L.A. Noire
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www.rockstargames.com/lanoire/features/achievements/
The game is gonna have 40 achievements/trophies. Click on the link to see them (no story-related spoilers). From the list, I can tell that you'll be able to respond to street crimes, like True Crime maybe? You'll be able to use "intuition points" during interviews. There will be hidden gold film reels for you to find. And there are over 40 vehicles you can drive.
The game is gonna have 40 achievements/trophies. Click on the link to see them (no story-related spoilers). From the list, I can tell that you'll be able to respond to street crimes, like True Crime maybe? You'll be able to use "intuition points" during interviews. There will be hidden gold film reels for you to find. And there are over 40 vehicles you can drive.
L.A. Noire: Sifting the Evidence
L.A. Noire is nothing if not ambitious. At first glance it may seem to tell a simple story; that of Cole Phelps – decorated WWII veteran – and his rise through the Los Angeles police force. Given that he moves from case to case, and desk to desk: from beat cop through traffic, arson, vice and homicide, it's not hard to see gamers thinking that this is a linear game; that players aren't necessarily active agents in the narrative. But that's a long way from the case.
"It's absolutely non-linear storytelling," says Jeronimo Barrera, VP of Product Development at Rockstar, "and although the cases wrap up in a linear fashion, going one from the other, the way that you actually play it can be very different from your friends." Indeed, L.A. Noire is constantly branching and adapting depending on what players do and the choices they make. The homicides that tie the overarching story together may not change, but a hell of a lot does.
Investigating a case sees players examining crime scenes, finding and examining clues, discovering and visiting significant locations, speaking to people of interest and even engaging in some good old fashioned action in the form of fisticuffs, shoot-outs and chase sequences. There's nothing that's cut and dry about any of these elements, however. It's possible to miss clues, make poor choices in conversations that result in Phelps missing information he needs and failing action sequences. Indeed, in The Fallen Idol case, there's a fight scene that players can miss entirely if they take their time going to the apartment in question, with the result that the scene plays out completely differently.
And that's what will make L.A. Noire a game that players will discuss and dissect. Like Heavy Rain, players won't know about the paths they miss and the sequences that they don't see – they live with the story consequences of their decisions and actions. As you can imagine, this creates something of a minefield, and the team has had to methodically work through every possible permutation and outcome, looking for 'logic bombs'. Maintaining the logic of the gameworld basically adds up to a whole lot of work: writing more dialogue and creating more scenes, all so that the one path the player does take is seamless. No wonder the script comes in at 2,200 pages.
A big part of this process is deciding how the game will adapt when the player fails to get information crucial to the case at hand. In my play-through of The Silk Stocking Murder, for instance, I made poor choices during a conversation with the landlady of a murdered girl, and thus missed out on information about a bar where I might learn more about the case. Thankfully, at a suspect's apartment, I came across a box of matches from the same bar, opening that location up.
It's not always that simple, however. "There's not a once size fits all solution for this stuff," says Rob Nelson, Art Director at Rockstar Studios. "Sometimes you'll miss a location entirely, sometimes if you miss something at a location, we make it work so that somebody comes up to you in the station and tells you about another lead to follow up so you can find it. We have to make sure people can get through this story."
Funnily enough, performing poorly will often mean that players will see more content, simply because they have to take a more circuitous route. "If you don't ask the right questions then you maybe end up having to chase down leads," Rob explains. By way of example, he outlines a situation where making the correct choices in a conversation gives players a partial license plate, enabling Phelps to locate a particular car with ease. Steer the conversation in the wrong direction, however, and the player may only get a description of a 'blue Ford coupe'. Call that in to the station and you get ten possible matches. Ask which of those have priors and you still don't have a single possible owner, and Phelps may have to visit three separate residences to find the person he's looking for.
"All those little scenes that you get there," Rob continues, "all that content had to be created, just in case you miss getting the question right about the partial plate. And if you get the question right about the partial plate, then you never do any of that stuff and you never see it… there's tonnes of extra content in there that you just won't see unless you're playing it through different ways [at] different times." Indeed, the only time players will clearly know there's content they've missed is if they have a choice of two locations they can go to, and they visit one but never see the other.
This dynamism also extends to the intersection of various gameplay mechanics, and in fact, this is where L.A. Noire has the potential to be most nuanced. As discussed, players can make correct or incorrect choices during conversations, but it's the decision-making behind each choice that is fascinating, as it combines all aspects of detective work: keeping track of all the information you've learned and all the evidence you've gathered, and using it to gain information, as well as using instinct and observation to gauge the expressions of the people you're talking to; to try and tell at a glance whether they're telling the truth, withholding information or lying.
Players can't completely succeed without using all the tools at their disposal. During each segment of a conversation, Phelps has three choices: believe, doubt and lie. Even if you can read the subject's expression, the decision to choose doubt or lie is determined by whether the player does or doesn't have evidence. Choosing 'lie' means the player must present the evidence that reveals the lie. It sounds like a straightforward system, but once you factor in the fact that it's possible for the player to have visited a location and missed the piece of evidence that moves the conversation in the optimal direction, it's clear that L.A. Noire is shooting for a very layered approach.
