FPS General

Just a quite note for all of you who haven't had a chance to pick up Max Payne 3 yet. The game is available on Best Buy for a fraction of the retail price, going for just $17.99. The deal expires after today, so don't wait too long!

$17.99 is more than a steal for Max Payne 3, a game that we really enjoyed. The game follows the story of Max Payne, naturally, as he moves to Brazil hoping to escape his troubled past. He comes into the employ of Rodrigo Branco, but does not find the peace of mind he had hoped for. All he finds, unfortunately, is a convoluted scheme to kidnap Rodrigo's wife. The story is as dark and brooding as you'd expect from a Max Payne game, and the multiplayer is just as enjoyable.

The deal is available through Dealzon and is for the standard edition of Max Payne 3. While there has been a wealth of DLC released for the game, none of that content is available in this deal. You can, however, pick it up with all of that money you're saving by not spending $59.99 on the game brand new.

Check out the purchase links below and visit http://www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne3/ for more information on Max Payne 3!

Xbox 360: http://www.dealzon.com/deals/max-payne-3#max-payne-3-xbox-360

PlayStation 3: http://www.dealzon.com/deals/max-payne-3#max-payne-3-ps3

Rockstar Games has released some more information on Max Payne 3's upcoming DLC offering, the Hostage Negotiation Pack. This multiplayer pack offers new maps and new weapons and is scheduled to release later this autumn.

As far as the new maps go....

Rockstar Games

The Club Moderno and Estádio Do Galatians maps are being designed to deliver intense nightclub and stadium shootouts reminiscent of Max's earlier dust-ups with some of São Paulo's most dangerous elements like the Comando Sombra and the Crachá Preto.

Meanwhile, the O Palácio Strip Club and Favela Heights maps introduce to multiplayer all new, highly detailed favela territories from Max's descent into the gang-infested neighborhoods of the city.

The DLC will also include the new Bomb Suit which protects against explosive damage and the Intimidation Mask which causes enemy players to reload more slowly. Finally, the Hostage Negotiation Pack includes two new weapons in the form of the M24 Sniper Rifle and the IA2 Assault Rifle.

Check out http://www.rockstargames.com/ for more information on the upcoming Hostage Negotiation Pack for Max Payne 3.

Rockstar Games has announced that they will be consolidating the promised five Max Payne 3 DLC packs to just three, with brand new content coming to the game in August.

From the looks of things, Max Payne 3 players won't be losing any planned content, as the three expansions are going to be larger than intended with content from the cancelled DLC packs trickling down to those other releases. Rockstar also announced that the next DLC pack - Disorganized Crime - will be launching this month for free across all platforms.

The full schedule reads:

• Disorganized Crime Pack: August [Free]
• Hostage Negotiation Map Pack: September [800 Microsoft Points (Xbox LIVE) or £7.29 (PlayStation Network and PC)]
• Painful Memories Map Pack: October [800 Microsoft Points (Xbox LIVE) or £7.29 (PlayStation Network and PC)]
• Deathmatch Made In Heaven Mode Pack: October [800 Microsoft Points (Xbox LIVE) or £7.29 (PlayStation Network and PC)]

Sad news this morning as Rockstar Vancouver, the lead developer on Max Payne 3, has been shut down. But before you grab your handkerchief, the story isn't entirely sad.

While Rockstar Games or, perhaps, their parent company at Take Two Interactive are shutting down Rockstar Vancouver, they are offering jobs for the staff at Rockstar Toronto. Rockstar Vancouver is made up of around 35 developers, all of whom are being offered jobs at Rockstar's only other Canadian branch in Rockstar Toronto. The team at Toronto hasn't worked as the primary developer on a title in quite some time, so perhaps this move will bolster the current staff at Rockstar Toronto and we can look forward to some great games coming out of that studio in the near future.

No word yet on how this will affect Max Payne 3 with future expansions or DLC, but we'll keep you informed as we learn more. Hopefully the staff at Rockstar Vancouver will move on to Rockstar Toronto, and we wish them the best!

