L.A. Noire Countdown
Investigating the road to L.A. Noire: Week #1
by exterminat
©2011 Nicholas Laborde
Rockstar Games and Australia’s great Team Bondi‘s L.A. Noire is nearly upon us, with many fans eagerly awaiting its arrival across the globe.
Well, that’s technically an exaggeration to some small degree, as it is in fact just under ten weeks away. Which is sort of near, but that in and of itself is subjective.
Back on-topic, the purpose of this series of articles is to prepare you for the riveting detective genre defining game, LA Noire. The way we are planning on doing that is through the wonderful world of crime drama, whether it be in the form of movies, TV shows, books, music, even actual Noire videos, rocks or cave paintings.
Since this is week one, first cab off the ranks, we decided to start off on a sort of famous note, by presenting a classic crime drama: The Untouchables. Which of course is very in-keeping with the upcoming game, which will be using new technology developed by Australia’s own Team Bondi, and will make a 30′s- 40′s era game look so real.
Make sure you do check out the latest video from Rockstar and Team Bondi at the end of this article, where even the slightest facial expression will be a hint for you to ascertain whether the ‘suspect’ is telling the truth, or lying. Very “Lie To Me” style detective work.
So for this weeks bit of L.A. Noire history & trivia, we are heading off to the movies.
Movie: The Untouchables
(1987: directed by Brian De Palma and written by David Mamet. Based on the novel The Untouchables)
Sean Connery was still 143 years old in 1987.
The Untouchables is easily one of the best crime dramas/thrillers of all time, and is a classic. It was originally a television series, eventually making its way onto the silver screen in 1987 by Paramount Pictures.
It’s the early 1930s, the peak of Prohibition-Era America and the beginning of the Great Depression.
Chicago is the place of this journey.
Famous gangster Alphonso Capone (portrayed by Robert de Niro) is on the loose, becoming rich off of the alcohol bootlegging racketeering, prostitution and protection rackets.
Authorities have attempted to apprehend Capone many times prior, but all have failed and resulted in death. Even if they could capture him, they don’t have any concrete evidence to convict him with.
One of the most interesting things about the Capone case is, as I mentioned above, the fact that they did not have means to convict him on. He would often mock the authorities by being clearly in public view: such as operas, train stations, even baseball games.
Legally, the authorities could do absolutely nothing to apprehend the man.
Cue FBI Agent Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) who has been assigned the task of taking down Capone, by any means necessary.
He makes a friend in Jim Malone (Sean Connery), an ex-cop who also wants to see things change in Chicago, who becomes an overall asset to the entire team, and is usually the risk-taker of the group.
Countless other famous faces make their appearance, many of which are in the group of agents who have been assembled by the government to take down Capone. This group of somewhat extreme law-enforcers soon gain the nickname of “The Untouchables.”
Overall, the film is great, and can still stand up nearly twenty-four years later. It’s to be noted that it’s the only film Connery ever won an Academy Award for, which was of course for Best Supporting Actor.
Special note goes to his death scene, which is extremely brutal, especially by those days’ standards of film making.
‘Untouchable’ trivia
As we all know, movies are of course are ‘an exercise in artistic license’, and one should never take what unfold inside the boundaries of a movie as gospile or factual.
While some events are loosely based ‘around fact’, many of it is sheer artistic license.
Some interesting ‘facts’ are however, that while Elliot Ness, in his later life, became a self-aggrandizing alcoholic, and by all accounts, had very little impact on Capone’s operations and certainly wasn’t instrumental in getting him caught.
He got Capone into jail, which is where the movie ends, but Capone actually ran his operation there BETTER because he didn’t have to run from the cops! Eventually, Capone was sent to the wonderful Alcatraz, where he was completely broken and after three years was released on good behavior.
No members of the ‘Untouchable’ team were actually ever killed, and the last remaining ‘Untouchable’, Albert H. Wolff, consulted on the movie in coaching Kevin Costner in the role of Eliot Ness. trivia link
Capone himself was apparently rather a pleasant guy in his personal demeanor and not the threatening thug De Niro portrays.
It does seem that the story about Capone killing an associate with a baseball bat during a meeting is apparently true, but dates from a time later in his career when syphilis had started to affect his brain.
Ironically, his elder brother Vicenzo Capone was a successful prohibition agent, having changed his name to Richard James Hart (aka Two-Guns Hart).
Some L.A. Noire game teasers: Wk 1
L.A. Noire has been touted as a shooter, a GTA clone and similar. If you are looking at your next hit of GTA fighting frenzy, or perhaps a Red Dead Redemption exploit across the streets of L.A, with gun-in-hand, blazing away at baddies, then please, look elsewhere.
Because you will find none of that in L.A. Noire.
What you will find is a detective genre defining game that will have you using your wits, intellect and observation skills to work out who the bad guys are, and, who is actually on your side.
Yes, there are guns in L.A. Noire, but this is NOT Mafia II, nor The Godfather, although while portayed around similar times, it’s a long way from just pure gun-carnage.
Team Bondi has been working at L.A. Noire for several years, building their own proprietary engines for face recognition and expressions. You will NOT find such an advanced engine in any other game on the market, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see their engine being licensed to be used in other AAA games in the future.
Take a look at some of the screenshots in the gallery, as well as the video below to get an idea of just how detailed the game will be.
The process for character animation is NOT moCap, it’s far more intricate method of ‘Motion-Scanning’, and 10 times more realistic than any other gaming engine. For an excellent full interview with Team Bondi’s Brendan McNamara, slip over to IFC’s website
• L.A. Noire Detective & Interrogation Work
©2011 Nicholas Laborde
• OXCGN Anticimeter
Highly Anticipated
