Rockstar Games shed some light on some new gameplay and animation mechanics in Max Payne 3.
In a Recent Interview Art Director Rob Nelson told Gamespot,
“We’ve introduced a left trigger over the shoulder aiming feature where you can zoom in a bit closer and aim more precisely on your target at the expense of your ability to move around quickly,”
“So we added that and we’ve added a cover mechanic, but those are ancillary additions to the core of the game, which is still very much the run and gun.”
Nelson also detailed a ‘Last Man Standing’ mechanic, which gives Max a reprieve from death for a small period if he’s got one painkiller on him. If the player is able fill the enemy that delivered the wounding shot with bullets he’ll recover enough energy to soldier on.
Other upgrades in this entry include the ability to stay prone after shoot-dodging, and an emphasis on realistic, real-time reactionary animations.
“We’re doing something new with Max where we’re doing physics-animation hybrids,” Nelson explained.
“Like when he shoot-dodges; that’s physics and an animation pose library running together. You need to be able to control where he’s pointing, but at the same time he needs to behave realistically depending on his environment, whether he’s launching over some concrete divider or crashing into a wall or a bus or something like that.
“He has to feel aware of his surroundings and so that was a big challenge and something we spent a lot of time tuning.”
The art director went on to explain how Max Payne 3 will employ the Euphoria engine and how it has evolved since its use in Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption.
“As far as Euphoria it’s basically a set of behaviours that you can tune, and so it’s really how much effort you put into that. So with Max we put a lot of effort into the different aspects of Euphoria and how we use it,” Nelson explained.
“So there’s the hit reacts for the enemies; we sort of evolve that and make those feel more connected. I think we had a good jump from GTA4 to Red Dead and you’re going to see another good jump from Red Dead to Max, where you want individual shots to react properly you want people to fall realistically.”
“That’s something that we’re always pushing, plus we have bullet cams and things like that in Max we’re you’re basically seeing these things up close, you’re seeing your bullets impact your opponents, so you want that stuff to really show well.”
Watch the full interview below.
Max Payne 3 is slated for release in March 2012 and will be available for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC and a $100 Special Edition is available For Pre-Order until January 15.
Take a look at Max Payne 3′s First look Trailer