Bullet time makes a huge reappearance in the game, either going into it seamlessly from a cut scene so you can shoot the guys who are just about to shoot someone else, or through your command. If you don’t like Bullet time, well, you probably won’t like Max Payne because it’s a huge part of the game play. There is also dodge shoot where Max does a Superman dive and you can twist around, shooting at enemies and, at one point, you can even do this down a stair well. Who needs stairs?
A new element they’ve brought to gameplay is cover mechanics. While Bullet time will make it a lot easier to take on the ridiculous amount of enemies that Max manages to acquire, being also able to duck behind cover will help you get through some of the scenes (although this isn’t always available and a lot of the time it looks like it’ll be charging in and mowing down, which is actually my favourite way to do things). But you aren’t the only one who can use cover, the AIs will also use cover, keeping their whole body under cover barring their arms and gun.
The cut scenes retained their ‘comic book’ style, reinventing them to make them feel modern and new but not betraying its roots. The voice acting, from the cut scenes I saw, was great. James McCaffrey is back for his role of Max Payne, the gruff and tough guy bringing Max to life fantastically once again. Rockstar have implemented motion capture to really bring another level of realism to the character animation and movement. And that doesn’t just stand for the main characters, it goes for the random henchmen too. The acceptance that all random people move the same way or look the same is just something that people are used to in video games, but Rockstar has taken away that belief and given themselves so much more work, and it really pays off. Enemies will also react to getting shot, and if you don’t kill them they’ll lie on the ground, clutching their wound, and screaming in pain.
Weapon-wise Max Payne sticks to the realism of the rest of the game. There is a weapon wheel you can choose from, with dual-wielding capabilities. However you can only hold a certain amount of weapons at one time. At one point he had a long-range that he couldn’t fit in his two holsters so he was carrying the ammoless gun in his left hand while shooting with his right. Rockstar have definitely worked hard on the realism, not surrendering to the simpler gameplay mechanics that are found in the modern game market (and yes, that means that health doesn’t just regenerate magically, you have to find painkillers for that).
Given that we are still a quarter of a year off the release date of Max Payne 3, the gameplay I saw was truly amazing and bodes well for the rest of the game. Keep tuned to Capsule Computers for more information on the game as it comes.
Max Payne 3 will be released on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC in March 2012
