LA Noire's original response tree was markedly different to the one in the final game, former Team Bondi head Brendan McNamara has revealed, with the "doubt" option originally labelled "force".
Speaking at the Bradford Animation Festival earlier this week, McNamara explained why protagonist Cole Phelps often took a hard line when questioning witnesses when players had expected him to strike a softer, inquisitive tone and tease out further information.
"A lot of people say that Aaron [Staton, who played Phelps] goes a little bit psycho with some of the questions you ask in the game," he said. "When we originally wrote it, the questions you asked were Coax, Force and Lie. So Force was a more aggressive answer, and that's where we actually recorded it.
"But when the game came out, it was Truth, Doubt and Lie, so everyone says that Aaron on the second question goes psycho, but that's just the way we wrote it from before."
McNamara spoke at length about LA Noire's reportedly troubled development, which ultimately led to the studio closing down owing more than a million dollars to its own staff. For our full interview with McNamara - in which he gives his side of the Team Bondi collapse, and discusses the future of LA Noire's groundbreaking MotionScan technology - click here.
Comments
5Or, you could have looked at the screenshots in E213 April 2010.
It's in the text, rather than the screenshots, but well spotted. Good to know you read our work so closely.
I re-read it after finishing the game. TBH I'm not sure why they changed it given it would throw all the audio out. One of many strange decisions I guess.
Why is this utterly trivial point considered newsworthy?
The game has long since made its way to the bargain bucket where it belongs.
Not sure i agree with the second bit (having not played the game).
I agree with the first bit though. I really really really could not care less about devs changing the name of a conversation mechanic mid development.
There are so many fascinating aspects of game development that go often untouched.
I personally would love Edge to run a feature on the technical aspects of the art of games. Get to the real nitty gritty, speak to senior artists instead of leads, talk about whats changing, whats new, whats influencing them right now.