Max Payne 3 is getting kitted out with a couple of more traditional ways of killing enemies, with a cover mechanic as well as over-the-shoulder zoom aiming.

Talking to GameSpot, art director Rob Nelson explains, “We’ve introduced a left trigger, over the shoulder aiming feature that most games have, where you can sort of zoom in a bit closer and aim more precisely on your target at the expense of your ability to move around quickly.”

“So we added that, and we’ve added a cover mechanic, but those are ancillary additions to the core of the game, which is still very much the run and gun.”

As far as bullet-time is concerned, that’s going to be pretty much how it was in the first two games.

“As far as the way bullet-time works now, compared to the way it worked in the old games – and what the greatest addition, enhancement is – it works pretty much the same,” Nelson said.

“It really, it hasn’t changed,” he added. “But yet it looks and feels completely different because of the depth at which we’ve integrated it.”

Rockstar is making use of their Euphoria engine to get more realism out of the game, particularly with the way enemies react to getting shot.

“As far as Euphoria, it’s basically a set of behaviours that you can tune, and so it’s really how much effort you put into that. With Max, we put a lot of effort into the different aspects of Euphoria and how we use it. So there’s the hit-reacts for the enemies – we sort of evolved that and made them feel more connected,” Nelson explains.

“We’re always pushing it. Plus we have bullet-cams and things like that.”

Max Payne 3 is set to be released in March of 2012.

Source: Eurogamer