With about eight years between us and the last Max Payne, the wait for a new game was beginning to feel like the endless screams of a tortured child as it sees the corpse of its mother laying dead on the rain-slicked concrete of a city overcome by indifference. But today, Rockstar’s stepped out of the shadows with all the swagger of a would-be savior of the downtrodden, smugly delivering us the first-ever Max Payne 3 trailer as though it were a stack of bills soaked in the blood of a dog breathing its last gasp in a forgotten alleyway of dashed hopes granite bullets moonlight tear-streaked Raymond Chandler.
In all seriousness, the trailer looks pretty slick. Delivered with typical Rockstar polish, it gives us our first in-motion glimpse of the latest paunchy, aging incarnation of our favorite self-torturing New York cop, as well as the game’s version of Sao Paolo, Brazil. If the trailer’s anything to go by, it looks like the graphic-novel presentation of the last two games won’t return for the sequel, instead replaced by more conventional cutscenes – although it sounds like veteran MP actor James McCaffrey is returning to reprise his role as Max, so that’s a plus for fans. In any case, this gives us something to look forward to as we wait for the game’s March 2012 release to edge slowly closer.
