FoxyLounge

Claire Hentschker, averages Grand Theft Auto

DrNoze — 2017-03-27T09:06:24Z

Photographie virtuelle et ballade impressionniste dans San Andreas, l'état imaginaire du jeu Grand Theft Auto.

L'artiste Claire Hentschker a récemment posté sur ses réseaux trois images qu'elle décrit succinctement comme des "moyennes" de vidéos prises durant des parties de GTA V. Ces superpositions de centaines d'images, toutes différentes mais en même temps très proches (omniprésence du véhicule ou du personage au premiers plans, lignes de fuite de la rue, ligne d'horizon) transporte l'image dans un brouillard mystérieux qui nous renvoie directement aux débuts de l'impressionnisme. Difficile en se plongeant dans ces trois images de ne pas penser à certains paysages de J. M. W. Turner ou de James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

"making averages from videos of people playing grand theft auto on youtube"

Claire Hentschker, Twitter

Claire Hentschker, averages GTA

Par ailleurs, Claire Hentschker est une artiste qui manipule la réalité virtuelle et y reconstruit des espaces plus ou moins issus de la réalité, à partir de vidéos comme dans son projet Catacombs où elle reconstitue l'interieur de centres commerciaux à partir de vidéos débichées sur Youtube. Ou encore Shining360° qui nous transporte dans l'univers du célèbre hotel Overlook, ses cols, ses couloirs, son lobby et son labyrinthe.

Si ces travaux sont exclusivement des oeuvres VR, on peut tout de même en avoir un aperçu grâce aux modules 306 de Youtube et Vimeo. Ces vidéos en réalité virtuelle possèdent, du fait de la transition depuis leurs sources vidéo, tout une armada de glitches et autres artefacts qui confère à ces univers un grain particulier et une sensation douce amère d'inquiétante étrangeté.

Shining360°

"Shining360 is a 30-minute audio-visual experiment for VR derived from the physical space within Stanley Kubrick's film ‘The Shining.' Using photogrammetry, 3D elements are extracted and extruded from the original film stills, and the subsequent fragments are stitched together and viewed along the original camera path."

Catacombs

"Made from found youtube videos of abandoned or destroyed malls reconstructed using photogrammetry."

– Le site web de Claire Hentschker (under construction)
– Claire Hentschker sur Vimeo
– Claire Hentschkersur Instagram

Red Dead Redemption, the end of the West

DrNoze — 2011-05-09T15:15:10Z

Le western de Rockstar Games est sûrement le monde ouvert le plus crédible et le plus immersif du moment.

Attention, nous parlerons ici, des événements principaux du scénario et notamment de la fin du jeu.

Grand Theft Auto into the Wild

Écrit par Dan Houser et produit par Sam Houser, le jeu est développé par Rockstar San Diego (Midnight Club), studio mineur de l'écurie de Rockstar Games qui s'est ici saigné à blanc [1] pour montrer à la maison mère qu'à San Diego on était capable d'en découdre, de sortir du triple A, et surtout de se mesurer au studio star, à savoir Rockstar North, responsable de la série culte Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto IV avait été une claque à l'époque de sa sortie et avait proposé un monde ouvert particulièrement impressionnant, prenant et vivant. Il fait naturellement office, depuis, de mètre-étalon pour le genre. Red Dead Redemption reprend beaucoup à son grand frère mais propose d'aller plus loin, notamment dans l'interaction entre les PNJ (surtout via la faune et son écosystème) et les événements aléatoires. Le jeu est peuplé de scripts aléatoires, malins et surprenants, qui améliorent grandement l'expérience du joueur, son immersion et la crédibilité de l'univers qu'il parcours. Ils sont la véritable richesse du titre, j'en reparlerai plus loin.

Red Dead Redemption améliore également le système de combat et offre une meilleure maniabilité, des améliorations agréables que les joueurs attendaient mais sur lesquelles je ne m'attarderai pas.

Je vais souvent, au cours de ce billet, comparer Red Dead Redemption avec son ainé. Car pour moi il s'agit bel et bien d'un véritable GTA, aux côtés de Bully (Canis Canem Edit) (qui, pour moi reste un des meilleurs épisodes de la série, notamment pour son ambiance et ses dialogues hilarants).

Un monde ouvert, crédible et vivant

Autant on pouvait trouver Liberty City étouffante au bout d'un moment, et on se mettait, alors, à regretter les grands espaces de San Andreas, autant on aurait pu avoir peur du vide promis par RDR. Mais le désert de Perdido, les plaines de Cholla Springs, ou les montagnes de Tall Trees sont tout sauf vides et une véritable vie les anime. Mais il ne s'agit pas d'un simple spectacle, on peut à tout moment participer à cette vie, une multitude d'interactions sont possibles avec l'environnement.

Entre la faune et son écosystème, la chasse, la cueillette, les événements aléatoires, les missions secondaires et le simple plaisir de l'exploration, il y a une foule de choses à faire dans le désert.

Les habitations étant moins nombreuses dans la pampa qu'à Time Square, cela permet de les rendre plus uniques, plus réelles, plus "visitables". Car le joueur aime les bâtiments "visitables" (voir destructibles, mais c'est une autre histoire). Le fait de savoir qu'il peut entrer dans chaque maison, même s'il ne le fera pas forcément (et le ferait encore moins in real life) renforce son immersion et sa croyance dans l'univers qu'il visite.

On évite alors, dans RDR, l'effet décors de cinéma que l'on pouvait ressentir à Liberty City, où l'on savait pertinemment que derrière toute les jolies façades que nous offrait la grande cité, il n'y avait que du vide, et qu'elles n'étaient là que pour l'agrément du joueur/spectateur. On peut alors ressentir le syndrome Truman Show et perdre un peu de croyance en l'univers que l'on visite, et donc d'immersion.

Il n'est, en effet, pas possible de croire qu'il n'y ait qu'un cyber café à New York et tant de vitrines de magasins dans lesquels on ne peut pas entrer.

Pas de ça dans RDR, où tous les bâtiments nous semblent uniques et visitables. Et si ce n'est pas le cas, si un bâtiment nous est fermé, c'est pour une raison précise, logique ou liée à l'histoire, pas uniquement pour masquer le fait qu'il n'existe pas vraiment. C'est, du moins, le sentiment du joueur in game et c'est à mon sens une grande réussite.

Le gameplay

La progression dans le jeu se fait via les désormais traditionnelles missions (ou quêtes) "à la GTA". Des marqueurs apparaissent sur la carte qui donnent accès à différentes missions censées faire avancer l'histoire. Celles-ci, hormis quelques missions "cowboys" où l'on doit guider un troupeau de vaches ou dresser un cheval (et qui sont à ce titre un vrai bol d'air au cours du jeu), sont assez classiques dans le genre : gun fights et protections de convois pour la plupart. Le titre propose également une série de missions secondaires, comme dans GTA IV, n'ayant pas d'influence sur les missions principales. On retrouve aussi les mini-jeux comme le poker ou le lancer de fer à cheval qui remplacent les jeux de fléchettes, ou de bras de fer [2] du précédent opus et peuvent susciter un intérêt pour certains, et en tout cas ils renforcent l'immersion et l'aspect bac à sable du jeu.

Mais là où le titre innove vraiment par rapport à ses prédécesseurs motorisés c'est avec son système de missions secondaires aléatoires. C'est l'aspect, du moins sur la question narrative, que je trouve le plus intéressant du jeu et qu'il serait bon de développer sur un jeu entier pour se débarrasser une fois pour toute des cinématiques.

