The Max Payne series is known for it's bullet time mechanic, the game that brought the famous lobby gun fight from the First Matrix to the gaming world. The series also presented dark stories packed with action and winding plots that always seemed to have a twist waiting down the line. Sure the story wasn't the most important aspect of the series but it did a decent enough job complementing the very enjoyable gameplay mechanics. The newest Max Payne is in the work and set to come out in March 2012.  The series was originally made by Remedy Entertainment for PC and Rockstar for consoles, back in 2001-2003, but the third game is being developed solely by Rockstar. In Max Payne 3 we are set to see an older Max and he is no longer in New York, now Max is in Brazil and with that comes the challenge of keeping the Max Payne feel in this entirely new environment. This first trailer below gives some nice background info on the new game.


The direction of Max Payne 3 is focused on keeping what made Max Payne unique and a blast to play, while upgrading all of the gameplay mechanics to make it feel up to the standards of current-gen third person shooters. First off, they are not falling into the modern day trend of using regenerating health, splendid to see if I may say so. Secondly, they are keeping the bullet time mechanic as the core gameplay aspect. There is a new melee and cover system which sound well developed but they are described as complements to the bullet time system, not the other way around. Cover in specific is supposed to be useful but not something to rely on, instead you are supposed to rely on the same kind of tactics that you had to use in the old Max Payne games, diving, jumping and using slow motion bullet time as often as you can. Bullet time looks exactly the same which could be a good thing, but I'm very uncertain of whether it will still draw people in the same as it did back in 2003. One other cool feature, which is in the first trailer above, is that they kept the same voice actor for Max Payne.



I don't know about anyone else out there but I thoroughly enjoyed the dark atmosphere, crazy blood drenched nightmares and life saving bullet time of the original games. I also loved the New York setting and everything that came with that. It is an extremely difficult task to pick up a series again after 8 years and I hope Rockstar can pull it off with the new Max Payne. Check out the most recent Max Payne 3 Trailer below, which is all about the game design and the technology that they are using. Max Payne 3 will be coming out 2012 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Thanks for reading and would love to hear some thoughts on how this game is looking compared to how the old Max Payne's felt.


*all information taken from videos/website and Gamespot Interview. 
Main Website: http://www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne3/
Gamespot Interview with Jeronimo Barrera from Rockstar

-Written by Sean Cargle