Rockstar Newswire

It's time to tell your loudmouthed friends and crew mates to quit their wild braggadocio, because this week we've got a great new tool on Social Club to ensure a quick and indisputable end to any and all Max Payne 3 verbal one-upmanship from those who can't back it up. The Friend Compare system is available now at the Max Payne 3 section of the Social Club so you can investigate how you size up against your nearest and dearest, in a wide range of stats across both Single Player and Multiplayer. 

Convinced that you rep the G6 Commando the hardest or always Bring The Payne when playing as Max or Passos in Payne Killer? Want to know for sure that you have the best Consecutive Hit Streak on Chapter IV of Story mode? Now prove it by lining up against up to five of your friends and Crewmates at a time and really finding out who's the boss (it is worth mentioning that you can only see the stats of those friends who have the appropriate privacy settings).

To access this useful tool just head over to the Max Payne 3 area of the Social Club and hit the Friend Compare button on the right hand side of the navigation bar in either Single Player or in Multiplayer. From here, you can scroll through your friends list, and any of your Crews' rosters to select those players you want to check your stats against, and find out where you need to pick up the pace.

Keep an eye out on Social Club for more new features in the coming weeks.

Recently, we released new tiered Crew leaderboards over at the Social Club - providing a whole new insight into which Crews are truly tearing it up based on their member weight class. Bracketing Crews by member count enables you to separate more clearly than ever the pretenders from the contenders - and see where your private Crew falls in the grand scheme. Whether you're a quartet of killers, a dirty dozen, or are rolling deep, there's a bracket for you. This also means that Crew leaders may now want to be extra scrutinizing about retaining, recruiting or being exclusive about their ranks to maintain bragging rights in their size class. While we've previously featured prominent Crews from the 1-5 membership bracket such as the crybaby killers1 (#1 on the PS3 boards) and the Turkish Police (#4 on the PC boards), credit is also due to the Ice-Cold Assassins Crew, a committed quintet of PS3 free-aim players. Ice-Cold Assassins are currently looking to bolster their ranks with "active and skilled players with mics" - these boys clearly use communication and tactics good effect in maintaining their impressive 85% Feud win PCT. Props also to Crew member Evo7ution1 for a top 10 finish in our August 30th Social Club Event.

The top 5 Playstation3 Crews with 5 members or less

In the 6-20 tier on PC, the emblem of Number 1 Clan stands out clear from the rest, although this Crew is somewhat ironically placed in fourh. In the past few weeks, Number 1 Clan were ballsy enough to take on the might of Pro And Deadly Crew and came out of their altercation on level ground, with a very respectable 3 Feuds won. Not too shabby. Prominent Crew member N1Anoobis posted this impressive montage of kill streaks and Feud wins on Number 1 Clan's own Crew website. Check it out below:

Elsewhere in the 6-20 tier, Fear The Wrath Crew place 4th in the Xbox 360 leaderboards. Their eye-catching emblem is a tribute to the efforts of their top player ChuckMP3 who recently broke the 5 million personal XP threshold. With such support like this from their Crew mates, it's no wonder that Fear The Wrath have a Solidarity V achievement and 4K #1 Finishes. Finally, a shout out to the Nice II Crew, ranked 9th in the 6-20 bracket on Xbox 360, who have a great range of emblems in their Gallery parodying everything from Nike to Alien to Domino's Pizza. All designed by Crew Leader Endymion72, to whom we neglected to give full credit for last weeks' Contract Killers and Lawless Gangsters emblems. NICE work, Endymion.

On PSN, there are some familiar faces from the Crew Cut in the 21-50 Crew stratum including HOT Clan, Zombie Zuckerz, The Italian Job and the incredible Death Bringers. We must also pay homage to third place MP3 Killers in honor of achieving 1000 Feuds won a few weeks back, and for having an awesome emblem. MP3 Killers have stayed true to their name: Almost a third of their Feud wins have come against the MP3 Crew and they've racked up around three and a half thousand Kills in the process. It would be remiss of us to move on from the PSN 21-50 Crew tier without acknowledging the spectacularly evil emblem of 11th ranked Skeleton Crew. Props to designer TxGlock.

