By John Walker on December 15th, 2011 at 3:55 pm.
Want you to know about the multiplayer contents of Max Payne 3? Oh, what’s wrong with you? And them? Max Payne shouldn’t be multiplayer! There’s him versus the world! And I’m him! But shush John, this is Rockstar, and they don’t exactly rush into multiplayer do they? No, I suppose not. So are you going to actually find out what it is before making a big fuss? Oh, okay then. Good.
Rockstar are calling it “narrative-based multiplayer” apparently, which according to IGN involves the gangs you’ll meet as you play. There’s a mode called Gang Wars, in fact. So you’re playing the gangs. And not Max Payne. Which, well, I dunno.
But it’s an interesting mode. During the first round, apparently you could be fighting to collect bags of cash and get them to your base. But come the second round, it’ll base itself on how the first round went down, create its own little story. An example given is the first round’s strongest player may get a bounty put on his head,
or similar new tasks based on which side did what previously. Rockstar’s multiplayer lead designer, Charlie Bewsher, told IGN that this is to “highlight the dramas that happen”.
Multiplayer games will also include “Bursts”, which are based on XP gathering, which act as bonuses. So alongside bullet-time, you’ve got Paranoia, which causes the other team to see their teammates as enemies (which sounds awesome), Sneaky that makes you appear to be a member of the opposite team, and how does bullet-time work in MP? Your opponent, when in your line of sight, gets slowed down too. Canny.
You can read lots more detail in the IGN article. The game is currently scheduled for March next year.
15/12/2011 at 16:12 Mitchk says:
Best. Picture. Ever!
The multiplayer sounds quite nice, I’m curious to see how the bullet time thing will turn out!
15/12/2011 at 18:04 Dhatz says:
lol, indeed, and why the frog is the site inserting nonexistent items into my tab’s browsing history?
15/12/2011 at 16:14 grundus says:
Exciting. I like the sound of Paranoia, I don’t think that’s been done before, but Sneaky sounds familiar. Also if Bullet Time only slows down you and your target, can people who are neither just freely walk around you during your dramatic, bullet-spitting, slow motion dolphin dive, where each gunshot sounds like thunder, as if nothing at all unusual is going on? I do tend to get irritated when playing Killing Floor and there’s like 5 Zed-time extensions while I’m doing something incredibly mundane, nothing quite like healing yourself and making a run for the trader in slow motion for what feels like 3 minutes, so maybe this will be a good way round universal slowdown, particularly given the fact it’s kind of Max Payne’s ‘thing’.
Still, I loved the first two Max Paynes and I hope the third will be more of the same, I haven’t seen a game like it for a while (I don’t think).
15/12/2011 at 17:08 The Colonel says:
Maybe it could work with a “time-bubble” emanating forwards from the player (and a way around on either side) so that bullets fired at them and people running towards them get slowed down as they enter the bubble?
15/12/2011 at 18:09 Dhatz says:
It is not clear wether it’s only you enemy’s-line-of-sight based or chains to all viewers fo the bulettime affected timespace.
16/12/2011 at 00:02 Jackablade says:
I’m not sure that going into slow motion while everyone is still moving at real time is really going to be all that beneficial.
16/12/2011 at 12:04 LennyLeonardo says:
I’m guessing that time slows for anyone looking at a slow-mo player. So if you come across a slow-mo fight, you get slowed too, then if someone looks at you he gets slowed, and it could chain like that all round the map.
Really looking forward to this. And I’m now craving a dark chocolate bounty.
15/12/2011 at 16:15 PJMendes says:
You just wanted to post that Bounty picture, didn’t you? It’s ok, it’s awesome :D
Also, Max Payne 1 is Sam Lake without ears. And Max Payne 1 and 2 are noir stories about a single man taking revenge on criminals at night, during terrible weather. Max Payne 3 is about a party of people doing samba in cod_favela1.map
15/12/2011 at 17:03 John Walker says:
I made it midway through writing the article!
15/12/2011 at 22:40 PJMendes says:
I imagined you did. I specially like how it seamlessly intertwines with/into the paragraph text
15/12/2011 at 16:17 Lambchops says:
*Snickers at Bounty on head photo*
Cue Marathon pun train.
15/12/2011 at 16:30 JB says:
There’s sure to be a veritable Galaxy of puns now, Lamby.
15/12/2011 at 16:41 Lacessit says:
Soon all the horrible puns will be marsing in again!
15/12/2011 at 16:41 Mitchk says:
This train needs a Boost.
15/12/2011 at 16:44 Stellar Duck says:
In betwixt these puns and that picture I am left with nothing.
15/12/2011 at 16:46 torchedEARTH says:
I don’t want to fudge anything.
15/12/2011 at 16:48 RaveTurned says:
Stay on Topic, people.
15/12/2011 at 16:55 DeathHamsterDude says:
Quick, we need Moro these puns, I’m going to Nestlé in here and enjoy myself, that is until someone Cadbury’s this thread with a particularly bad pun.