Amazon has a pretty awesome deal going for another day where customers who purchase a copy of Max Payne 3 automatically receive a copy of Red Dead Redemption for free.

Red Dead Redemption is hands down one of the best multiplayer experiences available, period. Looking for classic deathmatch style fights? You got it. Objective based matches? Yes, sir. Missions to complete with friends? Yep. Exploring and free roaming? You bet. Poker? OF course, it's the Wild West. Just about the only popular multiplayer feature missing is zombies. Oh! That's right, it has zombies, too. 

Max Payne 3 is easily worth the price of the game, but the addition of Red Dead Redemption is a steal. We already own both games and we're still thinking about picking this bundle up...

Rockstar Games has released the first major DLC offering for their recently released third-person shooter, Max Payne 3. The Local Justice Pack brings a handful of new multiplayer maps to Max Payne 3, including:

• Imperial Palace
• 55th Batallion HQ
• Departure Lounge

These maps are all based on locations from Max Payne 3's campaign, during the final chapters of the game. In addition to the Local Justice DLC, Rockstar has put up the pre-order retail DLC up for purchase now. This content was previously only available for players who pre-ordered Max Payne 3 at various games retailers.

The content includes...

Rockstar Games has released a few preview screenshots of the upcoming Local Justice DLC for Max Payne 3.

The screenshots, which you can see above and in the gallery below, offer an at-a-glance look at each map in the upcoming multiplayer DLC. Imperial Palace, 55th Batallion HQ and Departure Lounge are all present and accounted for in the screenshots below and look great so far. All of these new maps have been taken from various locations that Max encounters during the course of the epic singleplayer story.

For example, Imperial Palace takes place in Sao Paulo, Brazil and is playable in Payne Killer, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. 55th Batallion HQ is a multi-level map that is playable in Gang Wars, Payne Killer, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. The third and final map, Departure Lounge, takes place at an airport in Brazil and is playable in Payne Killer, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch.

Take a look at the screenshots below and check out http://www.rockstargames.com/ for more information on the Local Justice DLC!

Rockstar Games has announced that the first DLC content pack for Max Payne 3 will be arriving July 3rd on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and July 17th on PC.

The DLC brings a major refresh to multiplayer, with three new maps, a new weapon, a new item, a new faction and a brand new achievements related to this new content. All told, Local Justice includes:

• 55th Battalion HQ map for all game modes 
• The Imperial Palace and Departure Lounge maps for Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Payne Killer 
• Light Fingers Item for faster looting 
• M4 Assault Rifle with attachments 
• São Paulo Police Faction with related avatar customization options

Now that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Max Payne 3 have shipped and are resting snugly inside players' disc trays, Rockstar Games is focusing all of their attention on the PC version of the game.

In a brand new interview, Kevin Hoare - Rockstar Games' Lead PC Designer on Max Payne 3 - goes behind the scenes on how the PC version of the game takes full advantage of the much more powerful current generation of PC hardware. In the interview, Hoare discusses how Max Payne 3 takes advantage of that hardware:

As you can see from the specs list above, we’ve worked hard to make sure the game will run smoothly on a wide range of PC builds. But it’s when you get towards the top end of that range that you can really push a game to its limits, and the game will look and run incredibly on the most advanced current machines around at the moment and well into the near future.

You’ll find that screen resolution is scalable, there’s triple and even sextuple monitor support which helps to run higher screen resolutions, there’s various anti-aliasing options, scalable water quality, scalable shadow quality, increased detail for characters and vehicles and a scalable texture filter that further increases visual quality. We’re also supporting DX11 with Max Payne 3, with features including Hull/Tessellation/Domain Shaders (which adds curvature to the character/vehicle models), Gather4 (for optimized shadow sampling / FXAA), Geometry shader / Stream Output and DX11 texture samplers to name a few.

As you can tell, there’s a lot for PC fans with higher-spec hardware to sink their teeth in to.

 Take a look at a couple high-resolution screenshots taken from the PC version of Max Payne 3 below!

