in order for you (the player) to pick up on deceptions by key characters during the story and depending on your reactions the story would take different paths:
This is an incredibly ambitious, industry-leading move by Rockstar, but if there is a company out there that can pull this off, it is them.
Too bad the game itself is repetitive to the point of tedium. Red Dead may not have all the cool technology, but is by FAR a superior game.
I would sort of agree… only about 4 hours into LA Noire, but am not that fond of the interrogation system… it’s almost impossible for me to tell what the game wants between LIE and DOUBT, especially on the larger cases where I have 20 pieces of evidence and I have no idea what the reaction will be to showing something I think is compelling just to have the game shut me down.
It’s cool, but not as fun as Red Dead was.