Published on December 15th, 2011 | by Dan
6Max Payne 3 Multiplayer Details
Max Payne 3 having a multiplayer mode was something that I was very skeptical about. I just didn’t think that the core experience of Max Payne could really work in a multiplayer setting, since Max Payne is traditionally a story-driven single player experience. The series always delivers in this regard. To me, there was no need to even delve into multiplayer, but Rockstar has decided to try.
Now we have details of one game mode that makes up the multiplayer component. IGN recently got to check out the Gang Wars mode. Gang Wars will be a story-driven multiplayer mode. The game will be dynamic, based on what happens each round. This isn’t like anything out right now. Here is a more detailed explanation from IGN:
“A typical match, for instance, might kick-off during the calamity of a drug deal gone horribly wrong. You must collect duffle bags gorged with cash and ferry them back to safe points. It’s a standard multiplayer objective but the difference comes in the next round; instead of tasking you with the same objective, the mission changes and draws upon the events of the preceding round not only to give context but motivation for the new task…in round two, for instance, a bounty might be placed on the head of the previous round’s most lethal player. Or you might have to grab land from the dominant team. Say you successfully won the most new territory, in the next round you might have to frantically run around defusing bombs set on your new turf.”
This sounds somewhat like Enemy Territory. That’s the only game I can point to as a touchstone for this type of gameplay. Enemy Territory had you starting with the objective of getting a truck to a base, for instance. After that, maybe you had to blow up a wall to get into the base, steal some gold, and get it back to the truck. Finally, you would have to escort the truck to a safe zone. Each ’round’ leads to the next. In theory this sounds like a really interesting departure from most shooters out today. Furthermore, each round is tied together by a short cinematic or comic scene with a Max Payne voice-over that tells the story of what just happened.
Rockstar has clearly taken a different direction there, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t some of the traditional multiplayer shooter conventions. There are indeed killstreaks/perks (referred to in Max Payne 3 as ‘Bursts’), but at this time, none involve any weapons. Bullet Time falls into this category and from the description of how it works, it sounds like it may actually work. Bullet time is a staple of Max Payne since the first game, but implementing it into multiplayer is something that I wasn’t sure could succeed. From IGN’s impressions and how it works, however, I may be changing my mind.
Bullet time locks you and a target in your line of sight in slow motion; it doesn’t follow a proximity. This means you can either use it to get the jump on someone or even cancel someone’s actions out (such as slowing them down when defusing a bomb), but it won’t affect everyone around you. Another Burst is paranoia, which causes enemy players to see their teammates as enemies on the screen. Sneak will do the opposite, causing your name to appear friendly to the enemy team. None of this sounds imbalanced or too crazy to work, but we won’t know for sure until release. You use XP you have accumulated during the match to activate Bursts, much like the Tribes: Ascend and Blacklight: Retribution method of using credits.
Overall, multiplayer sounds like it is shaping up nicely. Rockstar is taking some chances with even having it as a component, and so far it sounds like it will be a fresh experience. Regardless, I will still be purchasing this game based on the single-player pedigree of the Max Payne series. Max Payne 3 releases in March 2012.
Read the full IGN article here.
Photo courtesy of IGN and Rockstar
nipnops
DanI put the OO in Swagoo. One of the founders of KBMOD. I stream on Twitch as well as writing and editing for the website.
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