The Return Of Max Payne
It's been a decade since the first Max Payne, and eight years since its sequel. And now Rockstar has announced Max Payne 3, which will be taking place eight years after the last installment.
No longer a cop, Max is close to washed-up, drunk and addicted to painkillers. Without a job on the force, Max has left the greater New York area, and he finds himself in Sao Paulo, Brazil, working in the burgeoning field of private security.Max's latest assignment sees him protecting the family of Rodrigo Branco, a wealthy real estate mogul and his two brothers: Victor, a local politician and the youngest, Marcello, a party-loving Eurotrash playboy, along with Fabiana Branco, Rodrigo's trophy wife, and Giovanna, Fabiana's sister.
The story of Max's descent from vengeful, leather-jacket wearing detective roaming the alleys of New York to the broken, shaven-headed man out for justice on unfamiliar streets far from home is at the center of Max Payne 3.
Rockstar is promising a next-gen upgrade to the Euphoria Engine's Bullet Time animations, featuring actual interaction with weapons and environments instead of canned animation. And now Bullet Time doesn't always include bullets, either. The feature will be making its way into other set pieces in the game. The motion-comic style cut scenes will be making a return, but with obvious graphical upgrades using in-game character models. James McCaffrey is back as the voice and look of Max and there's also hundreds of hours of custom motion capture for his sidekicks, as well.
The Devil is in the details, and Rockstar claims that the bullets will have real-time reactions with everything from the environments to the clothing. Even the weapons themselves will feature details like hammers cocking back and shells expelling from the chambers. And they've also added a cover system to add another level of strategy to the run-and-gun gameplay of the earlier games.
Max Payne 3 is set to release on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC... at some point. Rockstar hasn't even given us a ballpark, yet. I like that they've found a new setting to drop Max into, but is nearly a decade too long to wait between installments? Any of you excited to hear about this?
Wootini
Posted to Galleries, Video Games on 25 April 2011
· Comments (4)
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Max Payne was an over the top film noir shooter. The idea of him being washed up works, but you can't pull off classic film noir in Sao Paulo. Not being a cop won't help either. It might stand on its own as a shooter, but it sounds to me like the style of Max Payne is gone.
I agree with Postal, this looks like GTA not like Max Payne. Also, I always have my doubts when they try to resurrect dead franchises (Duke Nukem for example).
At least he's not bald anymore. Nothing against bald guys (Patrick Stewart is dead sexy) but Max should look more...Max-ish in the game. These new screens give me renewed faith in this sequel.
I played the hell out of Max Payne 2, it was one of the first games I bought when I built my first gaming-quality PC back in 2004. Hopefully this one lives up to the name.
Well, my bad, it looks like he is bald in the Sao Paulo parts.
Still, I have hope for the game, I'll definitely be picking it up when it hits Steam.