Max Payne Preview

A game with guts!

When darkness falls in New York City tonight... A lone man will go through hell to avenge his loved ones... Only to discover that the answers he seeks can hurt more than having no answers at all. Against all odds, back against the wall and with no one to trust - Max Payne

Am I mean or what?

Kids, don't try this at home.

Talk about a good story filled with guts (or at least surrounded by some), some spectacular never-before-seen 3D John-Woo-movie-like action and possibly some more guts - and you're talking Max Payne.

A good game requires these days much more than a high frame rate and motley graphics to succeed (though there had been some contrary examples). Remedy Entertainment (with some help from 3D Realms) takes a great noir crime story, makes it realistic enough to be believable, yet unrealistically frantic enough to keep your adrenalin pumping, introduces the hero - an urban desperado with much to avenge and nothing to lose; and there you have it - a good game.

Max, the man of the game, was a DEA agent working undercover with the local mobsters. His entire family was slain by junkies and he was framed for the murder of his boss; now he's on the run; he's on his own; and he's lethal.

The entire game seems to be quite perfect. About a dozen highly realistic weapons with all the real-life velocities, statistics and other technical data (the program will calculate projectile trajectories and make them penetrate soft surfaces or ricochet harder ones as they would in real life) will create a feeling that you're really firing those guns. And that doesn't go for the guns only the authors claim that they will create an extremely interactive environment altogether.

The completely linear story line takes place in New York. When asked why the story was linear, and what good would come of it, lead designer Petri Jarvilehto stated that they would rather choose one good, strong story than three feeble ones.

The graphics will rely upon the E2 (Exit Technology) rendering engine. The scenes look as good as they do because of the way the engine uses lighting - it uses radiosity lighting system. This is a much realistic way of rendering scenes because there is no ambience light; instead, there is a large amount of surfaces reflecting light and compensating the ambience lighting. The animation process includes both skeletal and skinning animation, meaning that both models and their textures are animated in order to present movement more realistically. This works great, and it is essential especially when animating clothes. The game will use two camera modes (both of which can be seen in the accompanying screenshots): the follow-up (behind-the-shoulder) mode, which is common to practically all third-person-shooters, and the cinematic mode, which will make the game look like a sizzling action packed movie. Comic screens that give the game an authentic Pulp Fiction atmosphere will introduce all the characters and plot.

The graphics engine has full support for both AMD Athlon and Intel Pentium III processors. It will require a 3D graphics accelerator, as there will be no software mode. 3D game fans will probably be surprised by the fact that there will also be no OpenGL support. The authors claim that they used Diect3D only, because it has less compatibility issues and it currently allows all the speed and functionality of OpenGL. The game ha also been announced for release on several next generation console systems, but the developers do not intend to support neither Mac nor Linux.

A quiet night on the town.

Now, where should I go?

The most intriguing thing that I have read about the game was that it isn't going to have a multiplayer mode (!?!). It was initially supposed to exist, but then the publishers simply decided that there were plenty enough good multiplayer games out there already, but the single player genre needs great games as well.

The game will ship with three editors: MaxED, ActorFX and ParticleFX, which will allow you to customize just about anything in the entire game world. The map editor should be easy to use because you'll be able to simply drag & drop objects and texture onto the map.

The game has been in development for more than three years now and the date of release remains in the shadows; or as the authors like to reply: "It will be published as soon as it is finished". Once it finally is published, well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm sure Tarantino and Woo will love it.

We tried to get an interview with the authors but they decided to stick to their decision to ignore the media and concentrate on game design:

"We really appreciate your ongoing interest in Max Payne. Unfortunately, we would again like to just keep our eyes on the ball, to concentrate 100% on making a great game. We thought we could come out of our "media blackout" after E3 already, but the time hasn't come just yet. Please be patient. And hopefully you'll get the chance to come check out the game when we are going to show it the next time! And, hopefully, later this year, we'll finally be able to do that interview we've talked about earlier!

Thanks for your understanding!
Markus Stein"