L.A. Noire Message Board

Need a copy of Max Payne 2 or LA Noire on the cheap? Newegg's got you covered.

A visit to the online tech retailer reveals the ongoing "Rockstar Catalog Sale," a promotion that reduces the price on almost everything Rockstar Games has created by up to 76 percent. As a result of this sale, you can now purchase Manhunt for $3, Bully: Scholarship Edition for $5.10 or Grand Theft Auto 4 for $6.

Before you get too excited, there are caveats to keep in mind here. First, these are all PC games (with occasional Mac compatibility), and these sale prices only apply to direct downloads. Second, there's no word on when this sale might end. Scouring Newegg's site offers nothing, and our attempts to contact the retailer went unanswered. If you want to take advantage of these prices, we'd suggest you do so soon.

The biggest caveat however, is that this sale only applies to "almost everything" Rockstar has ever created. The first two Grand Theft Auto games are missing, as are the first and third Midnight Club entries. Grand Theft Auto 5 also fails to appear, but that's to be expected given that no PC version of GTA 5 yet exists.

VideoGamer.com has come into possession of what they say is gameplay footage from Whore of the Orient, the new game from the creators of L.A. Noire.Read more...

According to sources from KMM’s games division, the team currently working on Whore of the Orient with L.A. Noire creator Brendan McNamara, is being shut down after the game’s publisher withdrew support. A source contacted Kotaku earlier today with the news, and more have apparently come forward to MCV Pacific confirming the closure. Multiple sources stated the team initially lost their publisher towards the end of last year. But interestingly, KMM’s game division had been advertising for new positions as recently as April 5 2013, looking for a Lead Engine Programmer to work on their long rumoured ‘Whore of the Orient’ project. When we called to enquire about the positions we were informed that those position had been delayed for four to six months. Those positions were for a next-gen game on a three year development cycle, set for release in 2015. This seems to complicate matters a little — why would a studio without a publisher send out job ads for a project in jeopardy? It’s possible that the project found a publisher, lost in late 2012, found another publishing deal and then subsequently lost that one — but at this stage no-one will discuss the details. We spoke to Warner Bros this afternoon who refused to comment on the situation, as did KMM when we called them this afternoon. KMM would only confirm that KMM, as a company, was still up and running, but would not discuss the situation regarding KMM’s game division. We’ll update when we hear more. This post was republished from Kotaku Australia.

Here’s something I never thought of when playing LA Noire. Whatever its other merits and failings, the stuff it does with facial animation and performance capture was amazing, and something the whole industry can benefit from presuming it’s not drowning in a thousand million unbreakable patents (which it probably is). However, all it was being used for was to, essentially, just achieve a slightly better version of something games and especially their cutscenes already did. We can find rehearsed, scripted dialogue and, to wildly varying degrees, attendant facial emotion and animation, all over the place. What we can’t find is naturalistic, unrehearsed performances – people being people, as opposed to be people being videogame characters. Take a look at this to see how big the difference can be.(more…)

#watchthisnow Is this reel real? Depth Analysis, which created the face scanning technology used in 2011's L.A. Noire, for some reason released an outtakes reel on Thursday and it shows just how sophisticated the technology really is. We're not just hearing voice actors flub lines, snicker and look off-camera, we're seeing their game characters do it, too, 1:1, real-time. Holy Toledo, this is video gaming's first motion-captured blooper reel. More »

Usually, when TV and video games cross paths, it's either for the sake of a licensed game based on a popular TV show, or occasionally the much more elusive specter of a game becoming a TV show. Here's a new one: A game company suing a TV show's creators for using the name of one of its properties. Take-Two is doing just that, according to Frank Darabont, known for his work on The Shawshank Redemption and The Walking Dead TV series. Darabont recently told io9 that Take-Two threatened to sue him, the TNT network and "every company that actually ever worked in Hollywood" over the name of his new show, L.A. Noir.

You might not have recognized it without the extra E, but that's remarkably similar to L.A. Noire, Rockstar's dark crime thriller and one of Take-Two's most successful games of 2011. Darabont's show is based on a book titled L.A. Noir, which was actually published in 2009, prior to the video game. Even so, Darabont says Take-Two has "billions of dollars" to finance a lawsuit, so the show will be renamed Lost Angels. His valuation of Take-Two seems awfully high - the company had just over a billion in assets as of last September - though it's understandable that the people behind the project would want to avoid litigation.

Take-Two denies Darabont's claims, with a spokesperson telling Joystiq, "It's unfortunate that Mr. Darabont finds it necessary to gain publicity by making inaccurate statements - Take-Two never contacted Mr. Darabont nor threatened to sue any party." The publisher did reach out to TNT in order to "express concern over confusion between the properties." According to spokesperson, TNT "had decided to change the title of the show independent of Take-Two's concerns."

