It seems like LA Noire may be having some excellent technology powering it. This announcement comes after it was revealed that Rockstar Games today became the second licensee to utilise NaturalMotion’s euphoria technology. This short excerpt from the press release gives the main details:

Oxford, UK-Feb 27 2007- NaturalMotion today announced a partnership with Rockstar Games, Inc., the world-renowned publishing label, to integrate NaturalMotion’s revolutionary euphoria engine into upcoming next-generation Rockstar Games titles. Rockstar’s integration of euphoria is well advanced, with today’s announcement following several months of close collaboration between the two companies.

It is important to note that as of yet no specific titles have been confirmed, though it appears we’ll be getting seperate announcements on those in the near future. It looks fairly likely that this technology will be used in Team Bondi’s LA Noire, which is of course being published by Rockstar Games. Here’s a little more info on the technology:

Based on NaturalMotion’s DMS technology, euphoria uses the processing power of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to simulate the human body and motor nervous system, thus creating fully interactive game characters that act differently every time. With euphoria, games move away from canned animation, towards a much richer, life-like experience that is unique to the player.

So essentially, you shouldn’t see the same movements twice from characters, it will always be different just like in real life. While this is (possibly) some of the first real information we have on the game, it’s looking quite interesting already.

Links:
NaturalMotion
Press Release (pdf)