The team put a lot of work into getting the balance of these conversational vignettes just right, and making them feel like - in Rob's words - "a natural process." And that wouldn't have been possible without the fidelity of the facial animations achieved with the MotionScan technology used in the game's development. "I would say motion capture is usually more theatrical," comments Jeronimo. "Since we're doing something that hasn't been done in games before - which is the close-up for emotion - we're able to be way more subtle."
Each scene is able to be tuned, too; to painstakingly pick the performances that the team think fit it best. "We actually shot a lot of different facial performances," Rob recalls. "At this stage of development we're always tuning mechanics, whether it's hit points on enemies, or the number of enemies in a room - which we did on this game as well - but in tuning difficulty we're also tuning the facial performances of these people that you're questioning to make sure it's not too easy at the end and the tells aren't too big, so that it gets harder as it goes."
"It's us going 'this blend from her saying this line so you know she's lying is too obvious, so let's see if we've got one that we captured that was a little bit more subtle'," adds Jeronimo.
Players will have a fair degree of control over the level of difficulty themselves. If they really want to live the life of a detective, for instance, they can visit crime scenes without any of the assists – no musical cues, no controller rumble when a piece of evidence is nearby. Of course, the flipside is also true – the intuition system is designed to help players if they need it, while failing an action sequence a number of times results in players being given the option to skip it altogether, Red Dead Redemption style.
The point is to deliver an experience that's multifaceted and engaging. "You might be more interested in the police side of it," says Jeronimo, "I might be more interested in Phelps' home life, Rob might be more interested in the crimes themselves, and it's all there. These things come in and out of each other, and I think that's where a lot of the replay value is – going back and enjoying those elements."
"The gameplay is pretty varied," Rob adds. "You think you're investigating a crime scene then somebody comes in on you and then you're in a foot chase that turns into a car chase that turns into a gun fight, or doesn't… You tackle the guy and arrest him. So you never know what's going to happen. And you have a lot of different partners throughout the game, and you have a lot of desks that you're on. You're going to different types of crimes, so I think it is continually fresh. And the fact that we're dealing with real actors, so you're talking to new people every single time… you're always talking to weird, different, new characters. There's tonnes of things that keep it fresh."
Whether Team Bondi can tie it all together remains to be seen, but there's certainly a lot about L.A. Noire that's refreshing and bold, and that's not something you can say all that often. "We're doing something really crazy and different, and I think that the industry needs more of that," Jeronimo states. "Guys like David Cage definitely opened some doors for us in this avenue, and we're just hoping we can capture the imagination of a very wide audience so that we get to see more of this stuff."
"It's like GTA," he concludes; "very big and opens up a lot of possibilities."
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1162011p1.html
L.A. Noire is nothing if not ambitious. At first glance it may seem to tell a simple story; that of Cole Phelps – decorated WWII veteran – and his rise through the Los Angeles police force. Given that he moves from case to case, and desk to desk: from beat cop through traffic, arson, vice and homicide, it's not hard to see gamers thinking that this is a linear game; that players aren't necessarily active agents in the narrative. But that's a long way from the case.
"It's absolutely non-linear storytelling," says Jeronimo Barrera, VP of Product Development at Rockstar, "and although the cases wrap up in a linear fashion, going one from the other, the way that you actually play it can be very different from your friends." Indeed, L.A. Noire is constantly branching and adapting depending on what players do and the choices they make. The homicides that tie the overarching story together may not change, but a hell of a lot does.
Investigating a case sees players examining crime scenes, finding and examining clues, discovering and visiting significant locations, speaking to people of interest and even engaging in some good old fashioned action in the form of fisticuffs, shoot-outs and chase sequences. There's nothing that's cut and dry about any of these elements, however. It's possible to miss clues, make poor choices in conversations that result in Phelps missing information he needs and failing action sequences. Indeed, in The Fallen Idol case, there's a fight scene that players can miss entirely if they take their time going to the apartment in question, with the result that the scene plays out completely differently.
And that's what will make L.A. Noire a game that players will discuss and dissect. Like Heavy Rain, players won't know about the paths they miss and the sequences that they don't see – they live with the story consequences of their decisions and actions. As you can imagine, this creates something of a minefield, and the team has had to methodically work through every possible permutation and outcome, looking for 'logic bombs'. Maintaining the logic of the gameworld basically adds up to a whole lot of work: writing more dialogue and creating more scenes, all so that the one path the player does take is seamless. No wonder the script comes in at 2,200 pages.
A big part of this process is deciding how the game will adapt when the player fails to get information crucial to the case at hand. In my play-through of The Silk Stocking Murder, for instance, I made poor choices during a conversation with the landlady of a murdered girl, and thus missed out on information about a bar where I might learn more about the case. Thankfully, at a suspect's apartment, I came across a box of matches from the same bar, opening that location up.
