After the New York level, we moved along to Sao Paolo, jumping right back into more action. Some time has passed for Max and Pasos, who are headed to a soccer stadium to drop off some ransom money. The only problem is that a paramilitary group has interrupted them, and now Max is fighting both groups – the men who kidnapped his boss’s wife and the paramilitary men. Intense firefights ensued, with Max and Pasos communicating through headsets they found in the previous scene. Max has a weapon wheel, in which he can equip various weapons – either two smaller ones (like a pistol and an uzi – yeah!), that he can dual wield, or one two-handed weapon.
The Rockstar representative warned us that this part of the demo featured an increased difficulty, which really gives you a taste of the strategy needed to survive in the final game. There’s a firefight, and you’ve got to really plan out your attacks, because enemies are coming from multiple directions. Take a few shots, vault over a bar, take cover, go into Bullet Time, and try to wipe them out – lather, rinse, and repeat a variation on this. Enemies shout at you in untranslated Portuguese, adding to the foreignness of the scene, and the feeling that you don’t belong there.
Melee is contextual in the game, meaning that all you need to do to trigger it is get close enough to an enemy and hit the button to fire your gun. Melee attacks fit perfectly in this gritty game, matching Max’s demeanor and the noir style. Max can also do diving shots and activate final kill cams as well. Everything about this game is brutal, difficult, and incredibly fun. There are more than enough entertaining ways to take out the waves of enemies you’ll encounter in Max Payne 3.
Although we didn’t get to try it out, I was intrigued by the multiplayer. “The same goals we have for the single-player are true for the multiplayer,” the representative told us. “We really want to bring all the gameplay and narrative elements over, so everything from Bullet Time to Max’s narration to the motion-comics style [is there].” There are three modes in multiplayer – Team Deathmatch, Painkiller, and Gang Wars.
Painkiller, which is a “combination of competitive and cooperative gameplay,” gives you a chance to play as Max Payne. You start out in a 10-person free-for-all, and the first person to get a kill become Max. “As Max, you have all these special abilities – you have Bullet Time, you have some Painkillers, you have more health than all the other enemies.” Your goal is to survive against eight other enemies – eight because the first person you killed to become Max then becomes your partner, Pasos, and you must then work together against the rest of the players. If the other players kill Max or Pasos, they then become then, creating an interesting dynamic. Your special abilities balance out the fact that you are outnumbered, and bring about a unique multiplayer mode.
“The flagship multiplayer type is called Gang Wars,” he continued. “It takes narrative elements from the single-player so that you can learn more about the story. You also learn about some of the gangs that are part of the game. It creates a dynamic objective based-mode,” he explained. Say the first mode is Team Deathmatch. If one player does really well, then the next match will become an assassination mode, in which the player who did well becomes the target for the other players. Another mode is dependent on grabbing cash. Each mode shifts depending on how the players do in the previous mode, “keeping everything fresh and changing up which modes you play all within one match.”
So how does Bullet Time work in multiplayer? “It’s basically a line of sight system, so that if I have Bullet Time and I activate it near my enemy, it slows you down but keeps me at my normal rate of fire, so I have advantage over you. But then basically anyone on your team or my team can also be caught in it.” This can potentially be effective in both small- and large-scale firefights.
With everything Max Payne 3 has to offer, I have to say I’m pretty excited to play it in the comfort of my living room. I’m especially intrigued by the multiplayer, which sounds like it could change the way developers design their online components and spice up an aspect of gaming that has been long dominated by stagnating first-person shooters. Max Payne 3 will be out on May 15 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and on May 29 for PC, so mark your calendars.
