Max Payne doesn’t wear tights. But, if insanely fast reflexes, deadly marksmanship and an ability to swill the worst whisky around count, you could argue that the gritty NYPD detective of Rockstar Games’ shooters has superpowers. Powers or not, he’ll be appearing in a new series from Marvel Comics which is being written by Rockstar’s Dan Houser and Remedy’s Sam Lake.
Part of Panel Discussion’s mission is to look at the ways and places where comics and video games intersect and here in Crossover, we’ll be talking to game creators about the comics stories and creators who’ve shaped their sensibilities.
Going into Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, I’d worried that I hadn’t played the DLC that followed the 2010 game that introduced Remedy’s literary action hero. I loved the long-brewing Xbox 360 exclusive, but after months of never being able to slot in The Signal and The Writer add-ons, I’d decided to skip them after repeatedly hearing how I didn’t need to play, did I?
It’s never easy taking over an IP from somebody else. Especially when that IP is so iconic. Luckily, Rockstar Games is the sort of company who rises to a challenge and rarely lets us down. Although Max Payne has been in development for what seems like an eternity now, the closer we finally get to launch, the better and better it looks.
As game consoles become more like cable television boxes, maybe it’s time for video games to start becoming more like cable television shows.
Shocking! But the new Alan Wake isn’t a sequel. “Fans of the franchise will be excited to learn that, yes, more Wake is coming!” the game’s developer told website Joystiq. “But to be absolutely certain to avoid confusion, this next Wake installment will not be Alan Wake 2. But neither will it be DLC.” [Joystiq]
What’s next for the developer behind Max Payne and Xbox 360 mystery Alan Wake? An iPhone and iPad version of their 1996 vehicular combat game Death Rally, coming in March.
Psychological thriller Alan Wake hit the Xbox 360 a few months back delivering a taut, deftly written experience that straddled the line between television and video game.