Un bon nombre de petites missions (si on peut encore appeler ça des missions) se déclenchent naturellement et sans aucune cinématique, au détour d'un sentier, et vous laissent une liberté totale dans la façon de les aborder. Un homme à pied se fait poursuivre par des loups, libre à vous de le sauver en le débarrassant de ses poursuivants, ou bien de passer votre chemin en sifflotant. Plus tard vous apercevez, au loin, une attaque de diligence, vous pouvez alors, attaquer les bandits, les aider, tuer tout le monde pour partir avec le butin ou ne rien faire et passer votre chemin. Vous êtes libre. L'intégration au monde de ces missions aléatoires est telle que vous pouvez passer à côté sans même vous en rendre compte.

Elles se fondent parfaitement avec les interactions de la faune liées à l'écosystème local (les loups chassent le daim, si dans le ciel vous apercevez des vautours, vous pouvez être sûr qu'il y a un cadavre ou un combat en dessous, attention aux terribles cougars qui tuent votre monture en un coup de dent et vous laisse à pied sous le cagnard ...).

Une petite anecdote au passage : J'étais, loin de tout, sur une piste mexicaine poussiéreuse à souhait, à chevaucher vers une mission quelconque quand, sur le bord du chemin, un peone me hèle : "Please help me mister, help me !". Comme j'avais un peu de temps devant moi et que je me sentais l'âme d'un bon samaritain, je me suis arrêté à son côté pour savoir de quoi il en retournait, et voilà que le fourbe me fait tomber de cheval, l'enfourche et avant que je me relève est déjà loin. Heureusement, étant un as de la gâchette, je peux vous dire que l'affreux n'est pas allé bien loin mais je l'avais sacrément mauvaise de m'être ainsi fait roulé.

Des anecdotes comme ça tout joueur ayant traversé RDR en a plein sa besace, et les scripts sont si variés qu'on tombe relativement rarement sur le même.

L'IA et l'écosystème

Si l'IA de Red Dead Redemption n'a rien d'extraordinaire au niveau des gun fights, c'est au détour d'un sentier qu'elle révèle son potentiel, quand on s'arrête, dans la nature, pour l'observer.

Comme toujours chez Rockstar, un des grands plaisirs que procurent leurs jeux, est l'exploration, et celui de pouvoir tout simplement s'arrêter, humer l'air frais, apprécier la vue et observer les interactions entre PNJ. Il se passera toujours une petite scène cocasse, un rien chaotique, qui nous donne une impression de vie véritable, ce qui est finalement assez rare dans le reste de la production jeu vidéo (tout en étant le seul média pouvant offrir cela) et nous donne envie d'y revenir, juste pour la balade.

Dans RDR on retrouve, via, les interactions entres les différents êtres vivants rencontrés dans la nature, le grain de folie, un poil anarchique, de l'IA propre au studio, comme le souligne très justement Zure ici (dans How the west was won) :

[...]l'élément le plus impressionnant de Red Dead Redemption reste la retranscription de son univers. Le sentiment de vie qui s'en dégage est presque troublant. On sent une espèce de pulsation parcourir le jeu. On retrouve d'ailleurs cette impression de chaos dans l'IA assez caractéristique des sandbox Rockstar. Il se déroule toujours quelque chose d'imprévu, de suffisamment aléatoire pour sembler spontané. Ghost in the machine.

Le contexte

Red Dead Redemption est un western qui se déroule au début du XXème siècle, au moment où l'automobile et le téléphone font leur apparition symbolisant la fin de l'ouest sauvage.

Je ne m'étendrais pas sur les qualités exceptionnelles du label Rockstar pour représenter in game des sous-culture ou des époques via le prisme de la culture populaire avec une relative justesse.

On peut, comme d'habitude, trouver une multitudes de références au cinéma de genre et à la culture populaire. Les dialogues écris par Dan Houser et son équipe (qui est également responsable des dialogues de la série des GTA et de Bully) sont, comme toujours, délectable et les voix et les accents des comédiens sont très réussis et renforcent la crédibilité de l'univers et le rendu de l'époque.

L'histoire, quand à elle, tient la route même si elle traine en longueur et n'est pas très originale.

Le story telling

La progression dans le scénario se fait de manière très classique par l'intermédiaire des missions qui déclenchent des cinématiques. Ajouté à cela et comme dans les GTA, les longues chevauchés aux côté de vos compagnons sont prétextes à de grandes discutions, encore une fois très bien jouées et finement écrites, qui renforcent l'immersions et permettent d'en savoir plus sur la personnalité et les motivations de chacun.

Ainsi on en apprend un peu plus sur John Marston, le personnage que le joueur incarne, qui nous apparait, sur le plan politique, comme étant une espèce de néo marxiste déçu, tendance Robin des Bois, libéral et individualiste. Un sacré cocktail. Ultra réactionnaire, le pachiderme rejète en bloc toute idée de modernité et regrette la fin d'une époque, celle de l'ouest sauvage, où tout était plus simple et où tout semblait possible.

John Marston nous apparait ainsi comme un homme rustre et raide, engoncé dans ses contradictions et ses désillusions.

On retrouvera, malheureusement, le syndrome du "Pashiri" cher à Rockstar. Le "Pashiri", en japonais, est un larbin, un lèche-cul, c'est aussi une technique de narration en game design qui consiste à faire du héros un larbin qui passera son temps, de missions en missions, à obéir aux ordres et a nettoyer la merde de tel, ou tel autre personnage secondaire pourvoyeur de missions, sans jamais vraiment prendre de décision par lui-même.

Une facilité scénaristique qui passait très bien à l'époque de Vice City et les élucubrations comico-parodiques nanardesques assumées de la génération III de la série, mais qui devient étrange ici, avec un scénario dit plus "mature" et des graphismes réalistes rendant à l'objet un aspect plus "sérieux".

Le problème s'en ressent d'autant plus dans la deuxième partie du jeu, quand on passe au Mexique et que l'on commence à se mêler à la révolution. Là, la crédibilité dans le scénario en prend un coup, car John le pashiri continue d'offrir ses services à droite comme à gauche. Ici, John Marston travaille un coup pour le peuple et la révolution mexicaine en faisant sauter une garnison militaire, et là, pour la mission suivante il dégommera, à la gatling, des centaines de révolutionnaires pour le compte du gouvernement.

Imperturbable comme le faucon, le johnny, ça ne l'empêchera pas d'aller voir, dans la foulée, la veuve et l'orphelin pour pleurer les morts avec eux et fomenter une mission punitive.

Malgré une tentative de justifications des scénaristes (il est obligé de travailler pour intel pour sauver sa famille) ça ne passe pas.

Le procédé n'est cependant pas dénué d'intérêt et voir les différents points de vue et les motivations de chaque faction est assez intéressant. Mais, ici, on n'est pas dans une petite guéguerre de gangs du quartier de Bohan, on est en pleine révolution populaire. L'idée de faire vivre au héros des moments historiques forts comme la prise du pouvoir par le peuple (et les désillusions de rigueur) était louable et très intéressante et il en résulte d'ailleurs de grandes scènes. Mais faire passer le héros, et, donc, le joueur, d'un coté ou de l'autre à chaque mission est un peu too much et l'identification en prend un coup. Du coup, ces moments historiques qui aurait put être grandioses, du fait de la non implication du héros, perdent en puissance et semblent un petit peu fadasse (voir kitch).