Max Payne 3's multiplayer component has been given a few tweaks, changing the rate that XP and Cash is earned at. The changes aren't major, but if you've been enjoying Max Payne 3 like we have, you'll have noticed these tweaks.

The changes are as follows:

New XP Rates:

• Kill: 50 XP
• L2 Burst: 25 XP
• L3 Burst: 50 XP
• Territory First In: 25 XP
• Delivery/Grab Pickup: 25 XP
• Delivery/Grab Drop-Off: 50 XP

New Cash Rates:

• x3 Killstreak: $50
• x5 Killstreak: $75
• Delivery Pickup: $25
• Delivery Drop-Off: $25
• Delivery Intercept: $10
• Grab Pickup: $50
• Grab Drop-Off: $50
• Bomb Defused/Planted: $125
• Warfare Winning Team: $100
• PK Loot Special Corpse: $100 (reduction from $250)

Players looking to get a little more Max Payne in their daily lives will be pleased to learn that Rockstar Games has released the Max Payne 3 soundtrack to iTunes. 

Starting today, you can head on over to iTunes and load up your little iPhone, iPod or iPad with the brilliant soundtrack written and recorded by the Los Angeles based band HEALTH.

Mixing their signature percussive undertones and synth effects, HEALTH has created a dark and driving soundscape that perfectly reflect Max’s blurred and frayed mental state. HEALTH discard conventional balanced compositions and inject their signature melancholy noise pop into a score that helps propel Max as he transitions between his dark present and tragic past, giving each their own distinctive feel, while staying true to the heavy atmosphere of the Max Payne series.

The soundtrack also includes a special track by Sao Paolo's own Emicida, entitled '9 Circulos'. The soundtrack is great and the music doesn't need to be heard in-game to be enjoyable, putting it on during your daily commute might be just the ticket to get your day going right.

Check it out at http://itunes.apple.com/ and drop by our Max Payne 3 forums to discuss the game and its soundtrack!

Last weekend, some of the world's foremost professional gamers gathered at the MLG Arena in New York to battle it out in Max Payne 3.

Players faced off in both 4 vs 4 Team Deathmatch and Free for All Deathmatch, battling it out for a total prize purse of $30,000. The event has wrapped up already, but Major League Gaming will be broadcasting the competition tonight over on their official website at http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/. The broadcast will be happening at 8:00PM PST (11:00EST, 1:00AM GMT) but you can check out a sneak preview of the event in the video above.

The roster for the tournament, including links to players' Twitter accounts, looked like this...

Max Payne 3's arcade modes bring an extra layer to the game's singleplayer campaign, introducing some fun leaderboard challenges; Score Attack and New York Minute.

After completing any singleplayer level, you can go back and replay it in Score Attack. When playing in this mode, every shot counts as you get points for shots on target and enemies taken down. Rack up the highest score possible and check our status on Rockstar's Social Club leaderboards to see where you rank among your friends and overall. Everything from using shoot-dodge, bullet time and racking up hitstreaks will get you more points and we have a feeling we'll be playing each level more than a few times, trying to get that highest possible score.

New York Minute, on the other hand, requires you to complete the entire singleplayer story to access. New York Minute is one of the most frenetic game modes we can imagine. One minute is put on the clock when you start and time is awarded to you for each enemy that you kill.

The day is almost here; Max Payne 3 hits shelves next week! To get things started a bit early, Rockstar Games has released the official launch trailer for the game, which you can check out above.

Max Payne 3 tells the story of a more rugged, world weary Max, who takes a job down in Sao Paolo, Brazil. His assignment is to protect the family of Rodrigo Branco, a wealthy real estate mogul down in Sao Paolo. Everything goes wrong when Rodrigo's wife is taken captive. Events spiral out of control, leaving Max hunting for answers and a way out in the unfamiliar streets of Sao Paolo, Brazil.

The game will be available on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on Tuesday, May 15th and PC on May 29th!

