14 DAY TRIAL // Team Bondi might not be working with the people at Rockstar on any new projects, but the leader of the team that has created L.A. Noire says that there was no company that was ready to risk as much as they have in order to bring a game to the market.
Brendan McNamara, who is the leader of Team Bondi, has spoken to MCV in an interview and said, “Rockstar, they’ve been brave enough to take this huge risk and do a completely different type of game – and so the thing so far is just to see whether people will appreciate it and buy into it and like it, because hand on heart, everyone will talk to you in the rest of the games business and say ‘wow, what a huge risk Rockstar took with that one,’ but now it’s paying off.”
The developer believes that there was no other company in the world of video games that was prepared to do the same and says that Rockstar has always had a rebel streak that can be seen in the projects that they release.
He added, “I think it’s one of the reasons why people have faith in them because they don’t just rehash things every year, and they spend enough time – GTA is the classic example – you could say that somebody could keep a game like that going for 10-years or longer and just do five versions.”
The disagreements between Rockstar and Team Bondi were linked to working conditions and to relations between team members.
At the moment, L.A. Noire can be played on the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and those who keep to the PC will also get it during the fall.
Since launch, the developers have also launched a steady stream of downloadable content with a Traffic Case called The Consul's Car being the latest.