Upselo, dans son très intéressant billet Red Dead Deception : John Marston, à lire ici relève et annalyse ces problèmes de narrations propre au titre.

L'histoire

Si les dialogues et l'ambiance sont excellent, l'histoire que nous raconte le jeu est, elle, sommes toute assez banale et pas très intéressante, mais pose quelques questions et raconte beaucoup par le non dit (notamment sur la fin du jeu), et laisse une certaine liberté d'interprétation au joueur/spectateur, ce qui reste assez rare en jeu vidéo pour le souligner.

Pour résumer rapidement l'intrigue, John Marston, ancien bandit en voie de rédemption, est contraint par le gouvernement, qui détient sa femme et son fils en otage, à retrouver et tuer ses anciens partenaires de crime.

Déjà, le pitch, posé à plat comme ça, sent bon le nanard à deux francs, et, s'il s'était agit d'un film ou d'un livre, et non d'un jeu, on n'en aurait pas fait tout un binz. Mais comme il s'agit d'un jeu, on loue le "scénario bien foutu au twist extraordinaire" un peu partout sur les sites spécialisés.

De plus l'intrigue est diluée et les missions n'ayant peu ou pas de rapport avec l'intrigue principale s'enchainent et se répètent dans le seul but d'allonger la duré du jeu. Pratique courante dans le domaine puisqu'il faut, à tout prix, faire des jeux longs pour justifier les prix exorbitants pratiqués par l'industrie et récolter de bonnes notes dans les tests.

The End

J'ai été assez alléché par les articles dithyrambiques lus sur les sites spécialisés qui louaient le superbe twist scénaristique de RDR. En général je suis peu intéressé par l'idée même de "twist scénaristique", mais je l'attendais tout de même tout au long du jeu.

Quelle ne fut pas ma déception (ou plutôt mon soulagement) quand je me suis aperçut, après moultes échafaudages rocambolesques montés dans ma tête [3], que de twist scénaristique, et de révélation finale abracadrante, il n'y avait pas. Finalement tout se tient et ce qui devait arriver arriva.

Tout le jeu, et le long chemin parcouru par Marston, n'est qu'un long couloir vers la déception, la désillusion et la mort. Le long et lent suicide de John Marston le traitre, dernier représentant d'une époque, et fossoyeur de celle-ci.

Si j'ai trouvé la charge du ranch Marston par l'armée et les agents fédéraux d'un kitch absolu brisant la mélancolie qui se dégage des dernières scènes (mais offre enfin au joueur le "boss de fin" tant attendu), j'ai par contre été séduit par la mort du héros et les dernières scènes qui précèdent la l'attaque du ranch. Le chant du cygne de Marston.

Tout commence avec la mort de Dutch

La mort de Dutch se suicidant devant Marston le traitre, le met une dernière fois face à lui-même et remet en question la validité de la quête proposée par le jeu (à la manière d'un Shadow of the Colossus auxquel RDR emprunte beaucoup, selon moi, au niveau de la trame).

Ce qui est intéressant ici, c'est que la mort de Dutch est frustrante tant au niveau du scénario (pour Marston) qu'au niveau du gameplay (pour le joueur). Le joueur attend ce combat final depuis un paquet de missions, il s'agit, pour lui, du boss de fin, ce qui promet, traditionnellement, un challenge exceptionnel et un fort moment ludique, qui, si on parvient a le surmonter nous offrira, en cadeau, le droit d'accéder à la fin du jeu. Cette déception est finement amené avec la lente montée par les échelles de la mine, par lesquelles Dutch s'enfuis, blessé, vers le sommet de la montagne. Arrivé au sommet, Dutch nous vole notre dernier combat en sautant dans le vide.

En sautant et en l'insultant, Dutch démontre à Marston que lui est toujours droit et meurt debout pour ses idées, quand Marston se prostitue et refoule tous ses anciens idéaux. Dutch meurt mais Marston n'a pas gagné (et, donc, le joueur non plus).

Une fois le dernier des trois hommes à abattre mort, Marston a théoriquement réglé sa dette envers le gouvernement. les agents le renvoient, comme promis, à sa femme après s'être copieusement moqué de lui.

Alors débute un des plus beaux passages du jeu : le retour du héros. Fourbu et humilié, John Marston descends de la montagne pour rejoindre sa famille. La voute étoilé ne m'a jamais paru aussi belle dans le jeu qu'a ce moment, et la musique d'ambiance habituelle laisse alors la place, pour la deuxième fois, à une chanson [4]. Un moment touchant qui annonce des retrouvailles émouvantes, le retour au bonheur mérité après les heures noires.

Après tout, c'est pour ce moment particulier que Marston a affronté dangers et humiliations personnelles.

Tristes retrouvailles

Les retrouvailles avec la femme et le fils ne sont pas celles escomptées, elles sont froides et tristes. Abigail Marston est une femme dure, comme son mari, qu'elle blâme pour ce qu'elle a enduré et son fils lui en veut d'être trop absent, voir un mauvais père.

A peine arrivé il faut se mettre au travail, acheter du bétail et s'en occuper. Sans que ça ne soit jamais clairement dit, Marston nous parait triste en famille, et la vie sédentaire et honnête ne lui convient apparemment pas. Il n'aime pas (plus ?) vraiment sa femme et son fils l'encombre. C'est un homme dure et solitaire qui essaye de faire ce qui lui semble juste mais tout en sachant qu'il n'y trouvera jamais le bonheur. Marston cache ses émotions à sa famille, il n'y a qu'avec le vieil oncle qu'il lâche un peu la soupape et se montre plus dure, voire injuste. Celui-ci, également ancien gangster, qui, semble lire en Marston comme dans un livre ouvert.

On sent bien la dichotomie du personnage dans ces scènes, Marston veut sincèrement y arriver mais le coeur n'y est clairement pas.

Certains joueurs ont ressenti de la lassitude à jouer ces scènes (aller chercher le troupeau, ramener le troupeau, aller faire paitre le troupeau, chasser les corbeaux du silo de maïs, emmener le fiston à la chasse ...). Encore une fois, cette lassitude de gameplay, est en corrélation parfaite avec le ressenti du personnage que le joueur incarne. La lassitude que le joueur ressent à jouer ces scènes sans challenge, rappelant le début du jeu, après avoir affronté tant de missions est la lassitude que Marston ressent a s'occuper de son ranch et de son encombrante famille.

Le crépuscule de John Marston

Puis l'armée des États Unis au grand complet charge le ranch Marston afin de terminer le travail qu'il a lui-même si bien commencé. À savoir nettoyer l'état des anciens membres du pire gang des environs. Et, par la même occasion en finir avec une époque sans véritable lois symbolisée par une idée romantique du banditisme.

Marston doit donc mourir pour que sa mission soit terminé.

John Marston défends sa famille comme un diable mais on ne peut pas ne pas penser au suicide quand il ouvre les portes de la grange pour se jeter sous les balles du gouvernement. Pour protéger sa famille, soit, mais peut-être aussi pour se punir d'avoir agit contre ses principes. Aussi pour se libérer d'une vie et d'un avenir dans lesquels il n'a plus sa place.

On peut alors se demander si John Marston, dont le discours dépressif et désenchanté nous suit tout au long de l'aventure, ne descendrait pas volontairement vers une mort inéluctable, comme seule rédemption possible.