The top 5 Crews in the 51-100 range of Xbox 360 Crews

In the 51-100 range of Xbox 360 Crews, the underrated Dew Dirt Crew nose into third, although they have 10M XP to catch up on second-placed Rewind. Delving into their Feud stats, Dew Dirt recently lost 5 out of 5 Feuds to yet another high achieving Spanish team, Company of Killers Crew. Company Of Killers have also beaten top placed Crew, Killer Smoking Aces in Feuds by 26-8 recently, and must feel suitably aggrieved at their current placing in fourth. Keep up the fight. Finally, respect to Double Trouble for topping out the 51-100 threshold for PC players with room to spare on their roster. Not only that, but we have good reason to believe that they rock the best facial hair on Social Club.

 
Double Trouble reign supreme over all of the PC crews with membership between 51 and 100

On August 30th we bid farewell to our Summer season of Social Club Multiplayer Events with an epic, all-day double header featuring back-to-back sessions of Grand Theft Auto IV and Max Payne 3 Multiplayer. First up, congratulations are due to the winners of our sweepstakes who have earned themselves prize packs including Rockstar collectibles and other gear. The GTAIV winners were richard_hung-lo, MicBlaze, Andy315x, Skankasaurus and JasonDeadly, and our Max Payne 3 winners were thedutchpitbull, Jinxyman, VoiD88, TheCloven and PaynePillPopper.

We began the day in our old haunts of Liberty City, with four Rockstar Devs out in full force, taking on all comers in various gamemodes. GwRockstar2 got warmed up on Xbox LIVE with a Deathmatch at the Docks. Our Dev got up close and personal with a knife and had moderate success with this surprising tactic against R3tardedLi0n69 and Ne0nDarkness16. ORIGINAL SMOKEY proved a tough competitor however, wasting us in successive shootouts. In a vengeful rage, GwRockstar2 turned to using trusty molotov cocktails to burn the place down.

Hit the jump for more videos, details, some screens and also a list of participants according to our records. And make sure to check out the new fall calendar of events so you can plan ahead - starting with this Thursday's Triple XP Red Dead Redemption event on PSN and Xbox LIVE.

This week on the Crew Cut, we're featuring several Crews and emblem artists who buck the trends on Social Club and really stand out from the crowd. 

The impressive accomplishments of the aptly named 'Unfair Advantage' Crew. Watch your back if you run into any of these folks playing Max Payne 3 during this weekend's Double XP session.

Sometimes you find a Crew who has just got it all. Unfair Advantage surely takes the prize for the best All Round Crew on Social Club right now. Their 89% Feud win percentage is difficult to match by most Crews, but combine this with a great emblem and the fact they've entered the top 100 Crew on the Xbox 360 leaderbaords despite having just 26 members and only being one month old and you've got yourself some serious world-beaters that look like a force to be reckoned with. With prominent player EelsInCaves having sounded the call, expect them to be challenging for the top after this weekend's Double XP.

RoyalL_Genius is a committed Social Club community member who rose to prominence as a key part of oft-featured Crew the RoyalL_Legends. He's since formed a splinter group of Max Payne 3 players called the Contract Killerz Crew. After switching to Open Enrollment last week, the Crew has ballooned in numbers to dwarf the roster of RoyalL_Genius' former running mates. The surge in recruitment may have something to do with a fantastically detailed and imaginative emblem that captures their name and spirit quite well. RoyalL_Genius is committed to making it into the top 10 - so if you're looking for a new Crew of dedicated PSN players to roll out with, these might be your guys.

From Left to Right: The Contract Killerz Crew emblem, the Zombie Zuckerz mosaic emblem gallery, Emblem Addicts take on Red Dead Redemption and the Lawless Gangstas honor John Hillcoat's latest.

