L.A. Noire (pronounced
[ˌɛl ˌɛɪ ˈnwaʁ]) is a 2011
neo noir crime video game developed by
Team Bondi and published by
Rockstar Games. It was released for
PlayStation 3,
Xbox 360 and
Microsoft Windows.
L.A. Noire is set in
Los Angeles in 1947 and challenges the player, controlling a
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detective, to solve a range of cases across five crime desks.
Players must investigate crime scenes for clues, follow up leads, and interrogate suspects, and the players' success at these activities will impact how much of the cases' stories are revealed.
The game draws heavily from both the plot and aesthetic elements of film noir, stylistic films made popular in the 1940s and 1950s that share similar visual styles and themes including crime, sex, and moral ambiguity. The game uses a distinctive colouring-style, but in homage to film noir it includes the option to play the game in black-and-white. Various plot elements reference the major themes of gum-shoe detective and mobster stories such as Key Largo, Chinatown, The Untouchables, The Black Dahlia, and L.A. Confidential.
L.A. Noire is notable for using Lightsprint's real-time global illumination technology, as well as Depth Analysis's newly developed technology MotionScan, where actors are recorded by 32 surrounding cameras to capture facial expressions from every angle. The technology is central to the game's interrogation mechanic, as players must use the suspects' reactions in questioning to judge whether they are lying or not.
L.A. Noire is the first video game to be shown at the
Tribeca Film Festival.
Upon release, the game received wide acclaim for its advances in storytelling and facial animation technology. As of February 2012, both PC and console versions have sold nearly 5 million copies combined.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (abbreviated as Call of Duty: MW3, or just simply MW3) is a first-person shooter video game, developed by Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games, with Raven Software having assisted in development. It is the third installment in the Modern Warfare series, a direct sequel to 2009's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and the eighth Call of Duty installment. The game was released on November 8, 2011 in Europe and North America on Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii, with a separate version for Nintendo DS developed by n-Space. In Australia, the Wii version was released on November 23, 2011. In Japan, Square Enix handled the installment with a separate subtitled and dubbed version, as they did for Call of Duty: Black Ops. They first released a Japanese-subtitled version on November 17, 2011. Then, on December 22, 2011, they released a Japanese-voice dubbed version. Within 24 hours of going on sale, the game sold 6.5 million copies in the US and UK alone and grossed $400 million, making it the biggest entertainment launch of all time.
