If you’re planning on picking up LA Noire and don’t have two X chromosomes yourself, you might want to play it together with a female friend.
LA Noire is a very different type of game from the titles Rockstar usually publishes. There are shootouts and car chases, of course, but it’s also about intuition, deduction, and interrogating suspects – and that’s precisely why developer Team Bondi thinks women might enjoy it more than other fare, even if they don’t usually play games.
“We think it appeals to a really broad church,” game writer/director Brendan McNamara told OXM UK, “and one of the phenomenons we’ve seen a lot when we watch people play the game is that they’ll play it, or their wife or their girlfriend will play it, and two or three people will play it together like they’re watching TV.”
Because the interrogation parts of the game lean heavily on facial reading and recognition – a traditionally “female” social skill, McNamara thinks there is a particular draw there for the ladies. “So far it’s been very appealing to women too, which is great,” said. “I think women are pretty good at reading whether people are lying or not.”
It also doesn’t hurt that the game’s genres – crime and film noir – are also something that traditionally appeal to women. Along those lines, that thought echoes Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski, who said that Sony had missed a huge opportunity by not marketing Heavy Rain towards women.
(Via CVG)
Published: May 20, 2011 07:35 pm