Upselo, toujour dans Red Dead Deception : John Marston, questionne très justement les véritables motivations de Marston.

[...] Marston [...] est envoyé à la demande d'officiers de Blackwater pour trouver son ancien camarade de gang Bill Williamson. Il se dirige donc vers Fort Mercer ou se tapit le bandit, et se présente seul aux portes du repaire. Avec ses gros sabots et sa naïveté en bandoulière, Marston ne va pas bien loin : Williamson, trop heureux d'être enfin libéré de l'ombre de Marston et de Dutch, ne s'en laisse pas conter et le met promptement hors d'état de nuire.

Ce n'est peut être pas très sensible lors de la découverte du jeu, mais cette intro me laisse tout de même un peu sur ma faim. Comme le souligne Bonnie qui le récupère quelques moments après, cette tentative parait bien peu motivée.

[...] Marston s'attèle à sa tâche avec si peu de volonté et de préparation. Il a beau plus tard invoquer la diplomatie ou une chance laissée à un vieil ami, cela reste peu crédible à mes yeux, et ne fait que jeter encore plus le doute sur ses intentions.

Upselo souligne l'étrange manque de motivation de Marston dans sa quête.

Mais cette dichotomie entre les paroles de Marston, censé vouloir retrouver sa femme et son enfant au plus vite, et les actes de Marston et du joueur, qui finalement fait des missions pour des escrocs du dimanche, ou la cueillette dans le désert, dichotomie renforcée par le sentiment de méfiance qu'inspire Marston, crée un sérieux fossé avec le joueur.

Upselo regrette ces incohérences. Je trouve, personnellement, cette dichotomie pas inintéressante, comme il le dit si bien, "Marston est censé vouloir retrouver sa famille", mais peut-être que Marston n'a pas tant envie que ça de la retrouver et de fonder un foyer honnête.

Peut-être que dans le fond il préfère battre la campagne, comme le joueur.

[1] Ce n'est pas une image, voir la lettre ouverte des femmes des développeurs du studio, prêtes à mordre Rockstar pour qu'on leur rende leur mari. Voir ici puis ici

[2] Amené avec l'épisode "The Lost and Damned"

[3] "En fait c'est Bonnie et son père qui ont tout manigancé car ils font parti de la secte Moon", ou bien "c'est sa femme la méchante et elle couche avec tous les agents du gouvernement", ou encore "c'est le vieil oncle le vrai salaud, il la veut pour lui tous seul !"

[4] (Far Away de Jose Gonzalez)

LA Noire developer interview - Telegraph

2011-01-23T02:18:00Z

Les créateurs de LA Noire, le prochain jeu de Rockstar Games, se confient au Telegraph (en anglais).

Set in 1940's Los Angeles, LA Noire is looking to break new ground for video games with its revolutionary motion capture technology and in depth detective gameplay. I visited the City of Angels to chat to Team Bondi's founder Brendan McNamara and Vice President of development at Rockstar, Jeronimo Barrera.

The first I heard of LA Noire was a trailer I saw of a rooftop chase in the game back in 2006. It looked like fun, but it didn't really prepare me for what I saw last week. So how did you get from there to here, and was facial mo-cap technology always at the forefront of the game – because there's no hint of that in the early trailer.

Jeronimo Barrera : Well, it was definitely in the plan (laughs).

Brendan McNamara : Definitely. When I was at Sony I was doing research on how you could capture people without using markers and balls and all that sort of stuff, because I was never that interested in skeletons. I was more interested in what people's faces look like and you could never really get that in games at the time.

Even back then on the PS2, most of us knew a lot about building pretty buildings and cityscapes and that sort of thing, but we didn't really know how to inject a lot of humanity into our games. It was still a work in process.

When I went to Rockstar and met with Jay and Sam (Houser) and pitched the game at them, the whole idea behind we thought it would work – and why it hadn't worked previously – was wrapped up in those interrogation scenes that you get in TV shows or film, when the audience is able to read people's faces. They work because the audiences have to be able read their faces and see whether they believe them, or sympathise because they're breaking down and that sort of stuff.

So, we'd done a lot of research and a lot of tech demos. We'd come to New York every few months or so, and the guys there would see us coming through the door and go, ‘oh man ! Not another head demo !' That happened for a while. It wasn't in context yet – we could just show these disembodied heads which showed what the tech was capable of…

JB : But we were building the game at the time…

BM : Oh yeah, all the game was happening in the background, but that facial capture was the main thing that indicated the game was going to work the way we wanted it to. That was all risky and difficult too ; it meant that the game was going to be different from anything we'd done before – and anything Jay had done before.

JB : Yeah, but we didn't set out to make another, you know, crime GTA style game based in Los Angeles. We knew we were going to use some pretty revolutionary technology. Through that process we believe we're pretty much creating a new genre of video games.

I think people are going to be surprised by the pacing of it – and in a good way. This game opens up a lot of potential for new gamers to come in and found out what the medium's all about. We don't necessarily have to have a high body count anymore for a game to be fun. You can have something that's far more cerebral and engaging and compelling, because you're watching human performances on screen.

Is that ‘easy access' aspect what prompted the casting of jobbing Hollywood talent ? A new gamer can look at say, Aaron Staten and feel a bit more at home with the game ?

BM : I think…The main thing about coming to LA was, there's a great body of talent we can pool out here. Did we want a big star in the game ? No, not necessarily, but we do want quality actors.

For me… well, Dan (Houser) had been watching Mad Men and he thought Aaron would make a great choice for the lead in the game and that was a little left field for me. But when you look at it, it's quite an inspired choice. The character Aaron plays is conflicted and has quite a bit of depth and Aaron is great at conveying those things.

The real choice wasn't just star power, it was acting quality. I mean, in the past you'd stick your development team in your game. You can't do that anymore in a game like this using the technology we've got currently. It just wouldn't hold up.

Rockstar's used Hollywood talent in the past and it's brought Hollywood production levels to its games as far as the audio goes. Now, with this Depth Analysis technology, the game requires very believable characters and that's only possible through great acting. We've got that, by the way ; the cast of LA Noire is incredible.

Does using Hollywood actors and actresses present you with a new list of challenges in making the game ?

JB : I think there's a new challenge in the way we're developing this game because of the nature of the technology, we have to do the development in a very linear way – the way you would in Hollywood.

Once the actors come in and do their line, boom, we're done. We don't manipulate anything after the fact. That's the great thing about the tech ; it's very plug-in and play.

BM : What you see is what you get.

JB : Exactly ! It's not like we can go in there afterwards and say “oh, we don't like that line, so we'll manipulate his mouth a little so it looks like he's saying something else”, because the tech doesn't work that way.

We had to be very sure of what we want to capture, so the whole game was done and in the can story-wise front to back with static heads and subtitles. Then we started filming and now we're doing the pickups for areas where we need to fill in some holes.

BM : To answer the rest of your question, yes – we've had to deal with casting agents and such, but then again, Rockstar's had to deal with that sort of thing in the past. But yeah, it does add to the already very complicated process for making a video game.

I notice you had a director on the project too. Do either of you take a part in the directorial process as far as the actors are concerned ?

JB : Yeah, we do. We had Mike (Uppendahl) do some of the directing for us. And that was good because he's very familiar with the process. The thing about the actors – this generation of actors – a lot of them play games and they know the medium very well.

There's a bit of a shock value to the game for the actors ; when they see themselves on the screen, they're completely surprised as to how close to life the graphics look.

