L.A. Noire the first video game shown at Tribeca Film Festival
Finally gaming is recognised as a thing of filmic beauty
The video game is a beautiful art form, we cried – but no one listened. No one else could see past Grand Theft Auto’s pedestrian roadkill and uninspired dialogue.
Tribeca Film Festival is making video game history on 25 April with a live interactive screening of a case from detective thriller L.A. Noire, followed by a Q&A on the crossover between gaming and film. That’s just less than a month before the title’s 20 May launch in Europe on the Xbox 360 and PS3.
We’re not surprised that L.A. Noire is the one to make them see the light. For this – unsurprisingly film noir-inspired – story of a young detective’s rise through the LAPD, Rockstar Games and Team Bondi splashed out on a new 3D facial-capture system. With MotionScan, the team scanned in 400 actors to populate the violent streets of 1947 Los Angeles, with witnesses to interrogate and suspects to chase.
Tribeca’s Geoff Gilmore says that they’ve invented “a new realm of storytelling that is part cinema, part gaming. L.A. Noire is nothing less than groundbreaking.”
“It’s another step forward for interactive entertainment,” reckons Rockstar Games founder, Sam Houser.
We say we deserve at least Best Supporting Actor for the hours we’ve devoted to gaming. That 20 May launch can’t come soon enough.
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Mark Wilson
Features editor 
