Max Payne 3 Message Board older than one year ago

#maxpayne There must be something about the number three that signals that Rockstar Games is done messing around and is about to get serious. More »

The official Max Payne 3 television commercial debuted last night during the Lakers v. Spurs game on ESPN last night, and it's chock full of all the Max Payne-y things you'd expect - slow motion bullets, slow motion jumping, slow motion ladies, etc.

It's a little sad that the game is billed as "from the makers of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption," considering that the original Max Payne predates both GTA3 and the entire Red Dead franchise. Then again, a modern 18 year old gamer would only have been seven years old when the series originally debuted in 2001, so we can't really blame Rockstar for playing to its target demographic's familiarities. Kids these days with their Macintosh computers and their Fiat 500s.

Amazon hopes to make an awfully compelling argument for your Max Payne 3 purchase. Pre-ordering the PC download version not only nets some in-game incentives, but some money that goes toward other Rockstar games.

First, Amazon is giving all pre-orderers a $10 voucher for an immediate download of Max Payne 2, which just so happens to cost $10 on Amazon, so that's free. Amazon will knock down the price for both L.A. Noire and GTA IV to $4.99 up until April 15. You'll be able to grab those gratis with another $10 voucher if you want, or spend it on other Rockstar wares.

On top of the free games, a pre-order will also grant you several pieces of in-game content: a classic skin pack for multiplayer that includes characters from past games; a multiplayer weapons pack; increased painkiller capacity; and a "Max Payne Retro Avatar."

If Max Payne were a superhero, he'd probably be named Shooter, and after a stint in a time paradox where he fights dinosaurs and artificially intelligent robot armies over a period of 15 years, he'd come back from the "dead" with a new superhero name: Balder.

Or he'd just be called Max Payne.

Rockstar and Marvel are taking that second suggestion with a new three-part digital comic series to "delve into Max's troubled past," covering events in Max Payne and Max Payne 2, leading up to Max Payne 3. Original Max Payne writer Sam Lake is co-authoring the series with Rockstar bossman Dan Houser, who is penning the game itself. The comics will feature pencil and inking by Fernando Blanco and cover art from Greg Horn, among others.

The Max Payne 3 digital comics will be available for free on Rockstar Newswire, the official Max Payne 3 site and "additional digital comics channels." The first issue is called "After the Fall" and will launch in the next few weeks, Rockstar says.

#maxpayne3 Just in time for his return to consoles, Max Payne's also going to be making a debut into the comics world. Announced today, a new series coming from the House of Ideas will delve into Max's early years—during the era of the first two MP games—with art from Fernando Blanco. The scripts will be written by Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser and Remedy's Sam Lake. More »

Max Payne shows you how!

Oh to be a bullet. To exist in a momentary, frequently black-and-white world free of complications or petty concerns. Point A to point B. That’d be my entire lightning-quick existence, but I’d get to savor ever slow-mo second – probably while shouting “wheeeeeeeeeeeee!” Max Payne 3, at least, offers a glimpse into this hot leaden utopia, but at what cost? Pretty much none, as it turns out. The gore-spattered kill cam, especially, looks like a barrel of kitten giggles – which is to say, it’s a mix between Fallout 3′s VATS meets Arkham City’s end-of-brawl slobber-knockers, except you have full control over speed. Those are the things I think of when kittens giggle. Is that weird? Anyway, the excruciatingly painful wonderful trailer is after the break.(more…)

We wouldn't call it the smartest move out there, but Max Payne seems hellbent on jumping head first into groups of thugs who're firing guns directly at him. The latest trailer from Rockstar Games for Max Payne 3 portrays our balding hero as even more psychotic than we'd guessed!

If you were hoping to sample the adventures of a bald, bearded Max Payne without obtaining a full copy of Max Payne 3, you are out of luck. There are "no plans for a demo of Max Payne 3" according to Rockstar's official Twitter account. Joystiq is attempting to recreate the experience with its own demo of Max Payne 3, but we're having a little trouble figuring out how to digitally distribute a complex pulley system. We're pretty sure a physical replication feature is headed to Steam, but Valve isn't answering our phone calls.