I imagine the two-tier process of the mo-cap and face-cap is pretty new to them though.

JB : Oh yeah.

What attracted you to the setting of LA Noire ? Did you always want to set an adventure during this period ?

BM : Yeah, I'm a huge fan of James Ellroy and I just finished his last book recently. I'm also a massive fan of Chandler and Hammett. Film-wise and literature-wise I've always been interested in the period. The challenge of setting a game there was finding a hook – or a number of different hooks – that would kind of work in that setting.

When we were changing console generations from PS2 to PS3 I was interested to see that we could do lighting properly for the first time – that opened up the possibility of doing a film noire genre game properly because lighting's such a huge factor – the technology opened up far more possibilities.

Story-wise, the game's about the same length as two full seasons of a TV show, so there's ample space in there to develop a rich, lush plot which of course makes use of what was going on at the time in LA.

JB : We love to explore all sorts of period settings so for us it's a perfect match.

I imagine there's some pretty heavy subject matter – race, sex, police brutality – that you could use to inform the plot…

BM : There is, yeah…

JB : Oh yeah, if you read anything from that time period – news articles or crime scene photography – it's incredibly gruesome. I think that a lot of people have a very rosy view of the past during that period but it wasn't like that at all. It was very dirty…

BM : Definitely. When we were doing the research for the game it was an eye-opener. Back in those days you could literally have a picture on the front page of the newspaper of a woman who had been cut in half. There was a level of brutality that was accepted in that age ; people had got used to it during the Second World War and that allowed for that sort of editorial judgement in a paper, which over time changed. You would never see something like that now. Plus newspapers were coming out three or four times a day at that time and they weren't just news, they were a sort of entertainment back then too.

People had a harder life back then too. When we were sourcing costumes for this game we got to look at the costumes of people like Judy Garland and Humphry Bogart – and it's amazing how small they all were. But this was a generation that had been through the depression and it had been through the war, so they'd had it a lot tougher. Still, they can out of it all with an amazing optimism. After all, they built America after that, so there you go…

That sense of optimism that the country had post-war was appealing to me. I'm from the Vietnam generation so when I was growing up, America was kind of a pariah. But they'd gone from this point at the end of the Second World War where they'd defeated the bad guys I was interested as to how everyone's perception of them had fallen so far.

I was also interested in including the early days of Hollywood. That place, growing up, was presented to the world as filled with glitz and glamour and we all just lapped it up, but the underside of that was totally different.

JB : From a gameplay point of view, the player's taking the role of Phelps – who's a good guy, and he's your moral compass of the time. So you have the role of someone who's trying to do good in increasingly bad situations.

It's a bit more of an mature experience. When we show LA Noire to people – who are all familiar with GTA – they play it a different way. They keep the same car, they stick to the speed limit. The avoid fender-benders and they stick to the assignments they're tasked with. They behave, more like they would in a real world setting.

The whole feel of the game is like you're in a time machine and you're exploring an earlier period in time. You lose yourself very quickly…

It's very immersive. I wasn't sure to begin with in the demo which parts were being played and which were cinematic.

BM : We get that a lot. That's what we're going for. We wanted you to feel a part of the world.

Do you think LA Noire is indicative of the fact that open-world sandbox genre games are growing up ? This is nothing like the cartoonish world of GTA III. Now with games like this and Red Dead Redemption, do you feel you have more potential to explore more mature themes with your games ?

JB : Well, this isn't really a sandbox game. You're not going to go out and create your own gameplay. This is story-driven. The world is open for the player to explore and there are activities which may allow you to deviate from the straight and narrow – for example, on the way to a crime-scene you may get a call that a bank heist is in progress and you may want to head over there and stop it. You can explore the city and find LA landmarks and such.

But what's compelling about LA Noire is how you're been driven through the game. This game is about picking up objects and connecting them with someone who is lying to you. It's about collecting evidence in parts. It sounds simple but it's insanely compelling.

The city is a backdrop to the story and the crimes in the plot and the overall narrative arch, rather than a playground.

It's an evolution in game design, that's for sure. We're taking an old genre, but we're not revitalising it. This is open-world with some classic adventure elements, but we're using new technology to connect characters with the player in such a way that has never been done for. To me, this is the next step for games of this type.

It's quite a bold move for Rockstar making this game. You're asking players to connect on a level they perhaps haven't previously with characters in games, and the pace is a lot more sedate…

JB : That's the trickiest thing to get right. Blending in the action in such a way so it doesn't feel like it's just been crow-barred in there for the sake of it is pretty tough. It's paced like a TV show. If you watch CSI or Law & Order there might, for example, be an alleyway chase ; those are the sort of bursts of action we're talking about here. We knew we had to get it right so it wouldn't feel tacked on.

BM : We know we're asking a lot from players. We're asking them to connect with characters and remember names and faces and events. The cases are long – they can last from just under an hour to an hour – and players will have a bit more of a cerebral experience because they're going to be more than pulling a trigger.

JB : There's still elements of gameplay they'll recognise, but the experience is altogether different. The thing is, you won't actually understand until you play it yourself.

When the trailer came out a lot of people asked us when we would reveal the gameplay footage and we were like, the trailer is all gameplay footage. People are still sceptical that this is the case because in the game industry there are a lot of examples where publishers have released these great trailers of pre-rendered cut-scenes and then consumers have bought the game and it's turned out to be rubbish. With our trailer, it's not canned, and what you see is what you go.

BM : It is risky, but hell, Rockstar has been taking risks in this industry since GTA III.

JB : With all our games… they've all been incredibly cinematic experiences, but it's been a challenge to be viewed as a legitimate medium. We're definitely blurring the lines now. I want this game to be the flashpoint where people start to think of games and film as being on the same level as entertainment, because I'm confident they already are.

BM : Sam Houser keeps on asking where this medium can go. It's key for every game we make.

By Nick Cowen 12:35PM GMT 05 Jan 2011

Voir en ligne : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...

I'm your huckleberry - The Brainy Gamer

2010-12-11T18:53:53Z

Michael Abbott, AKA The Brainy Gamer, tente, à l'instar de AwesomeExMachina, le roleplay dans Red Dead Redemption. Où comment il tua le sympathique commerçant raciste de Armadillo, again and again ... (en anglais)

Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
Too terrible for the ear. The times have been
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end ; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools : this is more strange
Than such a murder is.
—Macbeth

The shopkeeper in Armadillo is an anti-Semite. Was, that is, until I shot him. There's more to the story.

I arrived in Armadillo one fine morning and decided to take a look around. After a drink at the saloon and a salty solicitation from a prostitute ("I'm a married man," I told her), I crossed the street and entered the general store.

The kindly shopkeeper welcomed me and mentioned something about torching the train station "if they wouldn't arrest me for it." That seemed a little odd, but I overlooked it and began surveying his inventory. Then he proudly proclaimed, ""I keep foreign and Jewish-made supplies out of my store. Help our American families."

Huh ? I quickly changed my mind about buying anything and exited the store. No way was this idiot getting my business. I left town and headed back to the MacFarlane Ranch. The shopkeeper there is stingy, but at least he's not a wannabe-arsonist xenophobe.

The next day, I headed back to Armadillo and, purely out of curiosity, decided to visit the cordial racist shopkeeper again. When I entered the store he was speaking to another customer. "Seems like all the railroad does these days is drop off more and more foreigners." Then he noticed me and offered a warm greeting. "Welcome friend." When I approached the counter to speak to him, he reeled off another nugget of frontier enlightenment. "You won't find anything Jewish-made in this establishment, sir."