15/12/2011 at 17:06 chaywa says:
I think we’re going to need a Double Decker bus to load all these puns onto
15/12/2011 at 17:21 Mitchk says:
Puns are a Daim a dozen on RPS these days….
15/12/2011 at 17:44 edwardoka says:
Yorkie’dding me, right?
(The RPS pun train is a good thing.)
15/12/2011 at 18:38 RichardFairbrass says:
Curly wurly.
15/12/2011 at 18:52 Lambchops says:
I’m a-Freddo say it but Edwardoka may just be out winner.
15/12/2011 at 19:22 Mitchk says:
Someone was Bounty come up with a corker eventually; we’ve Dairy Milked this subject for all it’s worth!
15/12/2011 at 22:42 Dozer says:
Edwardoka may just have turned the toble one us.
16/12/2011 at 01:32 Adriaan says:
Some day the amount of puns here will expand to as much as there are stars in the MilkyWay.
16/12/2011 at 10:11 danoot says:
I went to my local shopping centre, hoping I could find something there that would help me contribute to this thread.
I went everywhere, the supermarket; nothing. The electrical goods retailer: nothing.
And the cashiers laughed at me, too. They called me names and mocked me.
I ended up walking back to my car followed by a huge group of taunting shoppers.
I hate maltesers.
16/12/2011 at 10:30 roryok says:
What is it with you people? You Revel at any chance for a cheap pun
16/12/2011 at 15:43 Squiffy says:
Some of these aren’t even chocolate bars, you bunch of Flakes.Think before you write, this ain’t no Picnic.
15/12/2011 at 16:18 Aspongeinmauve says:
Dark chocolate bounty. Eww… Regular Bounties though are god-tier chocolate bars.
15/12/2011 at 16:38 jezcentral says:
Agreed. In all cases but one, milk chocolate is better than dark, the sole exception being McVities Chocolate Digestives.
16/12/2011 at 12:06 LennyLeonardo says:
I profoundly disagree. Milk chocolate is to dark chocolate as Jack Daniel’s is to a 15 year old scotch. Oh dear, did I really type that? Why am I so OLD?
15/12/2011 at 16:35 Shooop says:
Do we really have the technology to apply bullet-time to only people in each others’ line of site over the internet?
No seriously, do we? Because that would be excellent.
15/12/2011 at 16:36 Real Horrorshow says:
It’s sad when I’ll be surprised if the next Max Payne and Hitman games aren’t shit.
15/12/2011 at 16:54 Joseph says:
At least hitman is being made by the original studio, so if it’s bad it will at least be the right kind of bad!
Max payne has gone from a tragic story of a man against the world to a tragic story of how closely each rockstar game treads the line between awesome and horrible,
15/12/2011 at 16:43 db1331 says:
I didn’t ask for this. Please stop getting your MP in my SP.
16/12/2011 at 10:31 roryok says:
Hear hear.
15/12/2011 at 17:13 KenTWOu says:
Max looks like Lynch from Kane & Lynch. Now multiplayer modes remind me about Dog Days. What’s next?
15/12/2011 at 18:55 kregg says:
Thank you RPS for having a Catchphrase moment. God I miss that show. :(
15/12/2011 at 19:13 DickSocrates says:
Is it Police van Bounty Max, Roy?
15/12/2011 at 20:02 Lambchops says:
I can’t help but think of this whenever anybody mentions (the absolutely excellent) Catchphrase:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KotjiUQ7e0s
15/12/2011 at 19:39 archagon says:
The Half-Life 1 mod The Specialists had bullet-time in multiplayer several years ago. It worked really well, and I’ve been eagerly waiting for another game to have something similar.
15/12/2011 at 20:16 TwwIX says:
Do what “The Specialists” developers did with their Half Life mod and the multiplayer will be a success.
15/12/2011 at 23:29 Tyrone Slothrop. says:
Oh so fucking much this. The Specialists was one of the greatest multiplayer experiences ever in my opinion and a travesty the developers are not making a source, or a remake using a far better engine than that aging mess.
I can’t understand the resistance people have to a Max Payne multiplayer. Sure there are many games with an at best, extraneous, at worst, deleterious multiplayer component but if there ever was a game suited to it, it’s this. And it’s Rockstar and it looks have to have literally the best and most satisfying gunplay I’ve ever seen.
16/12/2011 at 10:34 roryok says:
yeah, imagine if it was done properly in a modern engine – a generic sort of tribute to all action movies rather than a distinct Hard Boiled / Die Hard / Matrix game.
Someone should do this.
UPDATE:
one of the levels could be a “Speed” level, where there’s a constantly speeding bus, and you have to jump onto it and kill the terrorists, or something. Actually now that I think of it there was a UT2003/2004 level like this, on a train
16/12/2011 at 02:19 fhfghf says:
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16/12/2011 at 16:10 ColOfNature says:
That picture made me laugh so hard I wee’d a little.