NEW YORK – A lot of games have tried to create cinematic experiences, but few have actually made it to the cinema.

L.A. Noire, which will be out for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 May 17, took that leap Monday night at the Tribeca Film Festival. Rockstar's detective story is the first videogame to ever make an appearance at Manhattan's renowned film celebration, a recognition of its movielike presentation.

The event kicked off with a screening of "The Red Lipstick Murder," one of L.A. Noire's chilling homicide cases, as played by a Rockstar representative. The game was blown up on the big screen and demonstrated to a sold-out crowd of over 250 people. Afterwards, the Rockstar reps fielded questions from the audience.

Tribeca's crowd seemed to react well to the game, which was particularly important to L.A. Noire's lead writer/director, Brendan McNamara. The head of Team Bondi told Wired.com after the screening that one of the studio's biggest challenges was making the title appeal to casual observers, movie buffs who don't play many games.

"One of the things we wanted to do was take exposition away from cut scenes and make that part of the game," McNamara said. "We didn't want to do 'exposition, game, exposition, game.' It's all part of an attempt to address a potentially bigger audience."

While many games separate story and gameplay like colors and whites in the laundry, L.A. Noire turns every conversation into an involving challenge. You'll have to figure out whether witnesses are lying to you based on a series of subtle (and not-so-subtle) hints, a mechanic that McNamara thinks will appeal to mainstream crowds.

"We wanna get out of science fiction, fantasy in the back of the bookstore," McNamara said. "We want to get into the front, the more general section, and bring that audience in."

Tribeca CCO Geoff Gilmore and Rockstar Games' Rob Nelson and Simon Ramsey presented L.A. Noire at the Manhattan film festival Monday evening.

Photo: Jason Schreier/Wired.com

While developing L.A. Noire, Team Bondi and Rockstar were inspired by the point-and-click adventures of Sierra and LucasArts. McNamara says these games were filled with humanity: Games like King's Quest might not hold up to Rockstar's high aesthetic standards, but still manage to get audiences caring about their casts of characters.

As apropos to the Tribeca setting, McNamara also pointed to cinema as a huge inspiration for L.A. Noire, noting that his studio isn't run much differently than a Hollywood set. As L.A. Noire's primary writer and director, McNamara oversaw almost every decision during the development process. He believes that this kind of sole creative vision helped make the game work.

"I think that as much as there are a lot of people working on a game, they are kind of personal statements in a way," McNamara said. "If you have the opportunity to work on a big forum, you should have something that you want to say."

Though Tribeca has embraced L.A. Noire, we'll have to wait until next month to see how audiences react to its unique blend of investigative gameplay in an open-world setting.

"Ultimately, we'll have to judge by whether the audiences buys into this – whether it's a good game that they want to go out and buy, and a watershed-moment type of game," McNamara said. "It might be hugely egotistical, but we're hoping for both of those things."

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