We don't know a thing about Rockstar's Agent, not a sausage. That title shot, the one with a gun in the 'G', has been knocking around for some time now but, like a part-time interrogator trying to break Rambo with a feather, all we've got is a name.
It'd had almost gone off our radar until a tiny blip in the form of Take-Two's earnings call peaked our interest again. "It's still in development," said the suits and that was enough to get our head cogs whirring.
We've got a blank canvas here. We might have had a pretty good idea of what kind of package Rockstar would put together before L.A Noire, but things aren't quite so certain anymore. With the GTA publisher putting so much of an investment into Team Bondi's significant and successful new direction, we think there's an incentive for Rockstar to move into new territories with its own developments.
NICE FACE
We're going to level with you, L.A Noire is still sitting neatly in our heads and it's certainly influenced the kind of thing we want to see come out of the old Rockstar Ranch in the future. We know MotionScan was a Team Bondi thing, but we don't think we can ever go back to life without it.
Part of that package, though, is the way MotionScan tech allows developers to take full advantage of some brilliant acting talent. When we say we want MotionScan tech in Agent then, we want the stellar cast it was made for as well.
STYLE AND SUBSTANCE
If there was one thing that L.A Noire had in abundance it was style. More importantly though it had a style and character that ran consistently deep throughout the world. From the telegraph poles on the streets, to the telephone books in the houses, everything was meticulously designed to deliver a certain experience.
The same goes for the people; there wasn't a character in the whole of 1940s Los Angeles that we found to be offensively generic. Everyone walked the line between genre favourites and cliché while avoiding stepping on the whole side. It was the main reason we had the urge to go back to the game world whenever we were stuck here in stupid real-life.
It's something Rockstar does well; while GTA hasn't had as much of a chance to boast it's inner style child too much, what with it being modern times in modern cities, Red Dead shows just how well Rockstar can nail the period pieces and L.A Noire proved it was no fluke.
SPY HARD
Of course, Agent's style completely depends on what kind of agent we're talking about here. It'd be easy to assume Rockstar would go down the James Bond/Mission Impossible route, but we think a more sophisticated direction is possible.
The real-life of a secret agent isn't all explosions and women, you know? In fact it rarely is. We'd be more than happy if Agent was a lot more conservative than something like GTA and spent just as much time on investigation as it did flat-out car chases and fire-fights.
L.A Noire mechanics for clue finding and investigation could come in to play here but we've been there and done that. We'd rather seen gameplay that has us planting bugs, going undercover and using conversation trees to defuse situations or shun suspicion. We want to sabotage cars, break into buildings, snap photos and analyse intelligence.
Comments
14 comments so far...
Gaseous Snake on 28 May '11 said:
So, a less linear LA Noire, CVG? How original.
I want a variety of ways to assassinate people (oh, and a lot of assassination missions). I'm talking stealth, guns-blazing, .50-cal rifle from 10,000 feet (I want to break the longest shot record, dammit!), that sort of thing. Make it so that you can walk through every door in every building, so that you have complete freedom to do the mission however you want.
Oh, and did I mention a .50-cal rifle? Because it needs one. In fact, I'd like to make a rule that every game has a M82A2/similar rifle in it; Battlefield, Need For Speed, even World of friggin' Warcraft; every game must have one!
mogel94 on 28 May '11 said:
I wouldn't mind a mix between GTAV and Hitman; scratch that I just want GTAV and Hitman.
Very_Silver_Ownz on 28 May '11 said:
I'd rather just have GTA V. 3 years now and not a single clue about the game.
lordirongut on 28 May '11 said:
If we're talking assassinations, then I'd like some gun-free ways to do so - poisoning the ambassador's meal, for instance .*CUE EVIL LAUGH*.
KieranTC on 28 May '11 said:
What i want to see is........well............ANYTHING. Rockstar aren't even going to be at E3 so i'm not holding out for anything at the event, not even GTA V news.
JOHNKARA on 28 May '11 said:
Totally agree with your comments CVG.
I keep wondering why there has been such little info on Agent. My guess is that Rockstar did not want to show anything to the public (while focussing on the progress of LA Noire), lest that it would create or affect public perception on what the game was going to be all about.
I also suspect that they are considering the introduction of Motion Scan to this game, but whether this is a recent development (based on the critical success of LA Noire) or whether it was conceived prioir to LA Noire is anybody's guess. I suppose that the intrigue surrounding this title makes it all the more tantalising to us gamers, but please R*, let us have more than a snippet of info at this years E3.
fps_d0minat0r on 28 May '11 said:
i want to see cluster bombs!
metallicorphan on 28 May '11 said:
i wanna see a ......
360 version
Black Mantis on 28 May '11 said:
A screenshot would do for now! I'm hoping for something radically different from the GTA series, as good as RDR and LA Noire are, they still suffer familiarity from being based upon GTA's fundamentals.
Imaduck on 28 May '11 said:
Um some actual s**t on it ? Seriously, people have been hyped about it for aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages, but I've never seen even a single screenshot. What exactly has people so interested in it?
Ellscore on 29 May '11 said:
About 30% La Noire, 30% GTA San Andreas, 50% French Connection Stylee (and a dash of celery salt)
= 110% Agent.
Basically the coolest game ever created for £35 RRP please and two or three quarterly download packs with a minimum of 15 hours storyline gameplay time at £7.99 a pop.
Oh and a tin with the agent logo for my hash.
buffig on 29 May '11 said:
I thought Rockstar has said that Agent would be in the vein of great 70s Spy thrillers. As for LA Noire, I'm about half way through it and the feeling that your actions never really affect anything is a bit of a downer. Theres a real Heavy Rain vibe about it. My wife has watched me play both games and her opinion was that LA Noire wasnt a patch on Heavy Rain. She said she felt real concern with Heavy Rain as everything seemed down to me. She said LA Noire just looks, "go there, do that, go somewhere else". I can't really disagree with her.
djreplay on 29 May '11 said:
You can tell if a game's good by its cover and going by that cool Agent logo this game will be great.
gmcb007 on 29 May '11 said:
The fact it was announced as a PS3 exclusive, certain individuals automatically assumed that this game is going to be fantastic and has no chance of failing. But I suppose thats fanboys for you.
Please tell me that is sarcasm.