Ben-DutkaWhile I mentioned it in my review (and I'll probably touch on it during my video commentary, which you'll see in a matter of days), I believe this intriguing subject is worthy of a separate article.
There is nothing revolutionary about the action-based gameplay in L.A. Noire and in fact, that aspect of Team Bondi's impressive achievement actually feels outdated in comparison to the facial recognition technology, which is the clear focus. That being said, those faces alone can indeed be considered revolutionary. As this industry continues to progress, it's critical that we find a way to more fully embrace the reality of humanity. Think about how stories have taken a bigger role in our interactive experiences; then, think about how we interact with one another in real life.
The acting in games like Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is great, but despite all our fancy hardware and developmental advances, the characterization still relies heavily upon the voice actors. In truth, when we speak to others, the majority of communication occurs without words; you know that old saying, "90% of communication is non-verbal." That's absolutely true and if we are to capture the essence of emotion and human drama in video games, we needed another push forward. We needed to emphasize the faces. We needed a technology that can manage to do this.
Hence, MotionScan. I'm not saying it's the answer to the future but it's a definite start. They also picked just the right setting for its debut; placing gamers in the role of a character who must interpret faces on a daily basis. Lives can even depend on those expressions. It wouldn't have been nearly as amazing had such tech been applied to a game that doesn't highlight the need for it. Actually, it's almost as if they wanted to send a message; to say- "Look what we can do now…imagine the ways in which it can be used in the future."
All I can say to that is THUMBS UP! (maybe something else too… :P)
very interesting coments above. is it a glimpse of the future? i don't know. it seems to be a very time intensive process, and some developers have said they aren't going to use it for various reasons.
i eagerly await the next round of consoles. when you consider the memory contraints developers are dealing with it's pretty amazing what they have pulled off.
one last thing. cograts to team bondi for deliviring the 1st r* game that is not gimped on the ps3. the ps3 version is superior without the resolution cuts and frame rate problems we have seen in r*'s past ps3 games. good job.
before i played the game i thought that the faces wouldnt really matter as much as people made out, but they really do, without it, you probably couldnt beat half the cases on the game, im really surprised!
I think L.A. Noire is a glimpse of the now. It definetly looks good and plays well. I hope more games use this technology.
The technology behind the animation and maybe the drama, but I hope the open world gameplay isn't…like Ben said in the review, it is both outdated and repetitive like most Rockstar games. Why does Rockstar make so many open world games yet you can't interact with anything in it. Look at Fallout,you can interact with everything. Rockstar needs to take this approach because RDR, GTAIV, and LA Noire are nothing but eye candy and nothing more when it comes to open world complexity. But then again, thats not the point of their games anyway so yeah, but it would be nice to actaully interact with the world and the people in it…much like Fallout. Why can't I talk to Bonni in RDR after her missions are over or why can't I go revisit Brucie after we finish a mission. Yeah, this is just a random rant, but think of the possibilities, but then again…its just a game so this isn't really that serious. Either way, this game is a glimpse into the future and Rockstar, even though multiplatform always seem to deliver games that outstrip there competitor. Plus, they are making all around maturer games this generation. I grew up with Rockstar and Rockstar seem to be growing up with me too…lol
As great as the motionscan process is I think what was already achieved in various ways in Avatar and various other projects this process in the end will have a small stint. Full motion scan is the real objective for the industry. To capture a wholistic performance in one go.
It's impressive speficially for L.A. Noire but I just don't see much of a future for it outside of a few individual projects in the coming years. Full body capture is already being explored.
"Is L.A. Noire A Glimpse Of The Future?" – Pretty much so, with some Heavy Rain thrown in for good measure…
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
This is only a glimpse of the near future IMO. There are a couple games with this kind of mocap that are coming out soon, including AC:Revelations (which is said to be able to take the performance of a person who can look completely different from a character, and transpose their acting onto that character's face), Uncharted 3 (without the advanced facial capture, seeing as how ND likes to manually do that), and apparently QD's as-of-yet unrevealed game.
So these kinds of performance capture will probably be pretty common fairly soon. The next step will be how the technology evolves with the next gen.