Max Payne 3 Is Still Max Payne
Max Payne is one of those franchises I knew that I loved, but I had kind of forgotten about it. I mean, I knew that Max's story and his pain killers were something that I enjoyed back in the PlayStation 2 days, but I hadn't thought about them in forever. Then, Rockstar Games showed me Max Payne 3's menu screen.
While a representative talked about Max's journey -- it's several years after the events of Max Payne 2, our former detective is off the force and an alcoholic -- menu music played. After a few loops of the same track,
the original Max Payne theme came on. In an instant, I was back in my Mizzou dorm room playing the original game on a tiny television. The noir comics, the Bullet Time battles, and the feel of being a man with nothing left to lose -- all of my memories flooded back. That's Max Payne, and after having seen an extended demo, I'm happy to report that's still the case in Max Payne 3.
If you missed it, Max Payne 3 is set in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It's bright and sunny down there, and a lot of fans freaked out when they saw that because that's most definitely not the normal Max Payne setting.
Luckily, the story doesn't start there -- at least in my demo. It started in Max's crappy New Jersey apartment on a dark, snowy night. A friend showed up to Max's filthy flophouse for a drink and offered Max (yes, he was wearing a trench coat) a bodyguard job in Brazil, but before anything could be settled, mob boss showed up blaming Max for his son's death. Cue the shootout.
The gameplay started, and so did another flashback. Max Payne 3 takes the feel of the first games and coats it in glorious HD. Max's health is a silhouette that fills in as damage is taken, painkillers are represented by a number on the screen, and a Bullet Time meter fills in as the action goes down. The aiming reticle is still a simple white dot and a breeze to line up from cover for impressive headshots. Max has a three-slot weapon wheel and can mix and match to dual wield.
But telling you over and over again that this is like the old games takes away from what Rockstar is doing to make Max current.
Bullet Time -- the ability to slowdown time, leap through the air and blast your enemies -- is back, but it looks better than ever. Sure, that's because the models are in HD and environments explode as bullets fly, but Rockstar's implementing Natural Motion so that every step Max takes looks real. At one point, the player put Max on the ground and rotated the aiming reticle 360 degrees so that we could see Max shift his weight and roll from his back to his belly. Sounds dumb, I know, but it showed the visual fidelity the developers are going for -- so did the bullet holes in his shirt from where in-game enemies had shot him.
Now, the big change to what we all know is the comic cutscenes. They're still here and supplemented by in-game cutscenes, but these aren't static images this time around. They're moving; they're part of the game. This is Max's inner-monologue, his chance to catch the player up on his motivations. They're stylized in comic panels and some of Max's words are pulled out and slapped on the screen in tabloid text. I only saw one in Brazil -- after Max had shaved his head for the Bruce Willis look -- but I'm interested to see them in the final product.
There were other awesome moments (like a suicide bomber in the apartment building) and a few hitches (like some melee combat that wasn't super-tight), but the big thing I walked away from my Max Payne 3 demo with was a smile -- like I had seen an old friend unexpectedly. I've been waiting a long time to See Max Payne again, and I don't think I realized it.
From the moment I heard that piano tune to the moment I heard James McCaffrey reprise his role as a man whose family was stolen away in a violent crime, I was hooked. Max Payne is back.
IGN
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