The Lofty Promises of Cinematic Trailers

Video Game Trailers Taken with a Grain of Salt

Beautiful graphics, delicately chosen camera angles, A-List voice acting, and the promise of something grand in scale. These are the things that go into many of the most anticipated game trailers of our generation. These epic displays of art are there to hype our senses into overdrive, just enough so that we're begging for the next batch of details. While on paper this sounds great, the reality is that many game trailers should be viewed and enjoyed from a distance. Lofty promises are always great, but it's always easier to be disappointed than surprised. When it comes to riding the hype train of a certain game, the impeccably witty college football analyst Lee Corso comes to mind with his trademark catch phrase: "Not so fast my friends."

Rockstar, you know, the guys behind some small games like Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and Manhunt, are putting all of their eggs in one basket this spring. The trailer for the upcoming, and highly anticipated open world game "LA Noire," released this month and it's getting quite the buzz, and all for good reason if I might add. If the film LA Confidential had a video game attached to it...this would be it. The game follows the story of a Los Angeles detective trying to piece together a recent murder. The game has the flair of the 1950's era, where men in flannel suits and border hats litter the gritty streets of LA. While the look of old LA seems to be intact, it's the tech of the game displayed in the trailer that has everyone turning their heads.

Interrogations are a key element to LA Noire

Rockstar is teaming up with a small company called Team Bondi to create LA Noire. Team Bondi was started up by a man named Brendan McNamera, who was also the man behind the 2002 PS2 game "The Getaway." If you ever played Getaway, you'll know that story reigned over gameplay in that British caper, and that's the direction LA Noire seems to be taking. New motion capture technology is being implemented in the game that is expected to outperform current motion capture technology, ultimately rendering one-to-one facial recognition from actors. Nervous facial ticks, eyebrow movement, lip synching is expected to be unparalleled in LA Noire, and after watching the trailer, I would agree. Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself....

More L.A. Noire Videos

Now you notice why the game is getting such hype, but here's my problem with it. We don't see any of the gameplay elements. What ultimately makes a game successful is its gameplay. Without it, well, there wouldn't be much of a reason to call it a video game. What we do know is that if Rockstar is behind this game, we can expect the usual open-world sandbox style found in games like GTA and Red Dead. However, at no point in the trailer does it show anything resembling shootouts, car chases, or even side missions. Not that they're not there, but I'm not going to hop on the bandwagon just yet until I see some hard physical evidence.

Lets explore this dull, repetitive, FF XIV world together!

I've learned the hard way you can't judge a book by it's cover, and it's happened over the course of video game history. Most recently, games like Final Fantasy XIII and XIV released lush, beautiful, and jaw dropping cinematic trailers that had RPG nerds worldwide changing their Japanese tailored undies. Once the games came out though, they were met with less than stellar reviews...especially XIV. Another overly hyped game...Fable. Since the very first game, director Peter Molyneux offered grand promises of his open world game that haven't quite lived up to their promises. Again, it was a game that was receiving plenty of media attention, but fans felt they were duped. Fable II and III were also touted with hefty promises, but also failed to live up to expectations.

Little did the police know they were dealing with a kid throwing a churrasco at the wall.

Despite my trepidation, I was deeply impressed with the tech behind the LA Noire trailer. The facial tweaks and gestures were unlike anything I've ever seen, even in some of the highest quality mo-cap games like Uncharted and Red Dead. It's almost as if you could feel the breath of these digital characters as they deliver their top-notch lines. From what I've read in Game Informer, the facial animations will prove to be a key element in the gameplay as you interrogate suspects and witnesses. As the detective, you'll have to determine whether a suspect is lying to you just by their body language and nonverbal communication. Eyes roll, facial twitches, sweat pouring, pitches in their voice...all these elements will help you get to the truth of the investigation, which offers a new and unique gaming concept we haven't seen before. How you go about the interrogations is a cause for concern, as gamers will be forced to choose between three different choices in their conversations, similar to what we've seen in games like Mass Effect. Hopefully, conversations will be more intuitive and less predictable than Mass Effect, but we'll see what happens.

It's blood.....Son of  a bitch!

There's a lot left to be heard in terms of the action moments of the game. While LA Noire does have the makings of a classic gaming experience, we still won't know how it controls until it releases sometime this spring. Rockstar usually has a great track record in delivering the finest action sandbox games in the market, but hopefully it doesn't play like a Grand Theft Auto in Cold War Los Angeles. I loved the experience to be had with Red Dead Redemption, but the game controlled way too similar to Grand Theft Auto IV. All I know is I won't be fooled again by a beautiful trailer until I see some cold, hard gameplay footage. Until then, I'll be doing my own detective work on LA Noire until the day it hits store shelves.