L.A. Noire - by EvaUnit02
242 on 16/3/2011 at 14:38
I don't put much faith into it.
Having played RDR , even though I liked it and it was more mature than GTA, I think it still was too easy and felt gamey with all that marks, wayponts etc. - it didn't require to think or explore at all. I mean R* isn't exactly known for deep games employing thinking process, so I fear this one may come out a bit too arcade-ish, true R* style.
demagogue on 16/3/2011 at 15:52
I saw LA Confidential a few days ago and I thought about that actually.
I didn't understand why games have to be so gamey when movies can be gritty and mature without a lot of gimmicks and still popular and great fun to watch (which LAC definitely is), and I thought exactly of LA Noire. If they make it with the atmosphere of LA Confidential, they could tap into that and not need a bunch of gimmicks to make a great game just as fun.
But I was also afraid that they just wouldn't wrap their minds around a non-gamey game, not with that much money & risk involved. But it's still curious to me. Gamers are the same people that watch movies; so why does the gaming culture demand gimmicks in games but can enjoy a great movie without them (but then I think about the sad state of gimmicky movies everywhere these days too... :erg: ).
Thirith on 16/3/2011 at 15:59
Quote Posted by demagogue
I didn't understand why games have to be so gamey when movies can be gritty and mature without a lot of gimmicks and still popular and great fun to watch (which LAC definitely is), and I thought exactly of LA Noire. If they make it with the atmosphere of LA Confidential, they could tap into that and not need a bunch of gimmicks to make a great game just as fun.
But I was also afraid that they just wouldn't wrap their minds around a non-gamey game, not with that much money & risk involved. But it's still curious to me. Gamers are the same people that watch movies; so why does the gaming culture demand gimmicks in games but can enjoy a great movie without them (but then I think about the sad state of gimmicky movies everywhere these days too... :erg: ).
Can you be more specific about that? Because at the moment I don't really get what you're saying, primarily because games != movies. There are some overlaps, and IMO Rockstar are just about the best developer when it comes to creating games that combine the strengths of the two media, but to me it isn't at all clear what you'd consider to be gamey gimmicks and what you'd consider valid gameplay elements.
demagogue on 16/3/2011 at 16:42
Yeah it ended up vague because I was trying to stretch the analogy maybe too far. Underlying it is what feels to me a kind of attitude or expectation in the viewer about what they should expect in this media, but it manifests itself differently in games and movies.
In games, I think about the things 242 mentioned as gamey or gimmicky, marks popping up on the screen, waypoints, a little flashing arrow telling you which way to go or button telling you which button to push in this situation (which itself is a kind of purpose-built puzzle situation where that button is the "push me and do it" thing), and the arcade-ish or gamey parts, hard to define precisely but something you feel in some games more than others. (I don't want to go off on a tangent since we have whole threads on this. I really enjoy Rockstar games too, even the arcadish parts of GTA, so don't get me wrong, but LA Noire does give the impression it's going in a different direction, less gamey, at least in how it seems to be branding itself.) In movies the equivalent is like a whole scene constructed just to serve a particularly gratuitous eyecandy or zing, not that eyecandy and zings are bad per se, but they're good when they're at the service of a character or scene, rather than the other way around.
And just the general idea that I guess crosses both media of bringing such explicit attention to things to explain them to the audience so they can't possibly miss it, lampshade hanging or hamfisting them, to use the colorful terms for it.
I probably don't want to stretch the analogy too far and say it's exactly the same thing going on in all these cases. But I do get this feeling like when some people go into a game or movie, they give a knowing nod or grin when they see these kind of gimmicky things, or are glad they're there so they can follow what's going on otherwise they'd feel at sea without a life-jacket, God-forbid treading on their own power, and then the idea that these things are actually what they're even paying for, and there's an expectation, if they aren't there something's missing and they're not getting what they paid for.
It's just an impressionistic feeling I had though when watching LA Confidential and then thinking about LA Noire (since I felt LA Con. was an example of a movie that's great fun without using tricks that other movies use, then I wondered if LA Noire might be a game equivalent). But it's not like an airtight argument, so I don't want to push it too far.
EvaUnit02 on 16/3/2011 at 18:53
Funny, watching the "Orientation" featurettes, LA Noire gives me the impression of being gamey as hell, especially the detective/investigation mechanics. HERE'S A CHECKLIST MENU OF THINGS TO ASK THE PERP. THE PENCIL IN COLE'S HAND IS THE CURSOR. PRESS X TO LIE.
Rockstar have to make games for the mass-market to justify the massive budgets they give their games. So you're going to get things like a magical GPS system in a game set in the 1930s or whenever. Red Dead Redemption in particular was a massive money black hole, which likely will never recoup its budget, no matter how successful it is. This doesn't stop at the game design, dude. GTA4's writing felt like it was running through a list of crime drama film tropes, archetypes and cliches, because it's probably what a mainstream audience is familiar with.
I honestly made peace with this sort of thing long ago and just shrug it off. They're necessary evils of AAA games development (especially by publicly traded companies).
gunsmoke on 16/3/2011 at 22:52
I have faith in R* making a good, cinematically impressive game for a really good reason; they made The Warriors.
Tonamel on 17/3/2011 at 06:10
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Red Dead Redemption in particular was a massive money black hole, which likely will never recoup its budget, no matter how successful it is.
RDR has sold (
http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/08/online-content-helps-push-red-dead-redemption-game-sales-to-8m/) eight million copies as of last month. If we assume every copy was bought at the current price of $40, that comes to $320,000,000. Of course, we know that tons of copies were sold at launch, so the total is probably closer to five hundred million.
How high a budget do you think it had?
L.A. Noire looks more awesome every time I look at it. Pity I don't own any consoles.
EvaUnit02 on 17/3/2011 at 06:39
here.
june gloom on 17/3/2011 at 06:48
Quote Posted by the article Evabot just linked to without actually checking to see whether it backed his argument up and instead is the outdated source he so obviously blithely parroted
"It will take 4 million sales at full price to recoup the development costs of Red Dead."
Inline Image:
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t185/dethtoll/awwjeah.gifhenke on 17/3/2011 at 06:51
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
HERE'S A CHECKLIST MENU OF THINGS TO ASK THE PERP. THE PENCIL IN COLE'S HAND IS THE CURSOR. PRESS X TO LIE.
How else would you handle the conversations? Text-parser, like in Leisure Suit Larry? Surely a real detective writes clues down in a notebook. Ok, I guess he might just keep them in his head but thoughtbubbles with the relevant clues popping up over his head would look stupid. I know you haven't said that and I don't mean to build a strawman here, I'm just thinking of how else it could be handled.
Anyway I'm pretty sure the items on the checklist doesn't just pop up out of nowhere for you gaming-convenience. You'll have to talk to people and investigate the crimescene to come up with new clues.
But I'm not too crazy about the dialogue options being lie/truth/threaten/whatever either. It's a bit too vague, hard to predict what your guy is gonna actually say.
