While this really isn’t a surprise, what with Max Payne 3 on the way and the ESRB leak late last month, it’s awesome nonetheless.

Earlier today, Major Nelson announced that both Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne are now available on the Xbox 360 as Xbox Originals. Max Payne. Max Payne.

The games are 1200 MS points each, or $15. This is a little disappointing, as both of the games can be purchased on Steam for the price of one of the Xbox Originals. I strongly prefer console to PC gaming, but even I would be more inclined to pick them up on the latter.

Still, for those of you 360 owners without a Max Payne-capable PC, if any of you actually exist, these are two fantastic games that you need to play.

The ESRB has never been an impenetrable fortress of information, and the fact that they have a search function on their website doesn’t really help them keep things secret. Destructoid pointed our earlier today that the ESRB is now listing three Max Payne games, one being the poorly-recieved Max Payne Advance, and the other two being Max Payne 1 and 2, which are listed for the Xbox 360.

Since Rockstar announced Max Payne 3 a short time ago, they may be looking to release the previous games on Xbox Live in the same time frame as the third’s release in retail. Destructoid also pointed out that the games weren’t listed for the PS3, which could signal another exclusive for Microsoft. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what Rockstar says on the matter.

Source; ESRB (via Destructoid)

Rockstar have announced today that the third instalment of their bullet-time third-person action game series will be arriving during “Winter 2009″. The game “tells the story of a retired police detective embroiled in a world of corruption, turmoil and intense violence,” Rockstar says. Max Payne 3 will include “hyper-intense action” (”that fans have come to love”), and will move the story in a “new direction.”

Rockstar also notes that Max is “a few years older, more world-weary and cynical than ever. We experience the downward spiral of his life after the events of Max Payne 2 and witness his last chance for salvation.” The game is set for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, and may or may not be a good game. You never know with Rockstar.

Via Dtoid.

If you’re a gamer, this movie will be especially painful to watch.  My hope going in, was that the movie adaptation of the Max Payne video game would be full of Payne … and it was, just not the kind I had hoped for.

Following in the sordid footsteps of video game to movie adaptations is the recently released Max Payne. Staring the talented Mark Wahlberg (I Heart Huckabees, The Perfect Storm, The Departed) and a cast of talented actors, this film feels like it makes an attempt to render the intellectual property into something that non-gamers (also see: cretins) will understand.

Sadly, their attempt falls flat and turns the movie into nightmarish gibberish usually reserved for Subway employees, Republican Vice-Presidential candidates, and the functionally retarded.

As a fan of the game series, I went into this movie skeptical. I had read an interview with the developers at Remedy who said about the movie, and I’m paraphrasing, “What the fuck?” Evidently developers watched the movie at a special screening and didn’t even recognize their beloved title.

The plot is more or less preserved; characters are present with a few extras as are the major plot elements, but I couldn’t help but feel like I wasn’t watching the Max Payne I had struggled with on “Dead on Arrival.”

The fact is that this movie was hamstrung by a PG-13 rating. However, Max Payne is not, repeat not, a PG-13 game. Max Payne is a gritty shooter in which there’s so many bullets flying it’s a wonder how you don’t get lead poisoning. The watered down Max Payne is so plainly cosmetic it renders the movie a nugatory pass at a genius game.

Director John Moore has taken a public shellacking from critics and game fans, making him a social leper. His Wikipedia entry was even defaced as an angry gamer wrote next to his Max Payne movie credit “ruined the movie…pg-13!? you and fox both blow you ‘cockgobblers’(i know you like that word you damn fag)”

Perhaps a tad unfair but that’s hardly the point. You can’t argue with the pull that hacks like Uwe Boll and Paul Anderson have had on the video game industry by creating adaptations that are so bitterly repugnant to their target audience that the very mention of their names makes even the most casual of gamers bleed from the nose and bite strangers on the face. Om nom nom nom nom.

There is a rumor that an unrated version will be released of Max Payne, but we’ll see. I know that for myself that after having seen this I doubt I will want to see it again with the promise of coitus or behavior modifying recreational pharmaceuticals.

What makes me the most utterly dejected is that you can tell from the production value that this movie had it all: a quality cast, a nice big budget, and a story that wrote itself – and Moore squandered it.