Rockstar Games is gearing up to launch their upcoming third-person shooter Max Payne 3 next week, and in preparation of the launch, they've given the Rockstar Games Social Club service a total facelift.

The Social Club has been in effect for quite a while, but with the recent update and Max Payne 3 hitting shelves next week, there has never been a better time to get your crew set up. The Social Club allows players to add friends, update feeds, read news, organize crews and even start rivalries much in the way that Call of Duty Elite or Battlelog does for Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 respectively.

Not interested in starting your own crew? We encourage you to join ours! We're going to be hitting Max Payne 3 hard next week, and we'd love to play with you!

Rockstar Games has released part two of a two-part video series designed to introduce players to the mechanics that they will become familiar with in Max Payne 3's multiplayer game modes.

Today's video introduces Gang Wars, one of the game modes in Max Payne 3's multiplayer component. Gang Wars takes portions of the singleplayer story in Max Payne 3 and incorporates them into multiplayer as narrative starting points for each match. Gang Wars are much more complex than a straightforward deathmatch. One example of a Gang War match starts out with your gang being tasked with taking over enemy gang turf. If you're able to control your turf, the next round will task your enemy with planting charges in a second attempt at grabbing some land. 

Each Gang Wars match is dynamic, depending on how well your gang performs their objectives. Not defusing the charges that your enemies are planting means that in the next round, you are at a strategic disadvantage, as the enemy has been able to deal you a damaging blow with those charges from the previous round. 

Los Angeles-based band Health have put together hundreds of hours worth of original music for Rockstar Games' upcoming third-person shooter Max Payne 3. Earlier this morning, Rockstar announced that the soundtrack for Max Payne 3 will be available for purchase on May 23rd in digital form, with no word on a physical copy.

Health's musical style blends elements of rock with big drums and electronic sounds which lends itself nicely to the action in Max Payne 3. What we're really excited about is that Health has taken inspiration from Max Payne's native New York as well as Sao Paolo, Brazil, where Max Payne 3 takes place. On top of that, Health makes use of themes used in previous Max Payne games, completing the package and making it feel like a proper Max Payne soundtrack.

Rockstar Games has released a new weapons spotlight, focusing on the 1911 Semi-Automatic Pistol - one of Max Payne 3's many lethal weapons.

The M1911 pistol - so called for its service debut of the year 1911 - is one of the video game industries favorite pistols. Nearly every modern shooter has featured the M1911; whether in a World War II setting, the Cold War or modern combat, the M1911 is a staple in first-person shooters. In Max Payne 3, the pistol acts as a "hard-hitting, reliable handgun" that Max has made good use of since his days working with the NYPD.

Rockstar Games has announced via Twitter that Max Payne 3, their highly-anticipated third-person shooter, will ship on two discs on Xbox 360.

The double discs are only relevant to Xbox 360 players, as that is the only platform which will require two discs to fit all of that Max Payne content. On PC, of course, players don't need to worry about pesky disc swapping as games are installed to your hard drive. On PlayStation 3, Sony makes good use of Blu-ray Discs which are able to house 25GB - a staggering figure when compared to Xbox 360's 6.8GB disc capacity. Two discs can be an omen of good or ill fortune depending on your perspective.

To us, two discs means just that much more Max Payne 3 content and we aren't convinced that there can ever be too much Max Payne 3. This may mean one disc for singleplayer and one for multiplayer, or it may mean that the singleplayer portion spreads out onto two discs. Either way, we're looking forward to something heftier than traditional Xbox 360 games.

PC players might be feeling a little slighted that Rockstar Games isn't releasing their version of Max Payne 3 on the same day as the console releases, but perhaps you can take solace in the fact that the game looks gorgeous on PC.

Along with the recommended system specifications for Max Payne 3 on PC, Rockstar Games has released a batch of screenshots that show off how good the game can look on a capable machine. The PC version of Max Payne 3 is no simple port. This version of the game has been developed from the ground up for PC and includes support for DirectX11 as well as a full array of graphics options to fine tune Max Payne 3 for your setup.