Preview - Max Payne 3

UPDATE - MAX PAYNE 3 DELAYED TIL MAY 18TH - CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

The original Max Payne kicked some serious ass when it launched back in 2001. Initially conceived as just another third person action title, those crafty Finns from developer Remedy Entertainment took some inspiration from 1999 hit The Matrix to add in a system called ‘bullet time’ just a few months prior to release. The result – an average action title found a unique way to distinguish itself, and a mechanic which actually elevated the genre. Max Payne was good, but sequel Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (released in 2003) took that template and rocked out cotton socks off with a peerless example of level design and a revamped version of bullet-time that remains just as playable, rewarding and just damn cool today as it was almost a decade ago.



Remedy moved on from Payne to start the lengthy development of the underwhelming Alan Wake, and news of a sequel for Max and his dark and gritty world faded to rumour. That is until new publishers Rockstar, the legends behind GTA, stepped in to resurrect the character. As the March release for Max Payne 3 nears, we got a look at some preview code at a hands off event in Dublin.

Max Payne 3 takes place some years after the last entry in the series, returning to a protagonist even more battered and bruised by life than previous iterations. The guts of the story brings Max to Sao Paulo, where an old friend from the NYPD recruits him as bodyguard for a wealthy Brazilian family. Needless to say, things don’t go particularly well and it’s not long before a seriously damaged Max shaves his locks and goes on a vengeful killing spree.

Max Payne 3 will also contain flashbacks to the characters time in New York, explaining just how he ending up being kicked out of the NYPD and it’s here that our hands off demo begins. Fresh from taking out a local mobster, Max and friend scurry back to his grungy apartment to regroup. But it’s not long before the kid’s (Rockstar assure us the kid was in his 20’s, Max Payne isn’t that gritty) mob boss father shows up and all hell breaks loose.



The game uses new and familiar gameplay elements to deliver its third person action thrills. New additions include a cover system and full 360 degree shooting while prone. But the star of the show remains bullet time and Max can run into the action in slow motion or utilise his patented bullet dive move at the flick of a bumper. He uses a mixture of these methods to dispatch a series of hoodlums, meet a crazy, explosive war vet and generally perforate everything he sees in ways both graphically stunning and viscerally brutal.

A rooftop section with enemies excised gives us a chance to check out the new animation system, running in Rockstar’s proprietary Euphoria engine and the NaturalMotion procedural animation system – first used in GTA IV. It provides not only realistic character movements but also an awareness of the level around them that is virtually unmatched. In practise, Max will brace himself before hitting the floor, protect his head from the walls and react realistically within his environment. It also plays into bullet time, giving the character momentum as he shifts out of the path of incoming bullets and rapidly switches aim from one target to the next. Engaging a room of enemies is a thing of beauty as you dive into a room, pumping round after round into their decidedly destructible faces before careening to the floor and continuing to deliver a hail of bullets in every conceivable direction.

But this level was merely a taster, as our second glimpse jets Max off too Sao Paulo, where a mission has gone awry and the wife of a wealthy local man has been kidnapped. As Max tries to explain what happened, the building is infiltrated by armed paramilitaries and the security system fails. It’s time to get the nearby big haired nerdy type (who bears more than a passing resemblance to Richard Ayoade in The IT crowd) to the relevant buttons so we can get the system back online.

We’ve spent a lot of time in office blocks in our years of gaming and Max Payne 3 continues that trend here, taking us through nondescript cubicles in search of faces to shoot. But Rockstar keep the action frantic and fill each room with so much destructible content that it’s a joy to throw out a couple of dozen rounds, engaging in your own John Woo movie as you search for targets. The cover system allows for some token stealth and there’s some complex AI driving your enemies which means their search patterns and reactions are never canned, providing for some replayability. They’re also driven by marvellous physics which capture each bullet hit with a rock of the relevant body part and, in the case of headshots, some gruesome kills. It’s a little nastier than we’ve seen in recent years, but Rockstar were keen to stress that it is a mature, 18 rated game and the consequence of the bullets is very much driven by the level of detail available in the physics system.

