Shootdodge

Shootdodge manuever

Shootdodge is Max Payne's signature maneuver which allows him to dive into the air using Bullet Time and shoot at the same time.

Characteristics

The manuever costs a small portion of adrenaline to perform.

Shootdodging while in Bullet Time automatically brings you out of Bullet Time, unless you use the Bullet Time Combo. Using the player-defined Bullet Time Combo allows the player to shootdodge and activate Bullet Time at the same time. You can also do a standard dodge-roll without diving in slow motion by running left, right or back, and then jumping.

You will not dive in slow motion the entire time. You have about 5 seconds to get your shooting done before the game goes back to normal speed. So you can't stay in slow motion if you shootdodge off of a ledge.

Only Max, Mona and Peter can shootdodge in slow-motion. Other characters can be seen bullet-dodging too, but all these events are pre-scripted and only a few are shown firing their weapons while bullet-dodging.

In the dream sequences, bullet dodging speeds up time instead of slowing it down.

Differences in games

Max Payne and Max Payne 2

Max Payne shootdodges and kills a Cleaner

In the first two Max Payne games, shootdodging automatically reloads your equipped weapon. This can be exploited to nearly double weapon capacity without having to reload; Max can fire 29 rounds with a Kalashnikov, then perform a bullet-dodge, instantly giving him access to 30 more rounds for a total of 59 rounds. This tactic is not as important in Max Payne 2 due to Bullet-time reloading; however, in Max Payne and Max Payne 3 there was no Bullet Time reloading and so this tactic is of much more importance there.

In Max Payne, Max is forced to jump up after performing a shootdodge no matter what circumstances. In Max Payne 2, Max may continue to fire as he lies on the ground until he needs to reload again.

In Max Payne, performing a shootdodge makes Max immune to death until he lands on the ground. He will still take damage, but he will not die. This can be useful when using the M79 to clear a room quickly and haphazardly. In Max Payne 2, performing a shootdodge will not prevent the player from death.

Max Payne 3

Improving upon Max Payne 2, it now allows the player to remain prone without actively having to fire their weapon, allowing them to aim 360° around them to dispatch remaining enemies before getting up. The player can still aim and fire their weapons while in the process of getting up, but it puts them at a sever disadvantage. One main difference between the games that preceded it, when a weapon runs out of ammunition, it is not automatically reloaded, and Max simply holds the weapon up when it's empty. Even though Adrenaline is consumed when performing a Shootdodge, it is still possible to perform the same slow-motion dive if your Adrenaline meter is completely empty, much like Max Payne 2. It's also possible to preamturely end the Bullet Time effect of a dive by pressing the Bullet Time/Burst key mid-dive, in order to preserve Adrenaline.

All players also have access to the same singleplayer shootdodge in multiplayer, which requires half a level of Adrenaline. However, unlike the single player, if they don't have sufficient Adrenaline, the player perform a simple dive without entering Bullet Time.