On the logo front, we spotlight a Crew who has done amazing things with not one, but all 12 of the emblems on the front page of their gallery. Zombie_paste was astute enough to see the potential for publishing emblems in a specific order to make an entirely new mosaic in the gallery of his Crew the Zombie Zuckerz. Full marks for ingenuity; we're interested to see how other Crews can take this idea further...     

Inspired by the unique visual energy of Red Dead Redemption, stealthyassassin has contributed a stand-out effort into the gallery of emblem super-Crew the Emblem Addicts. With a stark economy of color and a clear aesthetic, this emblem is a worthy tribute to John Marston's adventures in West Elizabeth and New Austin. It seems apt to feature alongside the emblem of The Lawless Gangstas, which refers to the latest film from veteran director John Hillcoat, who's responsible for one of our favorite westerns (2005's The Proposition) and also directed a fantastic short film using the world of Red Dead Redemption to re-imagine John Marston's pursuit of justice and salvation.

Finally we'd like to again showcase a range of emblems from one artist in particular. Noru 112 is a user who clearly takes a purist's joy in the emblem editor, showing off a consistent yet dynamic style while filling his own Crew, the Hidden Daggers' gallery with his creations. While the Crew currently lack Feuds and points on the board, Noru112 has made an impassioned appeal for more members and greater ambition. With the Crew now set to open enrollment, Xbox LIVE players looking to a splash a stylish emblem across their victim's death screens may want to consider this squad.

The long running major players on the Social Club Crew leaderboards have thus far been well-documented here in the Crew Cut. But this week we noticed a significant shift on all three leaderboard as a host of Crews we've not yet featured have got the established guard looking over their shoulders.

Paper In My Pocket have recently taken the PSN leaderboards by storm, joining Underground Thugs and the Death Bringers as Crews infiltrating the status quo in the top 20. While they're certainly grabbing all the XP they can, Paper in my Pocket still has a less than stellar Feud win percentage though. Crew leader lonestar_playa may wish to tighten up by trimming the fat from their bloated ranks, taking a leaf out of the book of Dutch Stoner from 11th placed Ganja Outlaws Crew who aims to kick out ten dead-weight members every day. Pro Kill You were once the biggest threat to the throne for top PSN Crew Pick Your Poison, but have fallen drastically out of contention. Situated in 27th, they are now two places behind plucky upstarts Bag Em And Tag Em Crew who have a killer emblem to go with their solid Feud win percentage. Props also to DrugsMoneySex in 28th place whose 107 members have been 'Dealin' Murder Since Creation' and whose Crew leader Vandelizm187 is always a strong presence in our Social Club events.

LXG Crew continue to reign as best private Crew on the XBox 360 leaderboards. Crew leader LXG Silencer created the video above commemorating their recent achievement of 100,000,000 XP and bigging up the LXG Crew, who '"like Time itself, never stop". Intent on taking them on are Killer Smoking Aces and Mob Squad. These Crews have been around since the launch of Crews on the Social Club and what talent they may lack in designing emblems they more than make up for making wives into widows. Killer Smoking Aces also have got stuck in to a tremendous amount of Feuds considering their sub-100 membership; these boys obviously roll together on the regular. Mob Squad Crew might not have the same dogged persistence, but are certainly more clinical, having beaten Killer Smoking Aces 30 - 11 so far when these two face off in Feuds.

The Illuminatti Crew are establishing their own New World Order on the PC leaderboards, having recently snuck in to 13th place overall. Committed to showing up in force with their mesmerising emblem in our Social Club events and bonus XP weekends, this secret society trusts no-one. Further down the ranks, a new contender has emerged: The Gallant Psychos, a Crew created just at the start of August that has leapt immediately up the ranks into the Top 30. They've risen five places in the past three days show no signs of slowing down. Perhaps because they are run by the ruthless Evilinkoff, a player so good we assumed must be cheating at our most recent SC event (we've since realized our error and reinstated him as the event winner). Incredibly, his talents extend beyond Max Payne 3 multiplayer to the emblem editor as well. It was difficult to pick just one of his emblems from The Gallant Psychos gallery, so we went for three of the best:

Elsewhere on the emblem editor scene, YourTaxesAtWork seems to have found a partner-in-crime for his emblem expertise in bold faced newcomer odd_one. Together the dynamic duo lead a dynasty of Emblem Addicts who are collectively responsible for the creation of emblems for around 20 Crews in Social Club. Odd_one's Villainz Crew are "still taking requests" for those in need of a bespoke emblem apparently. We are particular fans of this effort for Newswire regular DeafAtheist's Xbox-only Crew the Callipygous Killers, as well as odd-one's very own artist tag.

This coming week marks the last event in our summer calendar of official Social Club Multiplayer Events, so before we announce the fall schedule, this week's Crew Cut takes a look specifically at which Crews have been represented well by their members on the Event Leaderboards throughout the season's heated Max Payne 3 online battles. While bragging rights over Feuds, KDR and Kills are always well and good, there's a special victory and prestige in representing your Crew at the peak of a viciously competitive blood-and-guts Social Club event with Rockstar. You can browse the leaderboards of each event dating back to June 3rd at http://socialclub.rockstargames.com/multiplayer and here's a summary by platform of a few notable Crews of late that have been showing and proving to make the most of the timed format by racking up the XP as high as their pile of dead enemies.

PC PLAYERS

Much respect is due again to Pro and Deadly, a Crew we featured just a few weeks back for their impressive KDR. It seems these steely assassins have not taken well to having the second-best KDR on PSN: their Feed is littered with signs that they are doing everything they can to raise that bar even higher by recruiting only players with a KDR above 2.0. Members abrokian and aimstylR finished 1st and 4th respectively on the Leaderboard for our most recent Social Club event (with aimstyleR racking up a 3.28 KDR). Of course the really scary part is that abrokian and aimstylR aren't even the best players in the Crew....

Not only did the Turkish Police Crew have the honor of placing second in our most recent Crew Cut Crewlympics, but one of their distinguished officers, Carnage694, placed third in our PC event just two days prior. As if to celebrate these achievements, Istanbul's finest have published an awesome new badge with which to stamp down their authority. Further down the leaderboard, placing just behind MaxPayneDev1 was go4live of CounterAlkisOntour - a Crew created just days prior to the event. Having already recruited 16 players in the past three weeks, it could be worth jumping on the CounterAlkis bandwagon now, so you can say you were there before they got big.

CREW SESSIONS AT ROCKSTAR NYC

Our guest Crew series of multiplayer events here on the Rockstar Rooftop has being going strong of late with some of our game-enthusiast friends from the worlds of music, radio and more stopping by to jump online for some Max Multiplayer with fans. The Official Hot 97 Crew is now swollen up to 270 members, Feuding away with rival Crew Goal And Zeus Arena; special shout to the top-ranked players in that Crew by platform who are spartan117bryan (360), kwk… (PS3), and speedyfun7 (PC). To celebrate, Hot 97’s DJ Enuff, Peter Rosenberg and Laura Stylez came through recently to throw down in Max Multiplayer on the Rockstar Twitch livestream with and against some of the biggest gamers from the rap world, our friends from The Lox, Sheek Louch and Styles P (who appeared on the official remix of Emicida's "9 Circulos" from the Max soundtrack) along with Young Chris. Watch the video highlights of all that action and props to Social Club members Backlo of the DemiGods Crew, thoughtfulcorn86 (aka Vault Master 101 on XBL) of the GameStop NY-NJ Crew, and DBHADSWAG (aka zombie boy 2369 on XBL) of his lone wolf Team Swagg Crew all of whom you can see in the recap vid getting much kills that day, mostly at the expense of an unfortunate Rosenberg. Also a shout to Chris Webby and his DJ Jay Cash both of whom beat Max Payne 3’s single-player story earlier this summer and have been honing their chops in Multiplayer since; they came through this past Tuesday for a live-streaming play session opting to represent the almighty official Payne Killers Crew. Look for a few more special guest rooftop Crew sessions including one with some notable gamer friends from the NYC area this week…