Max Payne’s melee combat was always (literally) hit and miss so it’s been dramatically improved this time around. Get close enough to an enemy and your regular attack will trigger a punch, kick or pistol-whip and these can be chained, and paired with bullet time, for some fantastically violent moments, many of which can be finished off by a point blank blast to end the encounter. The game retains it’s predecessors kill cam, a neat visual cue to let you know you’ve bested all the enemies in the area, and particularly accurate regular kills also earn a close up of the bullet which can be manually slowed by the player to preserve cherish every moment.

The level continued with a couple of siege moments then Max finds himself in a lobby for a glimpse at another new gameplay addition. Max Payne 3 contains a good number of cinematic action moments which gift our hero with unlimited ammo and a suitably over the top situation to test the skills of the player. Ours saw a jeep come crashing through the front of the building, forcing Max to take out the driver and his companions before calming stepping up and over the front desk, barely avoiding the out of control vehicle and going on to confront a roomful of thugs. Naturally enough, it looks damn cool and add some variety to the gameplay. Later we saw the character square up to a heavily armoured enemy (and saw him actually die) who took a serious amount of bullets to take down. A –censored- cut scene later and the place is filled with some extremely photogenic flames and Max’s suit is rumpled. Cue some more ultraviolence as the demo comes to an end.



But wait, there’s even more to Max’s next generation debut. Max Payne 3 features the series’ first foray into multiplayer, with the developers attempting to capture all the excitement of the single player game in their competitive modes. To that end, one mode called Gang Wars provides a unique, constantly evolving narrative. As two teams, one a Favela gang, the other a bunch of paramilitaries face off, the game may begin with regular team deathmatch until a new objective targets the leader of the enemy, changing the game to a marked man type deal or a stash is located, adding some capture the flag action. We’re not expecting these stories to be particularly complex, but the idea of a constantly shifting multiplayer experience with ties to the story mode is exciting for those of us not so taken with regular deathmatch.

Those modes will also appear though, with both deathmatch and team deathmatch already announced as standalone modes, with more to be revealed in the coming weeks. Most exciting of all is the confirmation that multiplayer will also include bullet time. We’re told it’s a difficult concept to adequately get across in words but essentially the system is limited to one on one encounters. So if you engage an enemy and activate bullet time or a shoot dodge, just your subjective time and that of your selected opponent will slow. You’ll then have the chance to line up a cracking headshot, while everyone else in the level will see you both moving at normal speed. Crucially, engaging bullet time can also be used defensively so experienced players will be able to use the extra level of control to dodge your ballistics and likely headshot you the second normal time resumes.

Naturally, you’ll also find online norms like an xp system, loadout customisations and more in Max Payne 3, while bursts are basically perks, to give you an advantage in play.

It’s been a long time since the last entry in the Max Payne series and a change of developer as well as a protracted development cycle and numerous delays are rarely good signs in the games industry. But Max Payne 3 is looking very impressive on this first airing. It doesn’t hurt that developers Rockstar (the work is shared by a number of their studios) are responsible for some of the most highly praised titles of the last decade and that the smaller focus of a linear game actually means they can layer in even more attention to detail than you’ll find in GTA IV or Red Dead.

But the change also looks to have improved the storytelling – Max’s famously awkward phrasing is now a little smoother, though it still retains the right level of self conscious, film noir voice over. In the place of graphic novel pages, you’ll now find cut scenes with full motion capture and a handheld feel that looks great on screen. Previous voice actor James McCaffrey returns to provide Max’s gravelly tones but also his facial features and actual movements in these scenes. But there’s also a homage to those comic book pages in moments which use split screen and overlaid text on screen to further the story and give you insight about the level ahead.

And, alongside all the new features like multiplayer, cutting edge animation and refined gameplay, there’s the indisputable fact that bullet time is just amazingly cool. Some titles use it merely as a gimmick but the intense bullet ballets of Max Payne make the device essential, while skilful play regenerates your meter, helping to keep you suspended in ultraviolent action nirvana for a few more precious seconds, as the audio warps and bullets carve a rippling wake through the air.

We can’t wait to get our hands on Max Payne 3 for a one on one session and we’ll keep you up to date on all the latest news from Rockstar ahead of its release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in March 2012.