At New York Comic Con this year, I was treated to a behind closed doors preview of an eyes-only session for Max Payne 3. This was an eyes-only presentation showed off on the Xbox 360.
Max Payne 3 features a whole new experience for gamers, and picks up where Max Payne 2 left off. Max is still haunted by the traumatic events of his past. I am first shown an early level in the game in Max’s apartment in New Jersey, where an older more cynical Max with a head of hair, is visibly distraught and tired. He just looks like he’s waiting for someone to walk in the front door and hand him the bullet to end his life while abusing painkillers. An old friend, Raul, from his police academy days appears and offers him a job in the world of private security in Brazil. Max of course didn’t have much time to think about the offer as he had just killed Anthony’s only son prior to the meeting with his friend Raul and the mobster of course is out to get revenge.
The game at this point has switched seamlessly from cut scenes to gameplay and Rockstar mentions they have worked hard to bring this transition smooth and unaffected to the user experience. They also mentioned any item pick-ups like different weapons or accessories get carried/shown into the cut scenes as you progress through the intense story. As the gameplay begins some gang members are already in the same floor as soon as Max opens the door from his apartment in New Jersey. But these thugs are easily taken out as bullet-time kicks in. It certainly wouldn’t be a Max Payne game without bullet-time and Max Payne 3 continues to build on that feature. Bullets are animated with complete detail and you’ll visibly see where your targets are hit and react in the manner of which they were killed. Rockstar mentions you’ll have many choices to use throughout the game whether it’s free form all out shooting or target-locking depending on different play styles.
As Max continues through the apartment complex, a gang member with a shotgun knocks him down and just before he is taken out a hobo bursts out of the door and takes out the gang member saving Max. The random hobo starts spewing some sort of dialect and runs off to fight off the invading gang members. Here is where Rockstar guided Max into the hobo’s apartment and explained about the amount of detail given to the environments and finds a bottle of painkillers. Max Payne 3 will not use regenerating health as most modern games have become accustomed too. You’ll have to find painkillers to heal yourself up during the fight.
Max can carry up to three weapons at a time with one slot for two-handed weapon (like a rifle or two pistols), and two other slots for other single-handed weapons. You can also dual single-handed weapons like a rifle and a pistol. Max also has the ability for detailed melee attacks. So if you’re up close to an enemy and hit the trigger Max will perform a pre-scripted melee kill. The bottom right of the screen shows a silhouette of Max with a number inside of him indicating how many painkillers you have on you. Also to the right is a meter indicating how much bullet time is available and below that is where your ammo count is located. This area of the demo ends where Max is seen firing bullets through the apartment windows to thugs on the other side of the roof and Rockstar again mentions the destructibility within the windows and wood destruction. We are forwarded to a point in the game where Max is in Brazil and bald-headed looking like he’s about take out someone like Jack from and episode of 24. In this part of the demo, the now bald-headed hero is on the run with Raul’s girlfriend Giovanna in Brazil. In the cut scene, you notice that the original voce actor James McCaffrey has returned to reprise his role as Max and Rockstar felt he should be given a work out and motion capture his movements as well. Rockstar mentions that sets were built to scale to capture the in-game environments you see Max interacting with. So in the next scene we see Max and Giovanna climbing over barricades, going through fences and climbing into buses, you would be well to remember that with motion capture, those actors climbed over those obstacles in real life.
During the game, you see Max and Giovanna working together much like Monkey and Trip working together in Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. You’ll see her pulling down ladders for you and helping you getting into the hard to reach places. I should mention that during all of this the enemy AI wasn’t stupid. They’ll react based on the position you’re in and where you’re firing. Also, in the beginning of one section of the demo we were shown, Max is hiding as a group of thugs enters a junkyard, and you’ll have to move quickly to avoid detection, as the enemy will search every nook and cranny. The one thing I could see players getting frustrated with is the continuous switching from shooting section to cut scene. You’ll be fighting to reach every checkpoint and get to that next save point.
Multiplayer wasn’t mentioned, but given the success Rockstar received with its multiplayer in Red Dead Redemption, it wouldn’t be surprising if we see some sort of multiplayer showing up at some point. This is where our demo ended and we see that Max Payne 3 will hit store shelves in March 2012 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
