PlayStation 3 surprise

[McPeppers]

Rockstar Games just announced a PS3 exclusive game that departs a little from the GTA heritage. L.A. Noire is set in the 1940's and "The postwar setting will include the noir necessity of corruption, as well as drugs and jazz themes. The game uses a distinctive noir coloring-style to strengthen the feeling from old detective movies from the 40's." (cited from the wiki)

you can view the trailer here http://www.rockstargames.com/lanoire/splash.html

 

[Matt Deckard]

Looks good to me. Quite honestly I loved GTA Vice City for the soundtrack they sold.

 

[pigeon toe]

Now you made me actually want my boyfriend to get a PS3. I'm a bit of a video game nerd, so now I'm excited!

 

[McPeppers]

I'll keep yall posted, whenever they decide to leak info on it that is. The PS3 developers are being incredibly tight lipped lately.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Looks nice. I wonder why they decided to go desaturated color instead of black and white? I can always turn the color off on the set!

 

[Nathan Flowers]

.

Where does it say PS3 exclusive? I'd be surprised to see it limited to that platform considering how well the 360 is selling.

 

[Slicksuit]

Let's hope it will be offered on the XBox 360 or the PC. While a game like this would help tip the scale, $600 is still steep for a video game console!

 

[GOK]

Where does it say PS3 exclusive? I'd be surprised to see it limited to that platform considering how well the 360 is selling.

You're right, Zohar - back in September, people were speculating the likelihood of it being for the 360 platform too. However, the developer, Team Bondi has signed an exclusivity deal with Sony to produce three PS3-only titles. LA Noire is the first of these.

It's not as crazy as it sounds; despite the whole GTA/Hot Coffee incident a couple of years ago (or maybe because of it), Rockstar has more or less guarateed itself hit after hit after hit....at least for the next couple of years. I think all concerned can afford to take a one-platform-only risk at this juncture.

Matt - Vice City was great! I love the radio stations, especially the phone-ins! Did you ever check out petsovernight.com?

 

[Nathan Flowers]

Yes GOK, it's not really unusual, but still surprising. If it does wind up being a PS3 exclusive, I suspect it will only be so for a limited time, similar to the way Rockstar did with Vice City and San Andreas.

 

[GOK]

Yep, I expect so too. Funny thing is though, exclusives for XBox tend to stay that way. I still live in hope for Munch's Oddysee putting in a Playstation appearance! Somehow I doubt it would ever happen though, especially as Xbox got the exclusivity for Stranger's Wrath and all forthcoming Oddworld too. I had hoped that once Infogrames went bust and EA took over the Oddworld franchise, things might be different. Oh well. [huh]

 

[McPeppers]

Well we'd all love to see every game we love come out on our system (assuming one doesnt buy them all) but exclusives are a way for a system to attract customers versus the other systems. Take the 3 and the 360, the two systems are almost identical in ability so you have to look to content to differentiate the two. With GTA going multi-platform again they needed a respectable game from Rockstar, so they got the Team Bondi game. When you buy the X-Box 360 you get it for Halo 3, Gears of War, etc. When you buy the Wii you buy it for the innovation in control, plus you have Zelda, Metroid, Mario, and so on. When you buy the PS3 yer buying it for MGS, Resistance: Fall of Man, Final Fantasy, etc.

I personally like the PS3 for one of the reasons people gripe about Blu-Ray is in and its not an option. Sure yer looking at a 5-6 hundred dollar system because of it (making it the cheapest Blu-Ray player that can multitask on the market) but you are given both a superior storage medium (the 360 can with an upgrade play the comparable HD-DVD disk but that extends to only the movie form of the disk as Microsoft is sticking with the DVD as its video-game medium.) so you wont ever have to multi-disk a game anymore like the 360 may have to someday. Not only that but its games are capable of being broadcast in true 1080p which the 360 currently doesnt support tho you never know. The $60 price point per game doesnt bother me because the PS2games ran around 40-50 and PC games can reach the 60's so i've been shelling the same amount out for years. Also the technology behind Blu-Ray is much more impressive than HD-DVD as a storage medium. TDK just proved its possible to make a 200gb rewritable blu-ray disk whereas a multi-disk HD-DVD appears to be locked into a maximum 50gb disk. That may not mean much in the battle for supremacy in movies (although Blu-Ray has stronger studio and company support) but in the world of computers (which you are all sitting at as you read now ) the huge disk size means you can back up even the 1 TB harddrive on 5 individual disks and you can store them away to keep your data alive no matter what. (True RW disks tend to die but since its a backup you will never put it through the read-cycle which destroys RW disks in about 10,000 reads)

Cool Beans huh? Peace!

 

[Staggerly]

Thanks for posting, McPeppers! I hadn't heard about this (those lazy slobs at IGN are still on vacation, apparently).

(On a side note, does anybody remember the name of the "Commandos"-like, isometric-view mafia game for the PC from a few years back?)

 

[GOK]

Why go to IGN when you have Spong? [huh]

 

[Nathan Flowers]

.

I only Digg, and Shack personally.

 

[GOK]

I only Digg, and Shack personally.

Not in public I hope!

 

[TommySalieri]

I'm looking forward to this one. Hopefully it'll make up for the disappointment that was The Godfather.

 

[Staggerly]

Why go to IGN when you have Spong? [huh]

I was until this moment completely ignorant of Spong! Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[McPeppers]

I think the saddest part of these games (take the godfather or mafia) is that they tried to emulate Grand Theft Auto using vintage cars. So basically you get GTA with cars that couldnt hit 70 if you drop them off the Empire State Building in chases with (cheating) cop cars who might hit 75 but thats the red line. GTA is more fun for outrunning cops blowing through roadblocks and plowing over that guy on the moped (i hate that guy ).

For Games that use vintage autos driving should be restricted to cutscenes in my opinion because its more useful to watch story to develop (yes even drive-bys should be computer controlled) because I'm really tired of piss-poor steering, zero traction, and no speed in a game that says "Outrun the Cops" and you'd have a better chance of it on foot (See: Godfather The Game). However a developer could just "pretend" they were fast but where's the joy in a lie?

Now starting with the Muscle-car era things change and you get big beastial engines like the Hemi and Ram-Air finding their way into glorious GTO's, Camaro SS', Shelby Cobras, etc. and you suddenly are presented with cars that handle like a dream, have the weight of a small tank, and absolutely roar down the road. THIS is when chases should be involved for the player because its just fun. Then of course add 10 years and you see the exotics pop up and joy hits the fan