[Update] L.A. Noire‘s First Trailer in Years Hits the Spotlight

Rockstar is still putting out a game called L.A. Noire, did you forget?

As promised, Rockstar Games has finally released what it’s calling the “first trailer” for L.A. Noire, but is really just the first trailer in four years. After all this time, the game has probably changed so much that it might as well be the “first trailer.”

Rockstar’s latest look at the title uses all in-game footage, and my word, L.A. Noire‘s cutscenes look quite spectacular. L.A. Noire is similar to Mafia II in style, and rightfully so, but the character and facial animation appears to be of even higher quality. Sadly, there’s no actual gameplay shown.

Details of exactly who and what we’re looking at weren’t given, but L.A. Noire apparently revolves around members of the LAPD involved in cases that will either make them, or break them. Whose body the player actually inhabits isn’t yet clear. Chances are good that he/she will get betrayed and find him/herself in a dark alleyway under a spotlight at some point, possibly smoking, because it just wouldn’t be noir if these things didn’t happen.

Take-Two has been criticized for allowing games like L.A. Noire to be repeatedly delayed, but according to the trailer these delays are over and we’ll now see the game in Spring 2011 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. I’m pretty excited, because if L.A. Noire is of the same quality of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption, we’ll have a megaton of 1940s gaming to enjoy, and possibly zombies in fancy pinstripe suits to shoot.

The trailer can be found here.

Update: Rockstar has given a small amount of details about L.A. Noire. The company says: “L.A. Noire is a violent detective thriller set against the backdrop of Los Angeles in the post-war years of the late 1940s, the most corrupt and violent period in the city’s history. Based on groundbreaking performance capture technology that goes beyond traditional methods to render every subtlety and nuance of an actor’s facial expressions and emotions, L.A. Noire is the first game to truly explore what it means to be a detective, offering players the opportunity to solve crimes through a blend of classic action, clue-finding and interrogation, allowing players to analyze every subtle nuance of an actor’s performance in order to get to the truth.” Sounds pretty cool.