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Max
Payne was an ordinary cop until three years ago, when his family was
brutally murdered by the New York Mafia. Going undercover as a DEA agent,
Max was getting close to the source of a new deadly drug, Valkyr, when his
superior officer (and best friend) was brutally slain; the blame was pinned on
Max who has to fight the mafia and avoid his finger-pointing former
comrades. Max
Payne is a story-driven third-person action game with Film Noir themes
that follow a lone man's gritty descent to the violent night of New York
City, from graffiti-scarred alleys and cockroach crawling hotel rooms to
sleek and sexy skyscraper heights; the wail of police sirens are constant
and a restless echo stirs in the darkness. Max
Payne will sport a custom-designed engine, capable of dynamic radiosity
lighting, particle systems, and realistic character movement; this means
that all characters will be lit dynamically by local light sources, giving
them an eerie sense of realism as their animation punctuates superb motion
capture. This means, of course, that the game will require a 3D
Accelerator; the Max engine only draws what you can see, and nothing more.
Say you somersault past a corridorthe engine will have only rendered
what is in your line of sight, drastically reducing the load on your
graphics architecture. Max
will fight in several locations, ranging from subway stations, slums, and
crack houses, to the penthouses, where gangland bosses lie in wait.
All weapons are created in realistic detail, with empty brass
casings ejected exactly as in real life.
Ballistics are calculated as closely as possible to real-world
speed with authentic ricochet angles and gravitational effect.
And Max Paynes particle systems are among the most advanced in
the industry; muzzle flashes, fire, and smoke are fully volumetric.
In
Max Payne, your character will reflect the damage imposed upon him,
limping and holding damaged body parts. There is also a quasi-realistic
damage system in place, so damage to certain locations will do much more
damage than to others. Get shot in the head and its game over.
Look for gameplay to echo a combination of John Woo and the
Wachowski brotherslots of exotic moves and plenty of slo-mo.
In addition, Remedy has decided to display no less than 80
comic-style story panels to eliminate the boredom of level loading. This
not only occupies your time, but it also provides a contiguous storyline
that is less intrusive and bulky than an FMV. By
adopting a movie-enhanced storyline and a third-person perspective, Remedy
is doing something that has never really been attempted before.
With a release date of When its Done, Max Payne looks and
superb and should be a major success when finally released. |