And that's when I shot him. I don't recall consciously deciding to do it. I just pulled my gun and plugged him. Then I walked into the street and waited for the sheriff's deputy to arrest me.

After serving my time in jail, I left town and busied myself with all sorts of other things. Exploring. Hunting. Sleeping under the stars. But that shopkeeper never left my mind. I had a nagging suspicion about him, and I needed to find out if I was right. Because, you see, I've played a few video games in my time.

So I returned to Armadillo and headed straight for the general store. I walked through the door...and sure enough there he was. Same bespectacled shopkeeper. Same bile. "I've never lost a single piece of merchandise. I keep mulattoes out of the store." Well, I thought to myself, at least he's spreading the hate around now. Then I shot him again.

This time, however, a message popped up on my screen informing me that, because I had killed the shopkeeper, the store would be closed for five days. To verify this fact, I repeatedly slept/saved to advance the clock and returned to the store at various hours on the following days. Indeed, the shopkeeper was nowhere to be found. I had discovered the opening I needed to dispense my own brand of frontier justice.

Now, the cordial racist shopkeeper and I have a relationship. Every five days I return to Armadillo ; he warmly greets me, and I kill him. I've even found ways to avoid tedium. Sometimes a single shot to the head does the trick ; other times I lasso and hogtie him before letting him have it. If I've had an especially bad day on the range, I let him tell me about the Jews before plugging him multiple times in the piehole, courtesy of my Dead Eye slo-mo skill. Occasionally I even shoot up the store. I guess you could say I'm a loyal customer.

Last night, however, my plan went strangely awry. I arrived in Armadillo on schedule and killed the shopkeeper. After fleeing the law (I no longer waste time in the hoosegow) and eliminating my bounty with a pardon letter, I decided to head over to the saloon for a little poker. I made my way to the back room, opened the door, and who did I find sitting at the table ? You guessed it. The cordial racist shopkeeper, pretty as you please, with a stack of chips in front of him. You may also guess what I did next. Looted his body too.

See you soon, cordial racist shopkeeper. I'm your huckleberry.

Posted by Michael Abbott at 10:00 AM in Games | Permalink

Voir en ligne : http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brai...

Normal Activity, une machinima de XZS

DrNoze — 2010-12-10T11:08:44Z

Malgré le fait que je trouve le concept des machinima plutôt excitant, il faut bien avouer que pas grand chose de très intéressant n'en sort. On a au mieux des paquets d'énergie brut et potaches. Les stunts vidéos tirés des différents GTA sur fond de hard rock peuvent être de grands moments, par exemple.

Normal Activity (machinimé dans GTA IV), ci dessous, est un peu à part de par son ambiance complètement barrée, et vaut le coup d'oeil rien que pour son intro en free party d'appartement et son gros bonhomme naked défoncé à tout. Après ça devient n'importe-quoi et la référence au film, dont la vidéo est censée être la parodie, est complètement à la ramasse.

C'est ça qu'est bon.

Ensuite, ce qui ne gâche rien, sur sa page Youtube, les 2 commentaires les mieux notés sont : "WORST VIDEO BY MACHINAMA EVER !!!" et "fake and gay", et rien que pour ça, ça inspire le respect.

No Clip : Grand Theft Auto IV - AwesomeExMachina

DrNoze — 2010-12-09T10:39:47Z

Et si Niko Bellic était un bon gars ? AwesomeExMachina, sur son blog, essaie de répondre à la question en reprenant Grand Theft Auto IV depuis le début tout en essayant de la jouer "honnête homme"... (en anglais)

No Clip is a new blog series. An experiment in player interaction, I dig out old games and play them with a set of critical restrictions to rethink what we thought we knew. A repost of my first edition, lost in the New Destructoid revert, with a second edition to follow in the upcoming week.

To most gamers, Niko Bellic is a typhoon of destruction. The name is synonymous with exaggerated violence, brazen criminal acts, and a gruff Eastern European accent all wrapped up in a smoldering tale of vengeance. The protagonist for the critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko is the lightning rod for Rockstar's tale of embellished crime and desperation in their loving recreation of a real life New York City.

Following the series typical arch for their characters, Niko begins as a small time nobody and climbs his way over dead gang bosses to an inevitable spot at the top. This is the way of the Grand Theft Auto series. But I recall feeling something different about this fourth installation during my original playthrough. Niko didn't seem like the usual crime-infatuated character. Rockstar painted him with some depth and a bit more character than previous incarnations, filling his background with vague worn-torn tragedies and consuming his present day decisions with a struggle to preserve himself from these same past mistakes.

This slight moral compass made Niko a tragic character to me. I felt rather plagued with guilt as I guided him away from his convictions and back into the life of a petty thief and mobster. I felt responsible for Niko falling off the wagon and I wondered how things could have played out differently. What if Niko Bellic refused to kill ? What if he really did try and keep his head above water and his hands clean ? Could Niko really have any other life but one of a criminal ?

I knew going into this idea that the only way to keep Niko completely law-abiding was to never turn the game on the first place. The narrative leads down a rather inevitable path. The only mission in the story arch that doesn't involve some sort of criminal act is driving your drunk cousin back to his apartment after disembarking the cargo ship at the very start. Heck, even that's only true if you respect traffic lights and restrain yourself from slamming into every car you see. With Roman soon in debt to loan sharks, I knew Niko's ethics would have to be a little flexible. But I held true to one principle : In my game, Niko would never take a life.

That first car ride home was a major test of patience. Holding true to even simple traffic laws was inexplicably painful at first. Waiting for stoplights was pulling teeth. But I respected traffic laws to the best of my ability. After countless hours in single player and free roam with the accelerator to the floor at all times, driving slow was like trying to tell myself not to chew my own nails. I kept catching myself falling back into old habits. Red lights, stop signs, speed limits, the fact that I can't ramp over cars if they happen to be in my way.

It was hard to think this way. But forcing myself into this compulsory reality brought something with it. A slow realization that Rockstar's game wasn't just a set of buildings in which to have your explosions, but a living, breathing city. Walking the streets, I heard near hours of conversation, insults, and quips from the civilians walking the streets that I'd never heard. Things I certainly would have missed careening down streets and top speed and shooting back at cops in pursuit behind me. I saw billboards I never knew existed, buildings I had no idea I could enter. I watched a man on a bench flip through the fully rendered pages of an actual book, a store owner meticulously clean a sidwalk, and watched a police officer place someone in the back of his cruiser after an elaborate foot pursuit.

It didn't take long before the simple act of parking my car like a normal human being or calling a cab rather than stealing some poor guy's beat-up sedan stopped being a nuisance. It started becoming a normal, even enjoyable, routine. After a few in-game hours in Liberty City, I started to take pleasure in the slow-paced walks to my cousin's cab depot. Even more so, rewriting the pace of the game like this made every deviation so much more interesting. When you spend your time waiting impatiently behind a bus to take a right on red, a car chase through the city became a riveting switch-up. Rather than par-for-the-course, every infraction, no matter how slight, becomes a thrilling crescendo moment.

This made the missions themselves nerve-wracking experiences. I knew I had to carefully tread through the early missions of the campaign because my cousin needed my help. Nice or not, it wasn't in Niko's design to just leave Roman hanging. But I didn't really know when it was one of the nefarious characters I began working for were going to ask me to take a gun and fall back on old habits.