#lanoire Hollywood director and writer Frank Darabont was working on a TV show called LA Noir, which aside from having a similar name to Rockstar's 2011 adventure was also set in Los Angeles circa 1947, the same year the game begins. Despite being based on a book by the same name, he says he's had to change the name after Rockstar "threatened to sue the shit out of me". More »

KMM Interactive, the studio that picked up Brendan McNamara and the remnants of L.A. Noire's Team Bondi, posted openings that suggest the group's next game, Whore of the Orient, is scheduled to be complete in 2015.

Spotted by Superannuation, job openings describe the game as a "narrative action adventure" that is "similar in style to LA Noire," and uses the same MotionScan tech that gave Cole his grisly demeanor.

The job descriptions set a target for full production from early 2013 to mid 2015. Whore of the Orient is a next-gen console and PC game published by Warner Bros. Interactive, and McNamara first pitched it as "one of the great untold stories of the twentieth century."

According to a website that went live for a spell in August, the game is set in 1936 Shanghai, China, and stars the International Police Force, a western group "hopelessly trying to keep the lid on and keep the peace." The website taglined the game as, "Whore of the Orient. Paris of the East."

L.A. Noire spent seven years in development, so just two for a game "similar in style" and using the same technology, from much of the same team, seems ambitious. But hey, that's what energy drinks are for.

This patch addresses the following:
• Compatibility fixes for Windows 8
• Other minor fixes

#goodreads When you introduce a video game to an older relative who doesn't play them—a parent or a grandparent—and they realize they've underestimated how detailed, how immersive these things really are, the conversations you have after that really are special. If this hasn't happened for you, ask anyone for whom it has. More »

#whoreoftheorient Brendan McNamara's first game had players exploring the seamy underbelly of an impressive, gleaming recreation of 1940s Los Angeles with L.A. Noire. In his next game—being produced with film production firm KMM Interactive—the grime is all out in the open. More »

Amazon's 'Spring Sale' kicked off today on select digitally distributed content for PC, featuring deep discounts on titles that even if you don't play now could be saved for a rainy day. The standout of the pack is Rockstar's detective adventure L.A. Noire for $5, a price that makes us almost forgive and forget any confusion over "truth, doubt or lie" interrogation techniques.

Also worth grabbing is the Dragon Age Pack, a bundle which includes Origins Ultimate and Dragon Age 2, for $10. The recently released and well-received shooter The Darkness 2 can be yours for $12.50.

There's also a couple Hamiltons off Mass Effect 3, Syndicate and Kingdoms of Amalur. Check out the list of discounted core titles (there's also 300 casual titles on sale) after the break.

• Steam overlay now works in DX11 mode.
• Fixed issue where a small number of valid display resolutions were missing.

You went out and set up your fancy rig, with all of its shaders and its pixel core density modifiers -- you want to play games that will take full advantage of your hardware. We hear you.

So has Rockstar. DirectX 11 support headlines the latest title update for L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition, which should hopefully help you better decide the fates of the game's virtual persons of interest. You'll be able to switch between DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 renderers on the fly through the game launcher.

#batman Just like a comic-book plotline where two crimefighters battle it out to find out who's best, the members of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts will decide whether Cole Phelps and Batman had the better video game. More »

• DirectX 11 support added for improved performance on many Windows Vista and Windows 7 setups using DX11 graphics cards
• Option added to game launcher allowing switching between DirectX 9 and 11 renderers
• Additional checks added that make sure a selected video resolution is fully compatible with L.A. Noire

Even following the closure of developer Team Bondi, Rockstar isn't necessarily giving up on more LA Noire. In a recent Q&A session, a Rockstar rep noted that while there won't be any more content released for LA Noire, fans shouldn't "count out the possibility of a new game in the LA Noire franchise in the future." The studio added that it is "considering what the future may hold for LA Noire as a series," and that it doesn't "always rush to make sequels, but that does not mean [it] won't get to them eventually." This isn't the first time LA Noire has been referred to as a franchise. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick called it "a powerful new franchise" shortly after LA Noire's release last year, though that was before Team Bondi was shuttered.

That Rockstar is still bullish on LA Noire is particularly noteworthy considering the fate of Team Bondi. In other words, if Rockstar pursues an LA Noire sequel, it will do so without the developer that made it a success. Then again, that's not anything new for Rockstar -- it's currently developing Max Payne 3, part of a series originally created by Alan Wake developer Remedy.

#lanoire With its original developers shut down and with a story that ends rather conclusively, you wouldn't think Rockstar's LA Noire would be in line for a sequel. But it might be. Maybe. More »

Rockstar has revealed that another L.A. Noire game could still happen in the future...

Rockstar has revealed that another L.A. Noire game could still happen in the future...

A month after the last half-off deal for Bastion on XBLA, Microsoft is offering the discount again. If you happened to miss out on our #5 game of 2011, you can pick it up for 600 Microsoft Points from January 31 through February 6. If you're eager to spend money this week, all LA Noire DLC is half off on the Xbox Live Marketplace through January 30.

