L.A. Noire premiering April 5 - Retail Radar

L.A. Noire is a title that has been long in development. First teased as a PlayStation 3 exclusive at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Exp, Rockstar Games picked up the rights to the title a year later and announced it would arrive for the Xbox 360 as well. Last August, Rockstar parent company Take-Two said the game would miss its 2010 debut. And in November, a new trailer for the title revealed the 1940's detective title would arrive during the vague release window of spring 2011.

Now, retailers agree on a more definitive date. According to listings for L.A. Noire at specialty retailer GameStop, online rental house GameFly, and online retail juggernaut Amazon, the title will land on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on April 5. That date is a Tuesday, a day when new software typically debuts. As of press time, Rockstar Games has not responded to GameSpot’s request for confirmation or comment on the purported release date, but another online retailer, CD Universe, lists the game as coming out on April 6.

L.A. Noire is in development at Australian studio Team Bondi. The title follows a detective entangled in a violent web of vice, corruption, and crime in 1940's Los Angeles. Players jump into the seedy underworld of the metropolis and are tasked with solving a series of murders in what Rockstar describes as an "open-ended challenge."

The title will also use a new facial animation system called MotionScan. The new technology allows even the most subtle facial expressions to be reflected via in-game animation. According to Team Bondi, reading the faces of characters in L.A. Noire will be a pivotal point of the title. For more on the new technology, check out the tech demo video embedded below.