At first, it was small things. Though I took no pleasure in smashing the window of a china shop, it didn't require me to hurt the owner. So I did so to help my cousin. When some ‘debt-collectors' jumped him in a basketball court, I beat the ever-loving piss out of them. Niko could handle himself. But as I justified each mission, I kept allowing myself to step further and further from my design. If I let myself smash a car window for protection money, how long before I'm smashing teeth ?

This ethical conflict came to a head when I took off in pursuit of Roman's debt-collector at the tail end of the mission, leading a white-knuckled chase through Bohan's industrial district. Caught up in the usual adrenaline-fueled sequences, I let myself forget what I was doing for a moment. I blew through lights and took corners sharply, nearly running down a few pedestrians. Eventually, I found myself spamming the A button in a dead sprint, intent on catching up to this sleazy loan shark as I chased him into the second story of an abandoned warehouse.

It was easy to disarm him. I'd become quite impeccable at the hand-to-hand combat as I'd previously worked towards the Finish Him achievement. But I didn't even see what I was doing as I caught him in a combo maneuver. I was too focused on the timing of the disarm. The kinetic force of the mission's pace had put me right back into the mindset of victory, regardless of the conditions. I nearly didn't catch myself as I pulled the knife from The Albanian's hands and readied it for a finishing move. I stood for a moment, paused as the clumsy gangster struggled back to his feet. I frantically unequipped the knife as he stood and instead knocked the son of a bitch out with nothing more than a solid kick to the gut.

Stepping out onto the scaffolding, The Albanian lay bloodied behind me, but he was still breathing. The mission was over, the loan shark thoroughly defeated. But I was amazed at how efficiently Rockstar had pulled me from my original intentions. I had made a multitude of compromises just to make it only a few missions into the story. I hadn't killed anyone yet, but with nothing more than a flimsy car chase premise and an object marker on my radar, I'd nearly taken a life without thinking twice. It didn't' feel far off from the realizations in Shadow of the Colossus, a game which drove your character to brutally destroy gorgeous lumbering creatures as you followed obediently to nothing more than a glint of light on your sword.

I attempted a mission or two beyond that, but I didn't get far. After the game had taught me how to fight, it was only a matter of time before it passed me a pistol and asked me to take out a few gangsters. After the incident in the warehouse, I was done with the game's attempts to breach my ethical code. Vlad was satisfied enough with the work I'd done so far and I'd dealt with the majority of Roman's debt-collectors. So, with a level of restraint the game didn't seem to want me to have, I turned my phone to silent and refused all subsequent missions. Instead, I did the only thing I could do ; worked my day job and kept my head down.

Niko became an average Joe, running a life that became not unlike playing a stripped down version of The Sims. I woke up in the morning and went to work taking cab fares around the city for my cousin. I outfitted the gruff, intense, brooding ex-mobster in the most unassuming outfit possible, complete with a pair of scholarly glasses. I went on dates with Michelle, which became progressively more hilarious since I was no longer worthy of her under-cover investigation. The most interesting thing to report on my Mr. Bellic was how deft of a bowler he'd become.

After numerous hours plodding around the city in my cousin's taxi, occasionally going out for drinks with Roman, watching television, or nailing the high score in CUB3D, I unceremoniously ended my game. Without a storyline cut scene to cap it, I was forced to apply my own victory conditions. I'd made a fair sum of money from working a successful job and not bleeding cash in hospital bills and gun stores. Had the game left in some of the previous games' intricacy of buying property, I could've bought Niko a decent apartment, or maybe invested in crummy night club to turn a profit.

But, sans any real assets, my version of Niko was otherwise victorious. He was a part of Liberty City. Bulgarin would never find him. He was able to manage a day job. The police never became acquainted with his ruthless prowess with a handgun and he scarcely put a dent in his cousin's taxi. The citizens of Liberty City were sparred a vicious spree of crime and destruction. No one detonated buses in the center of Times Square and no helicopters were shot out of the air over busy downtown Alderney.

Grand Theft Auto IV had no achievement to award me for this victory, no gamerscore came from being an unassuming citizen. But in my story, Niko stuck to his moral compass and managed to flee his criminal past. His cousin kept his cab depot and no one shot his friends. It wasn't in the design to progress this way and it constantly tried to buck me from my new goal. But, despite everything, it is nonetheless unreservedly possible for Niko Bellic to just be a nice guy.

AwesomeExMachina

Voir en ligne : http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Aw...

Red Dead Redemption : Rockstar Next - IGN

DrNoze — 2010-09-25T17:58:00Z

Où Dan Houser nous parle de MMO, d'intelligence artificielle, de monde ouvert et de l'avenir de Rockstar Games... Pour rappel, cet interview date de février 2010, donc un peu avant la sortie de Red Dead Redemption.

What Red Dead Redemption could mean for the future of Rockstar's games.

UK, February 25, 2010

It's not wholly inaccurate to bill Rockstar as the house that Grand Theft Auto built. After all it was the success of the first top down game in 1998 that helped birth the company, and subsequent games have helped define it, from the revolution ushered in by GTA III and the cultural impact of Vice City and San Andreas to the cinematic cool and shocking detail of GTA IV. But as its slate for the coming months attests, there's a sense that it's shifting the focus away from its staple series as LA Noire, Max Payne 3 and Agent fill out a year that many thought would see the release of the next GTA. Is it possible that Rockstar is trying to move away from being predominantly known for GTA ?

"Hopefully we're not just famous for GTA," says Dan Houser, creative VP and co-founder of Rockstar. "That's how we would look at it and obviously we believe [Red Dead Redemption] is the best game we can possibly make at this time, just as GTA IV was the best we could possibly make at that time. We put our hearts and souls into making the games as best as we can. Last year, 2009 and 2008, we released a three part GTA IV epic experience and now we're working on a couple of other things."

In order to get a handle on what Rockstar will be offering next, it's worth looking at what's important to them now – and Red Dead Redemption's embellishments to the open world template give a good idea of what direction its games are taking. "Our next great thing that hopefully Red Dead is taking a step further forward is multiplayer," says Houser, and it's important to remember that it's an area that Rockstar is still relatively new to, with GTA IV and its subsequent episodes the first full-blooded attempt at multiplayer from the company.

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/...We don't know much about multiplayer, but expect some horse and cart shenanigans.

What those steps will be is a mystery for now, as multiplayer details remain scarce around Red Dead Redemption – though we expect it to add to GTA IV's suite and make full use of Redemption's envious assets, throwing horseback gunfights and open savannahs into the mix as well as a handful of surprises.

Whether we'll see a shift comparable to the one made by GTA III as it introduced 3D to the series and GTA IV as it embraced the HD generation remains open to question, but another of Red Dead Redemption's focal points reveals an area that's close to Rockstar's heart – and one that Dan Houser sees as being the next logical step for its games.

"I think AI is probably the single area where games are not as far ahead as they could be, for me," he tells us. "In terms of where you will suddenly see cities come to life the next level will be because there is much better AI on all of the characters."

With a desire to embrace multiplayer tied into one to take artificial intelligence one step further there's one obvious catch-all answer – a massively multiplayer online game, an answer that Realtime Worlds has run with in APB. It's something that's certainly crossed Rockstar's collective mind, though its games would have to compromise more than most, perhaps losing the dialogue and plotting that's defined many of its open world pursuits.

