Posts Tagged ‘Remedy’

It’s strange to think that it is now eleven years since I first played Max Payne. There was something special about the Remedy developed title, a noir story met an irreverent sense of humour that could only be achieved from an outsiders’ perspective (in this case Finnish). This combined with polished mechanics and controls to create a game that, even all these years on, feels modern.

Max is the model anti-hero; a distressed undercover cop, framed for the murder of his friend and who discovers (while searching for the true killer) that the case is tied up with the murder of his own family. Haunted by dreams of his loved one’s deaths there is the constant suggestion of a need to escape his past, a fact portrayed by Max’s dependence on painkillers to restore health. It was this blending of narrative and gameplay, this attention to the small details, which really made Max Payne. That and bullet-time.

Max's first look was based on the game's writer Sam Lake.

Max Payne was the first game to utilise the now all too familiar slow motion effect of bullet-time. It had already been popularised thanks to the Matrix, but the sense of empowerment was a revelation to me as I controlled Max’s leisurely glide through the air while gunning down dozens of thugs. The cinematic atmosphere this mechanic added defined the franchise and remains its greatest legacy.

In keeping with the story’s tone, the conclusion of the game offered little in the way of justice for Max, and a fraction of the redemption he deserved. But despite his murderous rampage through New York, the authorities at least saw he was the hero of the piece. His freedom ensured that Max Payne would soon return for a similar, less than cheery, adventure.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, had perhaps the most unnecessary subtitle in gaming. Max had been on a steady decent from day one, so the idea he could some how fall any further was at once unimaginable and inevitable. This, combined with its billing as “a film noir love story”, only served to make me worry for damage that was to be done to the already emotionally shattered hero.

Max Payne 2 played even more to the cinematic feel of the series, and had a better looking Max.

Personally I found the second game a little less satisfying as Max’s driving force through the world felt less convincing than in the original game. Hinging around taking out a Russian Mafia boss Max’s interests was less potently personal, and as such the lengths to which he was prepared to go felt less believable. Remedy went some way to balancing this with the return of assassin Mona, one of the few characters (comparatively) sympathetic to Max in the first game. She returned as a love interest to add some emotional resonance to proceeding, but while I would be the first to admit men do stupid things for lust the lengths to which Max was driven even I struggled to relate to.

The conclusion of Max Payne 2 promised Max would return, but despite the games popularity it never materialised. Eventually I forgot about it, until a few years ago Rockstar (who handled the console ports of the first two games) suddenly announced they were working on a third title to the series.

I was in two minds about the announcement. While still foreign to the American setting the GTA developer’s humour is distinctly different to that of Remedy’s. It may sound like an odd thing to pick up on, but it was a subtle element that had a huge impact on the first two games. This worry combined with initial screen shots for the title, which looked so different in tone from the rest of the franchise (featuring a bald Max in sun drenched Rio) that I got the feeling Rockstar had missed the point. That was until the new trailer was released.

Back to being ugly, Max's new incarnation is older and even more distressed.

The new trailer shows a greater scope than the previous game. Rather than taking place over a few days in Max’s life, the third title is to follow Max through a longer journey. Beginning the hero’s familiar urban New York setting, he is now doing freelance security. His leather coat has returned, as has his depression and a now open use pain killers to self medicate the pains of his past. This is the Max Payne I remember.

I have little idea how the story will unfold, or what will eventually drive Max to shave off his distinctive hair and fulfil the promise of the original screen shots. But the anchor of a New York setting, and Rockstar’s track record, has me hopeful this will deliver me the game I had forgotten I was waiting for.

Max Payne 3 on PC, 360 and PS3 will all be available from May the 18th. Personally I will be siding with the PC version (if my system can handle it). That is where this series began, and there is still no better way to make Max freak out in bullet-time than a quick flick of the mouse.

Thanks in part to the glowing review I recently gave Alan Wake at Playdevil.com my editor chose me to conduct an email interview with Remedy’s Mikko Rautalahti, one of the games writers. I jumped at the chance and the results are now online. I think it came out pretty well, though as with all email interviews I curse the lack of follow up to some of his responses. On the site the interview is accredited to ‘Staff’, but I assure you it is me, so here is a snippet with the rest available here.

DoFuss: Originally Alan Wake was originally intended to be a more open world title. Why was this initial vision abandoned? With this shift were any cuts or changes made to the narrative?

Mikko Rautalahti: Well, there were many factors in it, of course, but it mostly came down to what we wanted to do with Alan Wake. We knew we wanted it to be a moody, atmospheric game with palpable tension, one that took us halfway into the head of the protagonist and kept the player guessing. And that’s not really the kind of a thing open world games are best suited for.

I’ll give you a practical example of what I mean. Let’s say that Alan Wake is going deeper and deeper into a dark forest to meet someone who has information about his missing wife. Now, we have certain tools that are very effective at creating a creepy atmosphere: we can have the fog roll in, throw in a lot of foreboding audio effects, etc. We can throw in some scripted events as well – maybe there’s a glimpse of a shadowy figure, or you hear ominous whispers. This is familiar ground to those who have played the game – it sets a certain mood for the scene, and we can escalate in various ways until things get nasty.

But in an open world game, the player can just suddenly change his mind – you know, “oh, hey, I think I’ll go do that another mission instead.” That’s great in terms of player freedom, but for our purposes, it’s poison to the atmosphere, because is really emphasizes the fact that this is a game and conveys the message that what you’re experiencing isn’t really very unique, you can always come back, it’s no big deal. And that’s not a bad thing in itself. But for our particular purposes it is a problem, because when you’re trying to create a thriller that really rests largely on the atmosphere, when you’re dealing with questions like “what’s real and what’s fantasy or insanity,” and “what’s really behind all this?” it’s vital to control the pacing. You can’t keep breaking the mood like that. The player has to feel that pressure, and it’s incredibly hard to maintain it if they can just constantly veer off course.

And yes, of course this necessitated changes, but fortunately they weren’t as major as you might think. We didn’t yet have a scene-by-scene script for the game at that point, and this wasn’t a change that had a big impact on Alan Wake’s core story concepts.

There is some magic woven in to Alan Wake’s fabric. Every other game I have played that has attempted blend horror and action has invariably ended up skewed in favour of action. By giving the player the ability and recourses to fight, the tension is removed. Yet despite Alan Wake’s focus on combat it manages to provide constant anxiety though it’s narrative and atmosphere.

Alan Wake is perhaps the first game to offer the experience of a horror movie’s final act. Tooled up, desperate, it forces me to fight for salvation. Strong enough to emerge victorious if I am wise in my approach, but knowing any slip will result in failure.

There is down time, but the threat is constant.

But, though I love it, part of me is furious at Alan Wake. It is my own fault, my own gaming proclivities, an obsessive nature to hunt every collectable scattered throughout a virtual world. But I also blame Remedy, surely they know the plight of many players to lust after every shiny trinket.

I find myself distracted from the narrative to enable my search for insignificant baubles. I am compelled to hunt, venturing far from the intended path. A glint on the horizon will see me abandoning my quest exploring for these irrelevant items, rather than savouring the fantastic atmosphere and story.

My love of Alan Wake is not stifled by this distraction, but I can’t help but curse the developers for dangling this pointless carrot in front my weak willed, obsessive nose.

An extended view of Alan Wake is available here.