New L.A. Noire Screenshots and Details Unveiled

In Spring 2011 Rockstar Games will be letting us slip on our fedora and trenchcoat, and enter the seedy underworld of Los Angeles in L.A. Noire. Today the developers Team Bondi have released some new screenshots and a few more details about the game itself. The new batch of images once again showcases the incredibly impressive MotionScan facial scanning technology developed by Rockstar. They have also released further background information that will help flesh out the character of the protagonist – LAPD Detective Cole Phelps.

The team states how the technology enables them to capture and scan every nuance of an actor’s face and transpose that into the game, allowing for a level of realism, detail, performance and emotion never produced in a videogame before. Rather than just a series of hotspots or reference points on a human actor, this method takes the whole performance and carries it over into the gameplay. This is intended to allow players to feel like a detective, needing to read the emotional behavior of the characters they encounter – lending itself perfectly to a game where the focuses is on characters and performances where everyone has something to hide. In fact, Team Bondi have stressed that lying will be a major feature of the game, as suspects and witnesses alike will hide the truth or throw you red herrings – and it will be down to the detective skills of the player as to whether these falsehoods will lead you astray or not. Analysing the behaviour and expressions of a character in interrogations will be a unique element that will have a huge bearing on cases.

Coupled with clue-finding and classic elements like shootouts and car chases, players will have the opportunity  to truly explore being a Detective in the corrupt and violent L.A. gangland. Set in 1947 Los Angeles, the game focuses on the story of Cole Phelps, a decorated World War II veteran and newly recruited detective in the LAPD. You will play as Phelps as he works his way through the ranks of the LAPD, taking on a series of cases and investigations inspired by real crimes that happened in LA during the 1940s. Sections of the game are handled via different desks at the LAPD. As you rise up the ranks, you will move on to different departments and gain new partners to work with. Each solved case is a step up the ladder, but also brings him closer to the criminal underworld, until he is embroiled in events far beyond his control, revealing the truth about the dark secrets in the city of Angels.

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L.A. Noire is due to be released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 sometime in Spring 2011.