L.A. Noire debut trailer is here. Could well be another Rockstar revolution

It's finally here. The first proper trailer for Rockstar's long-in-development, long-said revolutionary noir detective epic. We've been promised great things, and being a game published by Rockstar, we've naturally come to expect them, despite having barely anything to go on.

But now, even with just a minimal amount of gameplay detail on show, this trailer has my interest legitimately piqued. Why? Watch it, and then we'll discuss.

First up, holy crap, would you look at those people. It might seem a strange thing to get excited about, but with developer Team Bondi's new performance capture and facial animation tech at play here, it feels like we really could be looking at a genuine revolution in realistic, believable human characters in games. It already feels like this could be as big a deal as when Euphoria character physics turned up in GTA IV.

And secondly, as far as authentic film noir ambience goes, this trailer is perfect. Everything from the writing to the soundtrack to the lighting to the pacing is just utterly spot-on. We expect canny cinematic purism from Rockstar games, but even in that context, the potential for L.A. Noire's overall experience has me very very excited. The Irish guy even reminds us of James Cromwell in L. A Confidential.

Now all we need is some proper gameplay details, but having heard talk of a brutal crime plot and cerebral sleuthing in a vibrant period open-world, I'm really hoping that this could be the first detective game that actually allows me to be a proper detective. I love Max Payne and all, but I can't help being enticed by L.A. Noire's promise to let me solve a crime with brains rather than bullets.

What do you think? Pumped for the drama of it all, or were you just hoping for GTA: 1940s edition?