It's not always that simple, however. "There's not a once size fits all solution for this stuff," says Rob Nelson, Art Director at Rockstar Studios. "Sometimes you'll miss a location entirely, sometimes if you miss something at a location, we make it work so that somebody comes up to you in the station and tells you about another lead to follow up so you can find it. We have to make sure people can get through this story."
Funnily enough, performing poorly will often mean that players will see more content, simply because they have to take a more circuitous route. "If you don't ask the right questions then you maybe end up having to chase down leads," Rob explains. By way of example, he outlines a situation where making the correct choices in a conversation gives players a partial license plate, enabling Phelps to locate a particular car with ease. Steer the conversation in the wrong direction, however, and the player may only get a description of a 'blue Ford coupe'. Call that in to the station and you get ten possible matches. Ask which of those have priors and you still don't have a single possible owner, and Phelps may have to visit three separate residences to find the person he's looking for.
"All those little scenes that you get there," Rob continues, "all that content had to be created, just in case you miss getting the question right about the partial plate. And if you get the question right about the partial plate, then you never do any of that stuff and you never see it… there's tonnes of extra content in there that you just won't see unless you're playing it through different ways [at] different times." Indeed, the only time players will clearly know there's content they've missed is if they have a choice of two locations they can go to, and they visit one but never see the other.
This dynamism also extends to the intersection of various gameplay mechanics, and in fact, this is where L.A. Noire has the potential to be most nuanced. As discussed, players can make correct or incorrect choices during conversations, but it's the decision-making behind each choice that is fascinating, as it combines all aspects of detective work: keeping track of all the information you've learned and all the evidence you've gathered, and using it to gain information, as well as using instinct and observation to gauge the expressions of the people you're talking to; to try and tell at a glance whether they're telling the truth, withholding information or lying.
Players can't completely succeed without using all the tools at their disposal. During each segment of a conversation, Phelps has three choices: believe, doubt and lie. Even if you can read the subject's expression, the decision to choose doubt or lie is determined by whether the player does or doesn't have evidence. Choosing 'lie' means the player must present the evidence that reveals the lie. It sounds like a straightforward system, but once you factor in the fact that it's possible for the player to have visited a location and missed the piece of evidence that moves the conversation in the optimal direction, it's clear that L.A. Noire is shooting for a very layered approach.
The team put a lot of work into getting the balance of these conversational vignettes just right, and making them feel like - in Rob's words - "a natural process." And that wouldn't have been possible without the fidelity of the facial animations achieved with the MotionScan technology used in the game's development. "I would say motion capture is usually more theatrical," comments Jeronimo. "Since we're doing something that hasn't been done in games before - which is the close-up for emotion - we're able to be way more subtle."
Each scene is able to be tuned, too; to painstakingly pick the performances that the team think fit it best. "We actually shot a lot of different facial performances," Rob recalls. "At this stage of development we're always tuning mechanics, whether it's hit points on enemies, or the number of enemies in a room - which we did on this game as well - but in tuning difficulty we're also tuning the facial performances of these people that you're questioning to make sure it's not too easy at the end and the tells aren't too big, so that it gets harder as it goes."
"It's us going 'this blend from her saying this line so you know she's lying is too obvious, so let's see if we've got one that we captured that was a little bit more subtle'," adds Jeronimo.
Players will have a fair degree of control over the level of difficulty themselves. If they really want to live the life of a detective, for instance, they can visit crime scenes without any of the assists – no musical cues, no controller rumble when a piece of evidence is nearby. Of course, the flipside is also true – the intuition system is designed to help players if they need it, while failing an action sequence a number of times results in players being given the option to skip it altogether, Red Dead Redemption style.
The point is to deliver an experience that's multifaceted and engaging. "You might be more interested in the police side of it," says Jeronimo, "I might be more interested in Phelps' home life, Rob might be more interested in the crimes themselves, and it's all there. These things come in and out of each other, and I think that's where a lot of the replay value is – going back and enjoying those elements."
"The gameplay is pretty varied," Rob adds. "You think you're investigating a crime scene then somebody comes in on you and then you're in a foot chase that turns into a car chase that turns into a gun fight, or doesn't… You tackle the guy and arrest him. So you never know what's going to happen. And you have a lot of different partners throughout the game, and you have a lot of desks that you're on. You're going to different types of crimes, so I think it is continually fresh. And the fact that we're dealing with real actors, so you're talking to new people every single time… you're always talking to weird, different, new characters. There's tonnes of things that keep it fresh."
Whether Team Bondi can tie it all together remains to be seen, but there's certainly a lot about L.A. Noire that's refreshing and bold, and that's not something you can say all that often. "We're doing something really crazy and different, and I think that the industry needs more of that," Jeronimo states. "Guys like David Cage definitely opened some doors for us in this avenue, and we're just hoping we can capture the imagination of a very wide audience so that we get to see more of this stuff."
"It's like GTA," he concludes; "very big and opens up a lot of possibilities."
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1162011p1.html
