Max Payne 3 Shaves Head in First Look Trailer

[Greg Tito]

Max Payne 3 Shaves Head in First Look Trailer

The new look for the titular ex-cop covers more than just his head.

In the original game, Max Payne was a hard-boiled NYPD Detective with a cute family. The sequel still featured gritty New York streets this time with a Max sans family grappling with the Russian mafia. After a lackluster film, Rockstar Games took over the franchise from Remedy Entertainment and it looks like the Max Payne gamers were first introduced to in 2001 is in a much different place - Sau Paulo, Brazil - for Max Payne 3. So much different, in fact, that he has to shave his head to deal with the kidnapping of a girl he was hired to protect.

[video=4194]

This first trailer from Rockstar explains some of the questions fans had regarding the main character. Max washes up in Brazil after what seems like a long bender with the drink. Max gulps liquor from the bottle wearing a dirty wife-beater. Some contacts of his put forth his name to work on a security detail, and he cleans up well enough to get the job. Then "all hell breaks loose" as Hell is wont to do, and Max gets serious. Cue the buzz of the electric razor, and Max Payne gives himself a quick haircut and picks up an automatic weapon or two.

"This was a hell of a hangover," says voice actor James McCaffrey reprising the role from the previous two games.

The instantly recognizable theme music (played with strings this time) and McCaffrey are the two touchpoints, but the Max Payne 3 seems more versed in action rather than noir. Rockstar's version of Max seems both darker and brighter, with the ex-cop truly fallen to rock bottom incongruously set in a sunny environment. I also wonder if Rockstar will abandon the linear shooter gameplay of the originals for more of an open-world game that's their style.

The news cycle for this game is just beginning and we will undoubtedly learn more as details are eked out over the next six months or so until this game releases. Rockstar announced the release date of March 2012 on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, but I wouldn't be surprised if that date gets pushed back a few months.

Breathing life back into a character as well-known as Max Payne takes time, after all.

Permalink

 

[ZeppMan217]

Yup. Not Max Payne anymore. Looks like GTA4 with bullet-time. The series seem to have lost its noir-ish style and picked up a plenty of bad lessons on its way.

 

[IceStar100]

Are devlopers really this dumb. If you keep feeding us the same thing over and over we are going to get sick of it.

That all said

I came into it very skeptical. I hadn't really paid attention to the game since I found out that it wasn't being done by Remedy or Sam Lake.

But the Max Payne 2 theme and the narration by the real Max Payne sent shivers down my spine.

The game looks very different, and I don't know how they can continue the story after the pitch-perfect ending to the second one (The hardest difficulty ending, but the other one worked too), but if anyone can, it'd be Rockstar.

They had a good endding with Mona Sax and all. I wonder what they will do with her.

 

[Worr Monger]

Max Payne 1 & 2 were great games..... And #2 ended it just fine.

Max's story is over, there's nothing to continue.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Oh gooooood. Because we so needed more games centering around bald white guys...

 

[Andy Chalk]

I love, love, LOVE that music, but this trailer isn't doing a thing for me. Rockstar's got a long way to go before they convince me that this is "real" Max Payne.

 

[cgentero]

Looks more like Vice City than Max Payne, waiting for actual gameplay footage, but not liking what I see.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Considering that by the end of Max Payne 2, Mona Sax is (probably) dead (depending on the difficulty setting), Jim Bravura is probably dead, Vlad Lem is dead, Alfred Woden is dead... and oh yeah, Max Payne still murdered Winterson, I don't think Payne still being a little fucked up is surprising. The idea that 'Yeah, I'm all good now', well, they did that at the end of Max Payne 1 and Max Payne 2 was still awesome. So let's see.

 

[Anayna]

That trailer made me wish for the next video game crash. It just seemed to so perfectly encapsulate everything wrong with this industry today.

... and now I'm in a really bad mood. Great.

 

[KaosuHamoni]

But I LIIIIIKED the noir!

I love Max Payne. Everything about it, from the scripting, voice work, art style, freaky nightmare sections, and the atmosphere was stellar. One of the best. But that didn't look like Max Payne. The theme gave me shivers, as it did in the originals, and dat voice... But it just doesn't look like Max Payne *Sadface*

I really want a new Max Payne game, the original is up in my top ten. Please don't fuck it up Rockstar. Pweese?

 

[Slight]

Max Payne 3 - you are Man on Fire, and I claim my £5.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s_-O4HglGI

All it needs now is a Christopher Walken voiceover and we. are. set.

 

[Owlslayer]

I... well, guh.
Don't really know what to say. The music was really nice, and the voice. Oh damn, the voice.
But everything else... I don't want to be overly negative, but I like my Payne with some hair on top. And a bit more gritty-ness, or well, noir-ness, or whatchamacallit.
Still, I'll be waiting for the reviews before giving it my final verdict... I just don't want to lose hope yet

 

[Ziren]

Considering that by the end of Max Payne 2, Mona Sax is (probably) dead (depending on the difficulty setting), Jim Bravura is probably dead, Vlad Lem is dead, Alfred Woden is dead... and oh yeah, Max Payne still murdered Winterson, I don't think Payne still being a little fucked up is surprising. The idea that 'Yeah, I'm all good now', well, they did that at the end of Max Payne 1 and Max Payne 2 was still awesome. So let's see.

One of the TVs in the final mission actually has a report that Bravura is in a stable state, so at least he should be alive.

 

[Derelict Frog]

So. Apparently bald guys can't be hardboiled, noir protagonists? And apparently Sao Paulo just isn't enough like New York?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=sao+paulo+at+night

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Brazil_-_SP.jpg

I think it's an interesting, innovative and cool setting; and after Red Dead Redemption I think everyone has the right to be skeptical but hopeful for R*'s latest offering.

 

[Nurb]

The first ones had a comic-bookish, slightly goofy sort of feel to them while they satirically aped the noir thing but the action was fantastic. Like when you're protecting a guy with mascot for a head as baddies pour in.

This isn't goofy. This doesn't feel like the "grimdark" 90's comic theme that made the first ones so enjoyable.

This looks like they're trying to fuck things up by painting with a big brush of cinematic ultra-violent dramatic realism just like they killed the off-the-wall stuff in the GTA games.

It reminded me of the latest Splinter Cell game, and that's not a good thing.

 

[Julianking93]

I remember seeing a Gameinformer magazine about this, showing the same screenshots and plot details about 2 years ago.
So... why has there been so little progress on this?
That's never a good sign >.>

 

[RA92]

I love, love, LOVE that music, but this trailer isn't doing a thing for me. Rockstar's got a long way to go before they convince me that this is "real" Max Payne.

The cello feels out-of-place in sunny Sao-Paulo, though.

 

[Wadders]

When he's in the room with the window shades down, drinking from the bottle with the theme music playing, I felt my confidence in the new Max Payne game rise just a little.

The Gameplay they showed also looks pretty Max Payne-esque.

However as soon as we see bright sunlight and fevelas and the like, I still cant get much hope up.

I understand that they are trying something different to breathe a bit of life into this great series of games, but maybe they have gone a a little too far away from the wintery darkness of the other 2 games