Mark Wahlberg was spotted with his hand wrapped from a recent injury. Did he bust himself up during one of his diving slo-motion gun battles on the set of Max Payne, or perhaps from punching someone in the face with extreme Funky Bunchedness? Nope, turns out he took a crack on the wrist doing something far more dangerous: playing Wii Sports.

In an interview with British movie magazine Total Film, The Mark explained his injury:

“Um, it was tennis on the Wii! I was playing with my daughter the other day and she swung the remote real hard and it cracked me on the side of my wrist! Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. It sounds kinda funny – but it fuckin’ hurt, man!”

Seems strange to me that he would wrap it up, though. Why doesn’t he just pop some painkillers and chill out until his health refills? Duh!

Source: Total Film via Games Radar

The cast and director of the upcoming game-to-film adaptation of Max Payne gave a little Q&A at the San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend.  Marky Mark discussed how he was really looking to kick ass again, and the director, John Moore, expressed how he intended to break the mold of videogame movies and make sure Max Payne doesn’t suck.

John Moore had the following to say in regards to making gamers happy:

“Here’s the funny thing about video games and movies — the minute you take that controller out of the player’s hands, you better deliver something of equal value. Ya gotta give them something so exciting and kick-ass and we thought the way to do that is to be highly subjective and make you feel like you are Max Payne.”

I’m not entirely sure how he intends to do that — is the movie shot from 3 feet behind Marky Mark except during cutscenes? As I said before, however, the trailer does have me excited for the movie. Of course, I’m a Marky Mark fan, so maybe I’m just biased. Speaking of Marky Mark, here’s what the actor said regarding his role as the titular Max Payne:

“I read the script — after Invincible and The Happening and Lovely Bones, I wanted to kick some ass again and I got an opportunity to do it in a way where I think I did more than I did in The Departed: movies like Four Brothers and Fear.”

They also apparently talked about a new camera the used called “The Phantom” that takes up to 1,000 frames per second (which is almost as fast as Crysis runs on my killer gaming PC). Bullet-time was a huge part of what made Max Payne (the game) what it is, but the difficulty they faced was doing slo-mo in a way that didn’t just look like The Matrix or a John Woo flick.

Wish I could be at Comic-Con myself, but at least the lucky bastards at Geeks of Doom keep me (and thus, you) informed.

Mark Wahlberg, the actor slated to play Max Payne in the upcoming film based on the popular video game franchise, states that he has not played, and will not play the video game. Why? Because he says he has an addictive personality, and that, combined with his other adult responsibilities, simply won’t mesh well.

In an interview with People.com, Wahlberg says “I didn’t want to play because I have an addictive personality.” The actor then adds:

“I got more responsibility now than I’ve ever had with the kids and everything else. I don’t want to be spending 14 hours on the videogame and then eight hours on the set. It’s not going to work out.”

That’s strange. I seem to remember Mark Wahlberg posing for Calvin Klein in his underwear, grabbing his crotch, and belting out really bad rap songs about vibrations or something like that.

Guess it’s a good thing his addictive personality didn’t kick in back then, or we may have been treated to a Max Payne in boxer briefs, running around shooting people and asking “can you feel it baby?”.

Source: showbizspy.com

I just watched the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation of Max Payne, and it was shockingly good.  I had a certain expectation considering it was a videogame movie (that being that it would suck hard), but this film may have a shot at breaking the stereotype.  Read on to see the YouTube-ified trailer.

Personally, I like Marky Mark.  I think he’s a fine actor and has the perfect scowl-face for Max Payne.  Honestly, he would have made a much better Wolverine in the X-Men movies, even though Hugh Jackman is the shit, and the Funky Bunch could have been those other mutant schmoes.  Anyways, Marky Mark has played cops before, and he’s played sulky, angry dudes before.  He’s even already played an angry cop that was sulky and a dude –  Marky Mark is Max Payne.

Enough of my rambling — check out the trailer for yourself:

According to Dark Zero, Mila Kunis of That 70’s Show fame has recently been cast in the Max Payne film adaptation.

Kunis will supposedly play an assassin who allies with Payne. Given this description and Kunis’ look, it definitely sounds like she could be playing the role of Mona Sax, pictured above.

Max Payne recently started filming with Mark “Marky Mark” Wahlberg as the titular character.

Source: Dark Zero