We recently
caught up with Markus Mäki for a chat about Max
Payne. Markus is the Chief Technology Officer for
MadOnion.com and one of the founders of Remedy
Entertainment, the developer of Max Payne.
PC Shooter:
Please tell us a little bit about yourself and
what you do for fun when you’re not developing
games.
MM:
Although I’m not too much involved in day-to-day
operations at Remedy currently, I’m one of the
founders. My working day is spent over at our
partner company MadOnion.com where I am in charge
of benchmark development. But when I’m not
working, I’m usually wakeboarding (in the summer
that is).
PCShooter:
Are you at all surprised that Max Payne is still
one of the best selling titles around?
MM:
It’s of course nice to see a game that has been
worked on to finally get released, and do well.
But I can’t say I’m personally too surprised, as I
have known for a longer time that Max is a fun
game to play.
PCShooter:
Who came up with the idea for Max Payne’s
gripping, novel-like story?
MM:
Full credit from the story goes to
Sam
Lake,
our resident game designer and storywriter. He’s
the man behind the Film Noir text, and the
detailed story. The story has been an integral
part of what Max is all about from the very
beginning.
PCShooter:
The graphical detail of this game engine is really
impressive. Will this engine be used for any
other games in the future? If so, can you tell us
what they might be?J
MM:
MAX-FX will most certainly be used in future games
as well. It’s flexible and very suitable to almost
any fps/3rd person action game, plus
probably for many other things too. I can’t make
any product announcements at this time.
PCShooter:
What tools did you use to create the levels and
animations in Max Payne?
MM:
The levels were created with our in-house level
editor, MaxED. Animations are done with 3d studio
max and characters were skinned our in-house
ActorFX tool.
MaxED actually ships on the game CD, and everyone
who has an interest in mapping is welcome to try
it out. We’ve also made a few tutorials available
at
www.maxpayne.com/tutorials.
PCShooter:
What made you decide not to include the
multiplayer aspect in the game, and is there the
possibility of a patch coming out to address that
in the future?
MM:
In my opinion many games nowadays have the problem
of trying too much, and doing nothing really well.
We wanted to avoid that, and decided to
concentrate on getting the single-player aspect of
Max Payne to rock!
Making a top-notch multiplayer game is a huge task
in its own right and would have forced us to make
too many compromises. We feel it was better this
way.
Max Payne is a clearly single-player experience,
and no simple patch can make it a multiplayer
game.
PCShooter:
We’ve always been fans of special effects, but
have never seen special effects like this in a
game before. How did you come up with and develop
the bullet time aspect and other special effects
in the game?
MM:
Remedy likes to think itself as a technologically
advanced company, and we just saw that technology
out on the market would have cut it for us. It’s
just our in-house technology that makes the unique
Max Payne look and feel.
One of the starting points with our technology has
been that it’s really easy to use for the artists.
This means that the artists are free to experiment
and ensures we get the best possible looking
environments and great special effects (most of
the Special FX have been done with our ParticleFX
editor).
All in all, the end result shows that there has
been enough time for experimentation, creativity
and original ideas during the project. This is
really what is needed to make a “hit” game like
Max Payne.
PCShooter:
Do you have any plans to release Max Payne on the
console?
MM:
Of course! Our publisher, Take Two, has already
announced the PS-2 and XBOX console ports of Max
Payne. These are not developed by Remedy, but by
expert port teams overseen by 3D Realms and us. We
feel that this is the best way to make sure the
ports are top quality. Additionally, this way
gamers can get their hands on the games sooner,
with both releases targeted for this fall.
PCShooter:
Do you expect the Max Payne mod community to
eventually grow as big as the Half-Life community
has?
MM:
We’re already seeing some very innovative and good
mods, and the tools we provide are pretty good
(although the level editor is a lot different to
other level editors out there). Still, I don’t
think a single-player game can easily create as
big mod community as Half-Life has.
But nobody can foretell the future and Remedy is
committed to supporting the mod community with
tutorials and tools releases, so who knows? We
would hope so and try to help out the community as
much as possible.
PCShooter:
Tell us what you think the future of action gaming
is.
MM:
The obvious first things that come to mind are
technical issues like tremendously better visual
quality and more interactivity.
Still, I think
the most important advance will be the coming of
truly cinematic games, games that touch a wider
range of experiences. It’s not going to be just
shoot and then shoot some more (although that is
cool too), but hopefully something greater and
deeper.
PCShooter:
Are there any plans for Max Payne 2?
MM:
We can’t comment on future game plans right now.
PCShooter:
Thank you very much for your time. We have
thoroughly enjoyed playing this game.
MM:
Thanks for the interview!
For
more on Max Payne, you should check
out our review.
Additional
Information is available at:
Remedy
Entertainment: http://www.remedy.fi/remedy/index.html
Official
Max Payne site: http://www.maxpayne.com
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