L.A Noire (Team Bondi - PS3 exclusive)

[one]

Via GI.biz
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=10180

Team Bondi's PS3 exclusive gets a name
Rob Fahey 16:47 18/07/2005
Brendan McNamara's new studio is set to expand is first title is revealed

The Sydney-based development studio set up by The Getaway creator Brendan McNamara and some of his former team from SCEE's Soho studio has revealed its first title - a PS3 exclusive detective thriller called L.A Noire.

Team Bondi, as the studio is known, is now preparing to ramp up in size now that the title has gone into full production - and will be moving to a new facility in the coming months with capacity for up to 100 staff.

Little more is known about L.A. Noire, but until now all we'd known about Team Bondi's activities is that they were one of the first Sony studios to start doing work on third-generation PlayStation technology.

McNamara founded Team Bondi in mid-2003, although the existence of the studio wasn't formally announced until the start of 2004. The studio has an exclusive publishing deal with SCEA.

Still no media.
http://www.teambondi.com/

Team Bondi has been underway for eighteen months now and has grown from the original team of six people to 44 committed games developers

Team Bondi is now in full production of its first PlayStation®3 title, the detective thriller, L.A. Noire.

We have now reached the limits of our original Sydney studio and will be moving to a new purpose built facility in the next few months which has capacity for over 100 people.

 

[PARANOiA]

Yay for Australian development!

Although this seems to be yet another sign of the huge increase in cost required to make games. Small budgets need not apply. Usually this means less risks, meaning less innovation.

Looking forward to seeing it.

 

[mckmas8808]

Yay for Australian development!

Although this seems to be yet another sign of the huge increase in cost required to make games. Small budgets need not apply. Usually this means less risks, meaning less innovation.

Looking forward to seeing it.

Yep again your name perfectly describes your posts. (Not that anything is wrong with that ) Games have always became more expensive with every next-gen system so whats the point in being sad about it. And I would say there has been ALOT of innovation this generation (PS2\Xbox\GC) over last generation (PSone\N64\Saturn).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Ninja Theory are recruiting heavily as well. I guess that'll be the future. A group of enthusiasts start work, headed by an industry veteran, and if they get some publisher's attention they explode into a full company for just one title.

 

[Titanio]

Yeah, 100 seems to be a magic number - that's the figure Ninja Theory are also aiming for. Budgets must be..

It's good to see Sony being aggressive in terms of new IP too. As with last gen they seem intent on establishing new franchises (and I could see something like this being rather easily extended...New York Noir, Tokyo Noir etc. etc.).

Wonder also if McNamara will be extending his experiments in city simulation with this

 

[Bohdy]

I hope that this game turns out better than Brendan McNamara's previous creation, because The Getaway was a pile of shit.

It is nice to hear of more Aussie developers, though. I wonder what Melbourne House is doing next gen...

 

[mckmas8808]

I hope that this game turns out better than Brendan McNamara's previous creation, because The Getaway was a pile of shit.

It is nice to hear of more Aussie developers, though. I wonder what Melbourne House is doing next gen...

I think with better technology The Getaway could have been better. Not great but better.

 

[London Geezer]

I hope that this game turns out better than Brendan McNamara's previous creation, because The Getaway was a pile of shit.

It is nice to hear of more Aussie developers, though. I wonder what Melbourne House is doing next gen...

I think with better technology The Getaway could have been better. Not great but better.

Better technology?! Have you played the game?

Technology-wise, The Getaway was up there with the best, its graphics were some of the best around and still are. It was one of the first to have pro-scan and generally it looked and sounded fantastic. Production was great.

If anything, it's the gameplay and controls that were just not good enough. Especially the controls.

 

[mckmas8808]

I hope that this game turns out better than Brendan McNamara's previous creation, because The Getaway was a pile of shit.

It is nice to hear of more Aussie developers, though. I wonder what Melbourne House is doing next gen...

I think with better technology The Getaway could have been better. Not great but better.

Better technology?! Have you played the game?

Technology-wise, The Getaway was up there with the best, its graphics were some of the best around and still are. It was one of the first to have pro-scan and generally it looked and sounded fantastic. Production was great.

If anything, it's the gameplay and controls that were just not good enough. Especially the controls.

Ahhh. You're right. The controls did suck. I hated standing on the wall for energy.

 

[London Geezer]

Ahhh. You're right. The controls did suck. I hated standing on the wall for energy.

I didn't mind that too much, what i did hate was the fact that it just wasn't smooth. You know... Some games are just smooth. This was not one of them. And sometimes it made it very difficult to play, especially in fighting/shootouts scenes (like the chapter inside the police station, when you have to get out alive, that must have been the most frustrating game level i've ever played in my entire life).
I still finished it though and enjoyed it more than many other games.

 

[mckmas8808]

Well the storyline was good too so...
I can easily see this team making a great game on the PS3. Overall I would give The Getaway a 7.0. I haven't played the second one yet.

 

[Apoc]

Edited: No point in keeping what I posted.

 

[London Geezer]

That was SOOO mature of you.

Then they wonder why threads get locked.

 

[Apoc]

Sorry, but looking for images of getaway found this, and just thought to post it. I'll remove it now.

 

[London Geezer]

If you played the game and stopped looking at low res screens on the internet, you'd see that some parts of the Getaway were very good looking at the time. And still now. Especially the interiors, lots and lots of detail.

 

[Apoc]

If you played the game and stopped looking at low res screens on the internet, you'd see that some parts of the Getaway were very good looking at the time. And still now. Especially the interiors, lots and lots of detail.

I only saw the game being played at a friend's house, and it didn't wow me a bit. It seems i'm a little more graphic whore than most.

 

[London Geezer]

If you played the game and stopped looking at low res screens on the internet, you'd see that some parts of the Getaway were very good looking at the time. And still now. Especially the interiors, lots and lots of detail.

I only saw the game being played at a friend's house, and it didn't wow me a bit. It seems i'm a little more graphic whore than most.

As i said, some locations were top of the pops. And seeing it run in pro-scan was heaven, especially since it was one of the first and only games to support it (remember, no pro-scan on PAL xbox and GC so it just looked a lot better than most other games).

I'm not telling you to play through the game to see the best locations, i wouldn't do that to my worst enemy, but some of the interiors looked ace that's all.

 

[MechanizedDeath]

Graphics weren't a weak point for The Getaway. It's like Killzone gets a good beating too, but it certainly isn't for the graphics. PEACE.

 

[Titanio]

One interesting thing is how long Team Bondi have been up and running..since late 2003, I think? Apparently they started working on this game right away, so it'll have had a fairly long gestation period by the time it's released (hopefully for the better) - and hopefully that might mean we'll see it sooner rather than later (kinda surprised we didn't see it at E3 in fact, if they were indeed amongst the first to receive PS3 kits!).

Also, is Team Bondi independent of SCEI - is their relationship simply dev/publisher? According to their site, they're contracted for "up to" 3 PS3 titles.

 

[EpicZero]

One interesting thing is how long Team Bondi have been up and running..since late 2003, I think? Apparently they started working on this game right away, so it'll have had a fairly long gestation period by the time it's released (hopefully for the better) - and hopefully that might mean we'll see it sooner rather than later (kinda surprised we didn't see it at E3 in fact, if they were indeed amongst the first to receive PS3 kits!).

Also, is Team Bondi independent of SCEI - is their relationship simply dev/publisher? According to their site, they're contracted for "up to" 3 PS3 titles.

It's simply an exclusive deal, I believe they are independent of SCEI.