First Look: ‘Max Payne 3? Takes Cinematic Shooters to the Next Level

In crafting Max Payne 3, Rockstar Games says it wanted to put the "art of shooting back in the shooter."

This follows the spirit of the first two games, created by Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment. The Max Payne franchise always paid homage to the gritty John Woo action style. Now the series is back from an eight-year hiatus, and Rockstar wants to continue the strong traditions of the first two, while exploring new gameplay ideas. Rockstar released a video that explores some gameplay elements of the sequel on Thursday.

We had the opportunity to see a highly polished chapter of Max Payne 3 at Rockstar's New York offices this week. From what we saw, the game will truly impress old fans of the franchise, become a staple for fans of Rockstar's games, and bring in those unfamiliar to series.

Max Payne, the titular main character, has had a hard life since we left him eight years before. He has drifted along on pills and booze, and runs into an old friend from the force, Raul Passos, who invites him to come do private security in Sao Paulo, Brazil. As New York is no longer hospitable to him, Max agrees, and finds himself working private security for wealthy Rodrigo Branco, his beautiful wife, and two younger brothers.

We were dropped into the chapter where Rodrigo's wife has just been kidnapped with a ransom of $3 million. The brothers were debating how to handle the situation in a cut scene. For fans of the original, the graphic novel-style cutscenes have been updated. They are fully rendered movies, but still retain the graphic novel flavor with kinetic text to emphasize important phrases and occasional comic-styled panels breaking up the action. The game also flirts with splashes of color that make the whole world a little more surreal, again eliciting a feeling of illustration.

The cutscenes deliver us to a soccer stadium, where our Rockstar guide points out the action seamlessly resumes without a loading screen in sight. It's something Rockstar has clearly labored over for this title. After receiving a gunshot to the arm, Max is running for his life as the ransom attempt has gone to pot, and narrating the whole time. The most important thing kept intact from the previous titles is the voice acting by James McCaffrey, who gives Max his husky, world-worn rasp unmistakable to fans.

The exciting addition is that McCaffrey has done all the acting for the role as well, providing motion capture that Rockstar said they turned into over 400 animations, so Max always looks like he's moving fluidly. Motion capture was also used for larger elements of the game. The soccer stadium that soon becomes a battlefield was a set built for the game, and enemies were motion captured attacking Max and Raul.

The most important thing for Rockstar to clinch was "bullet time." The physics-powered effect made battle sequences truly epic in the original games, and its a concept finessed in Max Payne 3. Bullet timing allows you to look like a complete badass, slowing down the action during clutch sequences to make Max perform deadly, beautiful dives while laying waste to his foes. Even better, the killing blow focuses the camera on enemies, allowing you to view their death in bullet time as well. It makes me think this is the kind of game you can play with friends watching and cheering you on as you perform more and more ridiculous action-hero inspired moves in slow motion.

A Rockstar representative told us the game is probably eight to ten hours per playthrough, but he hopes gamers will keep playing to perfect their runs through each chapter, and learn more fun ways to defeat foes. He described it as perfecting the "choreography" of the action sequences. We can see it happening, too, as the game was enjoyable to take in from a spectator's perspective on Rockstar's couch. It feels very much like a movie. There is hardly a heads-up display to speak of, leaving you to focus on the action. The use of color, tight edits and dramatic lighting made it feel like an experienced cinematographer had their hands all over the game.

"'Cinematic' is often used to describe games with great cutscenes, but our approach applies to the entire game," a Rockstar rep said.

Players still have almost two months to wait until May 15, when Max Payne 3 hits Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The PC version will come a little later.