Upcoming XBLA releases include Puddle and Quarrel this week, and a new Kinect dance game from Konami's DanceMasters team on Feb. 1. You can see Rhythm Party above, in the moment before you're struck blind.

#speakuponkotaku While games like L.A. Noire and Batman: Arkham Asylum put on a good detective show, are we really detecting anything? Commenter Soleyu describes what a true detective game should be like in today's elementary edition of Speak Up on Kotaku. More »

#sherlock Sherlock, the BBC's modern-day Sherlock Holmes reimagining, is a heck of an enjoyable tv show. In addition to the solid writing, strong acting, and un-cheesy modernizing of Holmes, I'm struck by the many ways that Sherlock uses the visual language of video games to place viewers in the mind of the master deducer himself. More »

#2011yearinvideogames The hardest thing at the end of the year is to parse yourself from the hype you're experiencing and think back to the games you played during the summer, the spring, and yes, 2011's early months. More »

Heavy Rain asks us "How far would you go to save someone you love?" Few games bother with this sort of question because the answer is intensely personal. Most games would rather task you with saving the world than with rocking a baby to sleep or patching up a failed relationship. This intransigence on the part of developers to create idiosyncratic stories that resonate with the individual is holding the medium back.

Why should gaming's prime inspiration be Michael Bay instead of David Lynch, David Mamet, Paul Thomas Anderson, or even Mel Brooks? An interactive medium like this has the potential to tell complex stories in ways that are sublime, irreverent, and evocative.

Gaming could explore the human condition by interfacing with the player like books, movies, and TV never could. Instead, we do battle with rogue Russian nationalists, storm Normandy for the 47th time, or fight off an alien invasion. I can't relate to any of this.

I'm tired of saving the world, and the industry is belatedly coming to the same realization. My favorite games of 2011, L.A. Noire and Catherine, spent generous time on character development, with highly personal stories that resonate with the individual.

• Fix to prevent mouse cursor from turning on when using -str command line to improve performance
• Render state optimizations to improve performance
• Single-threaded renderer option added to game launcher to improve graphics performance on certain setups
• Crash when exiting the game is now fixed

#gamemusic2011 Welcome to Kotaku's "Best Game Music of 2011," a multi-part series in which we'll be talking about the best video game soundtracks of the year. Today, we'll take a look at the smooth tones and bustling swing of Rockstar's L.A. Noire. More »

If we're to get another L.A. Noire game, it will most likely be developed at a Rockstar studio.

We may not see a sequel to L.A. Noire crafted by former Team Bondi leader Brendan McNamara, but he will continue to make video games, as revealed in an interview with film director George Miller.

Miller spoke with Financial Review, and revealed he was partnering with Kennedy Miller Mitchell Interactive, a combination of former Krome Studios and Team Bondi employees, to develop a Mad Max video and McNamara’s next project, the currently dubbed Whore of the Orient.

Parts of Team Bondi lives on, even if it’s not called Team Bondi anymore. The LA Noire developer ran into financial turmoil after the game’s release in May, forcing the studio to dissolve, but some of its employees, including McNamara, joined Kennedy Miller Mitchell Interactive.

There’s no timetable for either game, but former God of War designer Cory Barlog was once working with Miller on the long-gestating Mad Max video game. Miller has been trying to get a new movie off the ground for years, as well.

L.A. Noire is finally out for PC. While we work on the review we've put up a commentary video giving y'all a taste of what's coming. Join IGN Editor Anthony Gallegos and PC Executive Editor Charles Onyett as they journey into the seedy side of 1940's Los Angeles. Also, they push people onto the ground...

Australia has one of the most lenient video-game-rating systems in the world.

No, really -- despite its reputation as an ultra-conservative, mature-rating hating government, "the reality is that many more games that are restricted to 17-year-olds in the U.S. or 18-year-olds in Europe are available without edit for 15-year-olds in Australia," said Chris Wright, former marketing head for THQ's two Australian studios, Blue Tongue and Studio Australia. "On balance, Australia is probably the most lenient country in the world for access to mature games."

No, really -- Wright was the man who presented Saints Row to the Australian classification board and he prepared plenty of ratings submissions in the country, both as head of THQ Asia Pacific and its two Australian studios. He knows the system, meaning he knows what it has and what it doesn't, such as an R18+ rating.

"I believe passionately that Australia needs an R18+ rating," Wright said. "But for me the R18+ rating is not about access to games, but parity with other entertainment forms and the acknowledgement of gaming as an adult pursuit. The R18+ rating will have a net effect of greater overall restrictions on access to games -- many games that would have previously been available to 15-year-olds will now only be available for 18-year-olds and above -- but will mean that a few games at the top end of the maturity scale are allowed to be released."

Legislation in Australia recently approved the R18+ rating (though it may take a few years to be enacted) and its Law Reform Commission is attempting to revamp the country's video-game rating system to acknowledge its adult audience. But recently, Australia has had more than ratings to worry about.