Rockstar Games is known for its ambitious projects, and L.A. Noire proves that the company’s reputation is safe. While the rumblings about the game have been heard for years, our world exclusive cover story is the only place you’ll be able to get concrete information on the gritty crime epic. Over the course of our 10-page feature we look at the game’s astonishing reconstruction of 1947 Los Angeles and learn how the team took on such a massive undertaking. We also talk to the team to see L.A. Noire’s groundbreaking facial-animation system in action, and learn how it might change the way we look at games from now on.

Some of the other features in our March issue include a look at the status of some of our favorite old franchises, previews of some of the Independent Games Festival nominees, and a guide for parents interested in parental controls. We also grill Platinum Games’ director Hideki Kamiya on Bayonetta, dig into the legal battle over Duke Nukem, and check out some of the hottest tech around. If you’ve been wondering why Polyphony Digital seems to operate without deadlines, Sony’s head of internal development, Shuhei Yoshida, explains why the company cuts the Gran Turismo 5 developer so much slack.

Sequels to Mass Effect, BioShock, and Battlefield: Bad Company get reviewed in the March issue of Game Informer Magazine, along with Dante’s Inferno, Aliens vs. Predator and many more.

Subscribers will be getting the March issue soon, and it will be hitting newsstands shortly afterward.