In the wake of this week's closing ceremonies in London and in honor of the spirit of international competition, this week's edition of the Crew Cut pays honor especially to some of the nationalistic themed Crews out there - some of whom we'd previously featured earlier this summer along with many other new squads who've been letting the blood, sweat and tears flow on the multiplayer tracks and fields of Max Payne 3. We've pitted these Crews against one another by comparing standings across several statistical categories and with no further ado, we proudly hand out our own Social Club Crew-lympic medals to the top three international pride Crews across specially chosen disciplines:

PSN CREWS: XP

The Spaniards are not traditionally major players at the Olympics, but the SoldiersSpainKillers fly the flag for Spain at the top of the XP podium of PSN international Crews. Impressively, the Iberians are also the fifth ranked overall private Crew in terms of XP, and have some serious back-up in THIS IS SPAIN Crew, placed not far behind. Olé!  The Italian Job shouldn't be too disheartened taking Silver on our Social Club Crewlympic podium given that they are currently neck and neck in Feuds with the SoldiersSpainKillers. We'll be keeping a close eye to see who takes the lead in the next round of fighting. Currently in line for the Bronze medal amongst international PSN Crews are Shine Thugz Crew, the "1st French team." Their YourTaxesAtWork designer Tupac emblem won a lot of praise from Social Club users when we featured it several weeks ago, and it's great to see the guys are getting it out there and stamping it on some corpses. The Gauls have some intimidating reinforcements in the francophone Crew x-Justice For All-x, who are also well inside the top 10 places on the international Crew XP leaderboard.

PC CREWS: KDR

While the Russian Crews dominate the Crew XP leaderboards on PC, their high-head-count ranks do them no favors when it comes to the Crew KDR. With just 7 members, ARGENTINA Crew take a Social Club Gold Medal for their impressive 1.65 KDR - the best out of all active international Crews on the PC platform. Like ARGENTINA, the Turkish Police Crew also keep their roster spartan, a tactic that pays off as their 6 members take the Silver medal with a 1.46 KDR. (Interestingly, the Turkish Police can also claim bragging rights for the best Game Win Percentage out of our top international PC Crews - their Crew members finish on the winning side in 62% of games they play.) Multi-platform French Crew jeuxvideocom XB have their full quota of 300 players, which makes it that much more impressive that they take the third tier on our Social Club Crew-lympic podium, with a combined KDR of 1.41.

XBL CREWS: WIN PCT

The 57-strong Crew of French Jokers claims the Xbox LIVE Social Club Gold Medal for France with a fantastique Win PCT of 60%. They've also shown "No Mercy" in the 900 feuds they've fought, and have clocked up over 2K first place finishes, cementing their position on the Xbox 360 Platinum leaderboards. RUSSIAN MOB take Silver with an impressive 58%, showing that their hearts are as cold as a Moscow winter. Although Payne Capitale proudly carry a 55% Win PCT in any given game, Social Club Crewlympic rules state that no nation (in this case, France) can win two medals in the same category. Therefore, third place goes across the Channel to multiplatform UK Crew representing the host nation of the London 2012 Olympics with a Game Win PCT of 53.5%. UK Crew have fallen away from the leading pack after a bright start on the overall Xbox 360 leaderboards; here's hoping their Bronze spurs them to restore their former glories.

EMBLEMS 2012

We've dug through the galleries of the best international Crews on Social Club to see who's been taking as much pride in spraying paint as they have in spraying bullets. Given their nation's rich artistic history, it is little surprise that Gold goes to the The Italian Job. With any number of emblems in their gallery being sufficiently impressive to feature, we've opted for this sexy, dangerous and, well, detailed effort from CyberMagik. It was only a matter of time before a rendition of Nyan Cat showed up as a Social Club emblem, but such is LaCrimeSD's painstaking attention to detail in copying every pixel, that we've decided to award Silver Medal to Russian EBCA Clan. The final medal in our Crew-lympic round-up goes to little known Taiwanese Crew Bahamut-Taiwan for their monochrome moon-riding dragon which shows an almost professional economy of line and a unique style that is thoroughly deserving of the Emblem Bronze medal.

