Max Payne 3: the hair's gone and the belly's got a little rounder but Max Payne is still out for vengence.
In this age where e-readers are popular with just about everyone, and gaming content is consumed online, I still love reading Edge magazine every month. There’s just something about it’s visual style and art direction that I love.
The thing I like about Edge magazine is that it doesn’t try to compete with the online blogs and gaming sites – although the magazine’s publisher has its own online portal for up-to-date news – and this month’s edition is particularly enticing, featuring a much older and more angst riddled Max Payne on its cover, psychotic eyes glaring out at the reader.
I take my time when I read a good magazine. I don’t flick through it like it’s tabloid trash then toss it aside but my magazine reading process goes something like this: pick up the magazine, scan the cover, flick through it, pausing on pages that grab my attention, then I start reading, starting with feature stories that have piqued my interest and am engrossed from there.
I still have the original Max Payne games for PC, and it was one of the first series to utilise bullet-time mechanics where the player could slow down time and have Payne performing weapon acrobatics as he pumped lead into the hapless foes. In the original, Max Payne was a New York cop on the edge, out for revenge. In Max Payne 2, a love interest came along but Payne was still a man fighting against the system. An angry man fighting against the system.
When in 2009 Rockstar announced that there would be a third Max Payne game, details were thin on the ground but Payne will be a few years older, more world wary and more cynical – as if he could be more cynical. It’s eight years on from Max Payne 2, too, and our anti-hero is no longer in the NYPD, instead working as a private security contractor in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In some images, Payne is balding and noticeably fatter than when he was in the NYPD. In a nice touch, actor James McCaffrey, who voiced Payne in the first two games, is returning to portray Payne – this time in a full acting role.
The rest of the current issue of Edge contains a feature about Prey 2, the sequel to 2006’s Prey, and a feature about why gamers are so transfixed by video game violence. I’m looking forward to poring over the contents in the coming weeks.
Who said print magazine’s were dead?
I was a fan of the Max Payne games when they first came out. They weren’t particularly deep but were a fun ride and the story was reasonably engaging (I think I was drawn more to the well-realised noir trappings).
Game Developer Magazine is one of my favourite mags – print is still alive! (although… I do read it in digital lol)
Something about Game Informer does it for me, its not often magazines get exclusives anymore.. Nostalgic too.. Game manuals are dying. The print has a certain substance to it.
I tried posting something here last night from my phone, but I think it stuffed up somehow. So apologies if the same content turns up twice!
Print’s certainly not dead in the gaming space (just look at Game Informer, which is one of the 10 biggest magazines in the world right now!), but it’s definitely taken a huge hit. For the most part, for readers and for marketeers, online is simply easier. Because of that, the long-lead print embargo opportunities are becoming fewer and fewer, and most magazines are now getting the exact same opportunities as websites (which have a much faster turnaround). So we’re starting to see some of the lesser-enabled magazines falling to the wayside.
Game Informer, though, is a different proposition; it’ll always manage to secure exclusive reveals through its ties to Gamestop and EB Games (and the subsequent distribution at every store!). Edge is simply a beautiful magazine with some top-notch journalism.
I don’t think the big print gaming magazines are in any danger of dying out entirely in the foreseeable future, mostly because there are a few vital areas in which online can’t yet compete. Specifically, I’m talking about assets; hi-res assets truly shine in print (especially in a magazine like Edge).
Interesting, I do similar processes when reading magazines, although I never really read gaming ones for some reason, I only really read movie magazines.
As for Max Payne, I never played any of them but always wanted to, maybe I should check out the older ones, seems interesting.