Rockstar's new L.A. Noire trailer a thing of beauty

Rockstar's last effort, Read Dead Redemption, was my favorite game of last year.  Film Noir is my favorite film genre, and I count many films from the genre in my personal top films of all time:  Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, and The Maltese Falcon among them.  So, it will be no surprise to hear that L.A. Noire is my most anticipated new game of the coming year.  Today, Rockstar released the second trailer for the game.  It does nothing to dampen my excitement.  In fact, it is even more intriguing than the first glimpse we got of the game.  

Not much of a hint of game play in this one.  Instead, we get a great look at Rockstar's amazing new facial capture technology.  Since the player will make decisions in the game based on whether or not he believes what a character is saying, Rockstar has gone great lengths to develop a new method of capturing facial movement from live actors.  And, it is amazing.  If what we see in the trailer is repeated throughout the game, it will represent a major breakthrough.  

As far as the story goes.  Hunting down a serial killer isn't exactly an original plot, but doing so in 1940's Hollywood with full noir trappings works for me.  I hope that the game expands the concept of the adventure game and isn't GTA Noir, and all indications are that it will.  We've seen glimpses of the grilling of suspects that speak of some highly original game play elements.  It will be hard to wait until May 17th to see all that the game offers.