The environments are so varied and interesting to look at, that you’ll never get bored of what you’re doing.
When you’re flying through the moment-to-moment combat, and it’s clicking perfectly, it really does exhilarate the player like no other game can. That isn’t to say that there’s no fun to be had in Max Payne 3, quite the opposite. Further frustration comes from the fact that after you see one of the (many) cut-scenes, more often than not Max automatically switches back to a standard handgun. To confound things, if you die enough times – and even on normal difficulty, you’ll die plenty of times, and get frustrated whilst doing it – you’ll be given additional painkillers, which suggests the game itself can feel slightly unbalanced at times that’s before you factor in that some enemies feel as though they take far too many bullets to put down. As silly as it sounds, the shootdodge mechanic is more realistic this time around, if you hit a wall you’ll instantly come out of the mechanic and back into real time. Executing all of them with shootdodge is tricky and, more often than not, you’ll end up as a sitting duck to the two enemies you couldn’t finish off in the time you had. Once you’ve used the bullet-time in early levels, it quickly becomes tricky to use as a get-out clause, because of the volume of enemies thrown at you at any one time. Occasionally things are broken up, but most of the time you’ll be repeating a combination of shooting and taking cover. The repetitive nature of certain games is often a cause of contention, but Max Payne 3 takes things to new levels with its rinse and repeat mechanics. Rockstar Vancouver has stuck rigorously to the blueprint laid out ten years ago by Remedy, but at times it is to Max Payne 3’s detriment. Max still downs painkillers found in the environments to recover his health – shown by a human figure filling with blood – and he still dives around in bullet-time taking down foes with expert precision. GAMEPLAY: If you’ve ever played a Max Payne title before then you are going to feel right at home with the third instalment very little has actually changed. The best part though, is that all of the characters are believable, the performances are out of this world, so well delivered that you’ll think you hear things and aren’t sure, the tone of conversation feels so natural. Restarting checkpoints through dying has even had extra lines of dialogue recorded so the player doesn’t get frustrated hearing the same lines over and over. Clear a room and Max will make note of things in and around him, even picking up painkillers will cause him to remark upon them being there. SOUND: As you’d expect, Max is constantly dropping one-liners throughout the game. It seems great attention to detail has been given, even to the things you won’t see that often, which is typical of the care and love poured into almost every Rockstar game, meaning that Max Payne 3 is one of the most well directed games of the year.
Max himself looks superb too, as do all of the surrounding characters. If there’s to be a slight negative it’s that there are so many flashes of light and flickers on-screen that people who find that kind of thing difficult to watch are going to suffer to begin with. From rooftops to dingy bars, from football stadiums to favellas and everywhere in-between, the manner in which the art design has been executed is genuinely masterful. GRAPHICS: There’s no doubt about it, Max Payne 3 looks absolutely gorgeous. Whenever frustration is felt, the story pulls the player through, it’s that good. One of the most bleak introductions to a game you’ll ever see quickly re-establishes Max’s character, before throwing you directly into a plot involving kidnap, blackmail and plenty of shooting.Īlong the way, the player gets to find out more about why Max is where he is, but the narrative is always driven forward with excellent dialogue and a clever take on cut-scenes so well executed at times that you’ll think you still have control of Max, even when you don’t.
However, Max Payne 3 sees him trying to start life again out in São Paulo as a bodyguard to a rich family. STORY: For the uninitiated, Max Payne is a retired ex-cop who has become an alcoholic due to the loss of his wife and child. Technology has moved on, but has Max Payne? It seems almost implausible that it has been 8 years since we last saw Max Payne leap around dilapidated environments executing his foes in super slow-motion, or downing painkillers to numb the metaphorical and literal pain he was feeling, but here we are, once again stepping into the shoes of one of the most down and out, depressed characters to ever front a video game. Available on: Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (Xbox 360 version reviewed)
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