Max Payne 3 arrives on PC, Xbox and PS3 next month.

Rockstar has revealed the list of Achievements for Max Payne 3, with players rewarded for skilful and stylish take-downs as well as progressing through the game. Highlights include grabbing all the Golden Guns in the game to get the License to Kill Achievement, plus there are multiplayer specific challenges to complete. Additionally, Rockstar is holding back on a handful of secret Achievements which it says players will have to discover for themselves when the game is released in May...

#maxpayne Rockstar today released the full list of achievements for upcoming third-person shooter Max Payne 3, which will be out May 15. More »

#watchthis Shotguns. They're for when you really, really hate an enemy. Nothing's better than walking right up to annoying thugs and blasting their faces, chests and limbs wide open. Or maybe that's just me. More »

For once you won't need to dive around the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, pretending to shoot things in slow motion. Instead, you can do that in Max Payne 3 at Rockstar's PAX East booth this weekend, April 6th through 8th.

Rockstar hasn't said exactly what will be on offer in the Max Payne 3 demo -- it could be a sampling of single-player or a taste of the crew-based multiplayer mode. Either way, those looking for an idea of what May holds will be able to get their fill at booth 914. Just look for the giant R.

Hello, you. The unseasonably warm afternoons seem to be making the hivemind sleepy. Personally I’ve been in a trance for the best part of an hour, just staring off into the blue skies overhead. Mmm. Is that jazz playing from an open window? But then everything suddenly came back into focus and I realise there were videos to be blogged. And we all like to see imaginary men getting shot – Hell, some of us depend on it for our sanity. Yes – not a day goes by where RPS doesn’t provide your manshoot fix. Here it is. Again, and it’s Max Payne 3 multiplayer. How could that possibly work? Apparently by only making players in your line of sight enter bullet time. Which is a neat way to solve it. You’ll have sort of bullet time “bubbles” going off across the level when people choose to use it, I suppose. Anyway, the video explains it, so go take a look. Slooooowllllyyyyy.(more…)

Slavering for more info on Max Payne 3's multiplayer mode? Itching to learn how bullet time could possibly work online? Desperate for the odd juxtaposition of shirtless men and Hollywood-style narration? This video is for you, friend.

#watchthis One of the main challenges in creating a compelling online experience for Max Payne 3 was figuring out a way to keep the series' signature time-slowing mechanic in the mix. How does line-of sight Bullet Time sound? More »

It's high time you turned those dual Uzis on some other players, don't you think?

Yes, yes, we know that trying to work a "smegging" headline pun from '90s BBC science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf was a stretch, but we believe in our audience... and the miniscule cross-section of the demographic that may appreciate such wordplay. Anyway, here's Max shooting SMGs.

Perfecting your video-game portrayal of crushing substance addiction is harder than it looks.

The "crews" Max Payne 3 players form in mulitplayer mode will transfer directly to Grand Theft Auto V multi, Rockstar co-founder and fancy mansion owner Dan Houser told IGN. Grand Theft Auto V will share Max Payne 3's crews via Rockstar's Social Club.

"Multiplayer is an ever-more important part of all our games moving forward," Houser said. "And by creating crews through Social Club, the crews that you create in Max Payne 3 will be ready and available for you to play in Grand Theft Auto V from day one."

After news of this crossover, we can imagine other Social Club integration possibilities -- Red Dead Redemption would have majestic horses galloping through the glittery streets of Los Santos, dodging bullets and rampaging cars alike. Horses; horses everywhere.

Dan Houser and Rockstar Games firmly believe in the power of the third-person narrative. Set in open-world environments, the single-player campaigns of Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption pushed what the form is capable of: both are grand narratives, wherein players consolidated their own ...