The summer calendar of live-streaming Social Club Multiplayer Events has been burning up this month with Social Club players teaming up with and taking on our crack squad of Rockstar Games developers in Max Payne 3 multiplayer. As we prep to close out July with a return trip to the wild west of Red Dead this Friday, here's a rundown of the action from our Max events.

On July 6th, we expanded the session to take place across all three platforms - starting with a bloody tour of the new maps from the Local Justice DLC pack on PlayStation Network, when we entered the 55th Battalion HQ with a trusty mini-30 for a game of Gang Wars. The central parking lot became the focus of an intense battle throughout the war. During a game of Short Fuse, our MaxPayneDev1 could get nowhere near the bomb sites due to fearless work from YoungJrBaby. The Policia de Cidade having abandoned their offices, MaxPayneDev1 and the Tropa Z moved in during a Turf Grab to control all three checkpoints. Not even miltarypicture5's RPG couldn't clear the amassed Tropa Z who claimed a resounding win. Going into the final Showdown with two wins apiece, the margin for error was small. After a long battle, flavio2212 got the final kill for the Cracha Preto who claimed a well-earned victory.

Playing on PC in Free Aim mode, MaxPayneDev2 kicked off a Gang War in the Bus Depot. Utilizing a super light Loadout with minimal armor, MaxPayneDev2 was able to use the increased speed to collect several bags during a round of Grab. Later, Dev1 was selected as the assassination target and headed straight into a house overlooking the ditch in the far corner of the map. As MaxPayneDev2's team took up strategic lookout points around their leader, the other gang closed in using smoke grenades from khlaa007 to try to smoke out the rat. Dual-wielding an M972 and PT92, MaxPayneDev2 was able to lead from the front to survive the hit, taking out three people in the process. We moved onto a round of all out Warfare. MaxPayneDev2 again used close range weapons and increased speed to good effect, hiding in the Depot garage waiting behind cover to surprise the enemy. After a 5 person kill streak, MaxPayneDev2 deployed a level 3 Trigger Happy burst and rained down hell from an elevated position with the grenade launcher. Within 2 minutes, MaxPayneDev2's Tropa Z leapt to a 21-7 lead, and the Cracha Preto were never able to recover from such a deficit. Dev1 picked out Hadghog of the leaderboard high-flying Crew Russian Bears Team as a stand out player on the opposing team. However despite such pedigree, the Cracha Preto weren't able to take more than one checkpoint during a round of passage. Tropa Z won the round and subsequently the War.

Our MaxPayneDev2 was not so successful during a Deathmatch in the Favelas, when Snieps187, leader of the all-German Crew Killer Without Mercy triumphed. Other stand out players on the day include GTAIV_King, Flight666, Multiplayer event regular tehLito and 911 Crew's Cky4life. Much props to G_R_I_M_M_E_R for a 29-to-6 KDR during a Team Deathmatch in the alleys with MaxPayneDev1. Our Devs were less impressed by the suicidal tendencies of MrFoxNik and Nakilevy who both walked into a gunfight while marked during an assassination defense. Those watching at the Social Club live stream and our Twitch.tv page also saw Kuichi inhabit the role of the sneaky sniper to perfection. Shouts as well to gulliblewriting, Marvelnerd, Ibarry2k, and krazedsoldier who stood out from the masses while playing with MaxPayneDev4 on Xbox LIVE. Also on XBL, MaxPayneDev3 found it heavy going against Hoopdreamz030 and jusjay who were rolling all over the other players. These two represent for The Heavy Hitterz Crew, who have recently entered the top 100 overall Crews on XBL hovering around the 50-mark - we'll be keeping a close eye on them in the near future.

Hit the jump for a recap of our July 12th event as well as the roll call of attendees...