"As soon as you've got an MMO you lose that," says Houser. "Our feel with the MMO is that it becomes like a costume party and you lose the immersiveness of the world, partly through behaviour but also simply just through the way everyone sounds.

"Suppose you're making a city MMO and you've unlocked the great job of being a security guard, standing there until someone comes and shoots you. There are just too many bit-part players in too many of our games at the moment to do it where you have no AI. Whether you could make a world that was more persistent and have more characters with broadly similar goals and maybe compete with each other, living in it, then of course and that would be very interesting. We've always been thinking about that but we haven't really had the chance to put any major thought into it and actually do it.

"I think you'll see that [Red Dead Redemption] is definitely an instrumental step forward significantly for us from where we were before but overall an MMO ? If we had an infinite amount of teams and time when of course we would do one, but without that we feel like we're working manically just to do what we're doing. So maybe in the future. Who knows ?"

A Rockstar MMO might be some way off then, but there's other avenues it's already pursuing. Take, for example, its episodic approach to GTA IV, The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned delivering what could be easily regarded as two content heavy sequels at a budget price and within an impressive time-frame. Although it's not an approach that's openly being considered for Red Dead Redemption right now, it's one that's viable for future Rockstar products and as far as Houser's concerned, it's a simple question of value.

"It could work for all games potentially. I think that as a general concept downloadable content is correctly priced and added to the overall experience I think people like it, and if it's not exploitative then I think people feel like they're not being ripped off. I know that we can't make games that everyone is going to love but I'm pretty confident we make games where people don't feel they've been ripped off when they play them. They might not have liked it but at least they know that we made something big and put a lot of effort into it. We're not selling very short single-player experiences and a couple of levels of multiplayer."

But will the episodic approach trailblazed by GTA IV take precedence over the traditional boxed copy any time soon ? Houser's not so sure.

I don't know - people have been saying that for so long. We as a company try and be progressive and market leaders in some areas, but also try and concentrate on not being [market leaders] in all areas because otherwise we would be out of business quite quickly. It just depends where things go if that's how people want it. If people want to have big games that they buy once or buy a section of a game a game that is divided into five sections - it's not really clear one way or another at the moment quite how things are going to go. In the long term is that the future ? Probably. But is that in two years ? My sense is probably not. I think people are still very, very attached to buying packaged goods."

"AI is the next step for Rockstar - and Redemption is the latest step up."

There is of course another wave that's been threatening to consume the current generation of consoles for some time, and it's one that's been predicted by the success of the Wii. Talk about the potential of Microsoft's Natal and Sony's Arc (or whatever the company deems to call it by the time the PS3 Motion Controller launches this year) and Houser's not exactly sceptical but most definitely grounded by Rockstar's prior experience with the Wii.

"We thought with Bully we had some decent results, but we certainly sold a lot more on 360 - and the versions came out at the same time so it's easier to do a comparison," he says as a note of caution. "I think there's no reason why any of that stuff couldn't work. We see ourselves as concept makers and so just as we can make a fun game for the DS there's no reason why we couldn't do things for whatever platform we put our right guys minds on figuring out how to do something interesting for it."

Indeed, Rockstar remains not just platform neutral but rather platform positive, working on whatever hardware's to hand as has been witnessed by its open-armed embrace of the iPhone with the recent ports of Beaterator and Grand Theft Auto : Chinatown Wars. Getting its head around new technologies is one thing, but quite another is getting the most out of existing ones.

"We feel we're getting to grips with the true complexities of making games for these machines now and it's certainly been a lot of work," he says. "I don't think anyone could have accurately estimated when people were announcing this round of hardware what the opportunities to do good stuff would be, but also what are the realities of doing that. The technical challenge of making games on 360 and PS3 is something we feel now we're getting properly to grips with but it definitely is still challenging - it's the sheer amount of manpower you need to put in these things."

And in Houser's mind neither the Xbox 360 nor PlayStation 3 have truly reached their peak : "I think it's as much as we can do now," he says.

"I think we've always tried to push the machines as hard as they can be pushed. With GTA III we were pushing the PS2 as hard as it could be pushed at that time but three years later we could have a pushed it a lot harder.

"I also think you've got to provide people with a compelling reason to buy new hardware and unless someone comes up with one the idea that games are going to stagnate and not get any better, at least graphically, is absurd. Game design moves forward and backwards and gets more interesting and less interesting - you know it moves in a slightly different trajectory that isn't purely driven by technology but the graphics are going to continue to get better."

It's hard to imagine much more being pushed out of the current generation than Red Dead Redemption is acheiving, but if anything was to raise the stakes again could it be a sequel to this game ?

"If we can think of an interesting story to tell that works in this world then of course we would look at it," replies Houser. "But for the moment we really don't sit there thinking we're making a trilogy and this is part one of a trilogy, because then we feel we'd be holding things back from the first game and I really don't think we've held anything back from this game - it's so big and all encompassing."

Check back tomorrow for this week's final feature, exploring the story and setting of Red Dead Redemption.

Voir en ligne : http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/...

Red Dead Redemption, un film de John Hillcoat

DrNoze — 2010-06-03T19:55:24Z

John Hillcoat (The Proposition, The Road) à récemment réalisé un film court pour Rockstar Games, une sorte de machinima tirée de l'ultime jeu open world réalisé par le célèbre studio de jeux vidéo : Red Dead Redemption.

Un film promo de luxe qui fait plaisir à voir quand on a déjà joué au jeu (la première partie du moins). Maintenant je vous le déconseille si vous n'avez pas encore commencé ce jeu extraordinaire, jetez-vous dessus immédiatement, et évitez de voir le film ci-dessous qui déflore pas mal le début de l'intrigue principale. Le réalisateur de westerns australiens en propose une relecture en remontant certaines cut-scenes et en les mélangeant à des images in-game.

Je regrette personnellement l'abscence de Bonnie, qui me plaisait bien et que le réalisateur a préféré passer à la trappe.

A Short Film Made From Red Dead Redemption (by John Hillcoat) :

– Télécharger le court métrage de John Hillcoat créé dans l'univers de Red Dead redemption : http://www.filestube.com/15588390a022416903e9,g/Red-Dead-Redemption-HDTV-XviD-2HD.html

– Télécharger les sous titres : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y4NB3TNV

Stephen Bliss, la patte graphique de Rockstar

DrNoze — 2009-12-22T12:12:00Z

Si le nom ne vous dit rien, vous avez sûrement déjà vu ses illustrations. Stephen Bliss, c'est l'identité graphique de Rockstar Games, c'est lui qui a créé les artworks de la série Grand Theft Auto, de Bully (Canis Canem Edit), de The Warriors et des Max Payne 3 et Red Dead Redemption à venir. Un style reconnaissable d'une licence à l'autre tout en ayant une identité propre pour chaque jeu.

Après avoir bossé quelques années pour une marque de fringues à Tokyo, puis en tant que freelance en Angleterre (Il fait une célèbre pochette de disque pour Massive Attack et Mad Professor), Stephen Bliss rejoint Rockstar à New York comme senior artist en 2001. Il y prends en charge toute l'imagerie de la série des GTA, puis Rockstar lui confie de plus en plus de licences jusqu'à devenir véritablement le représentant du style Rockstar...

Stephen Bliss

Voir en ligne : http://www.stephenbliss.com/

– Une interview en anglais : http://www.vinylpulse.com/2008/09/stephen-bliss-i.html
– Plus d'images sur son portfolio : http://www.stephenbliss.com/