For months now, the internet has been buzzing with speculation about what secrets forthcoming man-shooting game Max Payne 3 might contain. So very many questions are left to be answered by this third part of the epic, twisting saga of shooting a lot of men in the face in slow motion, and we’ve had to wait long, agonising years to discover how it all ends. With Max Payne 3′s release just months away, RPS has rounded up all the rumours, speculation and script leaks to bring you the definitive guide to Max’s fate. Spoilers await.(more…)

It's no secret that Max Payne leaves his New Yorker past behind in Max Payne 3 as he heads for Brazil, but perhaps you didn't realize that chunks of the game will explore Max's history in the Big Apple. That history, unsurprisingly, involves leaping through the air while firing two handguns.

Are you a bad guy in Brazil, waiting patiently behind a thin wooden barrier for Max Payne to pop around a corner so you can totally shoot at him? Think again, my friend. He's probably just gonna shoot you through that wall! Also, why are you reading about games in such a tense situation? Focus!

#watchthis Not having played a Max Payne game in years, I'd forgotten why I enjoyed the original entries in Rockstar's third-person shooter series so much. Then this cinematic and special effects trailer for Max Payne 3 reminded me; it's not about the story, but how the story is told. More »

The new Max Payne game has graphics in it. A lot. Our research suggest that it’s around 70% graphics, 20% noises, and 10% miscellaneous. For more information on Max Payne’s graphics, visual effects, and cinematics, I should direct you to the new trailer, below.(more…)

Max Payne 3 sees the titular protagonist trading the cold concrete of New York City for the tropical heat of São Paulo, Brazil. You too can make such a migration: Rockstar is running a promotion granting one lucky individual quite the vacation, starting in NYC and eventually concluding in Brazil. And you won't even have to shoot anybody!

If you're chosen, you'll get to play a pre-release build of Max Payne 3 in New York, then fly down to Sao Paulo, where you'll get to stay in a swank hotel for a few days and attend the Sonar São Paulo music festival. And when you go home, you'll get a custom Max Payne 3 Xbox 360 console, one year of Xbox Live Gold and 1,400 MS Points to spend.

Interested parties can either sign up for Rockstar's Social Club and enter there, or you they can like Rockstar's Facebook page.

Max Payne is looking haggard. His increasingly creased face has hardened into a permanent grimace and his expanding bulk means there's no way he's fitting into the same suits he wore back in his NYPD days. But it's not just that. The fact that his ageing frame is a lot less suited to being thrown into action than it used to be is compounding matters, sure, but it's more than that right now. Max Payne is having a bad night...

Did you know that "bullet time" is a term copyrighted and owned by Warner Bros.? It was news to me when I went looking up the term this morning, searching for a way to contextualize the evolution of Max Payne that I experienced when playing Rockstar's Max Payne 3 recently. According to Wikipedia -- which totally has its own listing for the term, of course -- the "word" was copyrighted alongside the first Matrix film. That film came out in 1999, two years before Remedy would reappropriate the concept for its first Max Payne game.

No similarly bizarre history can be applied to the term "shootdodge," the portmanteau a Rockstar rep used to describe "Max's classic dive move." In Max Payne 3, the maneuver plays as crucial a role as ever. The majority of the time during my demo I spent with Max leaping in slow motion, or shooting in slow motion, or shooting and leaping in slow motion, all the while desperately trying to shoot dudes in their domes. Yes, fans, bullet time is still here, ready for use in tandem with the newly minted "shootdodge."

Max Payne 3 didn't hold my hand during that hour, though I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want it to given the whole "addicted to painkillers/alcoholism" thing. Like Max's life during the setting of Max Payne 3, my playthrough was all sink or swim. But despite some initial skepticism over the difficulty, I walked away excited about the design choices Rockstar has made, such as taking the safety off of shooting and forcing precision from players conditioned to aim-assisted console offerings. (Which describes me, by the way.)

Rockstar has rightly made a name for itself crafting incredibly detailed open-world adventures. In Red Dead Redemption it let you explore every inch of the beautiful landscape, from the snowy peaks of the Tall Trees to parched grasslands of Hennigan's Stead. Max Payne 3, however, is a very diffe...