LA Noire: What I Want to See

We’ve been hearing some good information regarding Rockstar’s upcoming game LA Noire. Not only do they seem to be picking things up a notch regarding story, they are also showing off some fairly impressive facial capture technology which should go a long way toward making characters that are even more lifelike and engaging.

But while all this is impressive, it may not go very far if they also don't make significant changes to gameplay mechanics as well. Ultra-realistic facial animations are all well and good, but if I’m going to be following mission dots around the world map in GTAIV/ Red Dead style then it might as well not even be there at all. The number one thing Rockstar needs to accomplish is make a truly diverse and dynamic world to compliment the realism of its characters.

I would be dishonest if I didn’t admit that the worlds Rockstar create look fantastic. From a distance they seem to be engaging and flowing with activity. Peak a little behind the curtain, however, and you’ll see that much of it is all smoke and mirrors. Traffic flows, but with no real purpose or direction. People walk, but they do so with no final destination in mind. Instead, all of it is simply there as background filler and the result is main story characters who fall into the very same category unless they are part of the mission you are running.

Things do improve somewhat in Red Dead thanks to the dynamic world encounters Rockstar began implementing. These small moments go far in making the world seem much more alive but do seem to happen too often and seem staged when they appear, perhaps because world around them is not dynamic at all. Instead of these dynamic encounters appearing in the world they should stem from the world itself, the player should be able to see encounters happening not just walk up on them midway through at a point when the player interaction is necessary. In essence, much like our own, the world should exist independent of the player. The world does not need us to exist and it should be no different in Rockstar’s next foray.

Of course I do not want to simply discount just how monumental an undertaking this would be, and perhaps, some of that smoke and mirrors would certainly be necessary to pull it off. One can’t expect every single character in a huge city have Sim like attributes, but there would be some ways to do this in smaller portions. Even just having traffic flow mimic that of a real city could be a step in the right direction. Most importantly, though, a more dynamic world would be fertile ground for a completely revamped mission system.

The last thing I want to do in LA Noir is follow dots around the map to push the story along. The last thing I want to see are main characters who only exist when they have missions for me to complete. Main characters should not just exist in the story, they should truly exist in the world.  They, at the very least, should have their own routines, they should react, and they should reach out to the player. Passive interaction has its benefits in that it allows the player to explore the world uninterrupted, but it also tends to put the main characters and the story on the back burner.

Rockstar is very good at improving their games with each iteration, so I’m really looking forward to what they will bring to the table with LA Noire. If they can make an active world that is truly representative of the dynamic flows and aspirations of the one we experience every day, then they will have truly created a backdrop which compliments the realistic attributes of the characters that inhabit it.