GamesRadar talk to Jeronimo Barrera, VP of Product Development at Rockstar, about the many weapons that appear in Max Payne 3. A lot of detail went in to making the weapons for the game, and the attention to detail that they give each gun is extraordinary. 

We work hard on nailing the tiniest details across all our titles. For the weapons, that means we spent a lot of time getting the mechanics and feel of each gun just right. We looked at a lot of Brazilian-manufactured guns for inspiration, but in general we tried to create weapons that felt right for the new setting and circumstances that Max finds himself in. There’s also a certain element of balancing we have to account for, so we take some liberties in order to avoid a “one gun rules all” mentality. In addition to balancing weapons against each other, we also have to balance them against the enemy AI. Each encounter needs to be properly tuned. We don’t want to give Max the best available weapons right from the get-go! 

Source: GamesRadar