I want to say right out of the gate a few things about this review. First and foremost, I did not play any of the multiplayer in Max Payne 3 in this retail version of the game. I had a limited time with the game and was unable to have the time to complete the campaign and play Multiplayer. Also, my comments about the game are based on the Very Easy setting in the general difficulty and the Hard Lock setting for aiming. I did this, not because I’m a noob, but again; I had limited time with the game and I wanted to get through it as fast and as easily as I could. In the review you will see that this was all to no avail in the end.
Max Payne is one of my favorite old timey games. Yes old timey being 2001. It feels like a million years ago, but it was only about 11. I was always blown away by the style of the bullet time and film noire story. Bad stuff all ways happened to Max and that was kind of cool; because he just dealt with it and moved on. Sure he drank too much and he was always popping pills but hey if you everyone you loved turned up dead one day and you couldn’t do anything about it, you would probably do some bad things too. Max Payne 3 has been talked about all most since the current generation consoles had their launches way back in 2005/2006. Many people thought that this game would never get made. That it was just a project that would end up getting canceled after too many years in development. There are certainly many things different about this new Max Payne. Some good, some not so good. But I think Rockstar definitely did right by the franchise. Even if they probably could have made a little bit better game.
Max Payne 3 has some excellent things going for it. In the opening moments of the game’s campaign which are cinematics, I was blown away by and continued to be blown away by James McCaffrey as Max Payne(even if he sounds like Kiefer Sutherland). But the voice acting in general was pretty excellent; there were a few minor annoyances but in general everyone was excellent. I mention this right off the bat, because the game can be summed up pretty much in the same way. Max Payne 3 is NOT an excellent game. It is a good game with some EXCELLENT ideas. The idea, for instance, that the main character is so toasted most of the time he can’t tell up from down; is great. The bad part is that, the same guy can kill 5 enemies with a handgun in less than a minute. But there is no really good way to explain bullet time and Max Payne 3 doesn’t even try. That doesn’t really bother me that much. But what did bother me is how “gamey” Max Payne 3 was throughout. Sure we have some wonderful story scenes where Max contemplates suicide or the meaning of life. But then we just fall into playing whack a mole with the bad guys as fast as we can so they don’t come around from behind and start shooting us in the back. For a game set on it’s easiest most casual settings Max Payne 3 is a pretty hard game. I’ve played plenty of shooters and I’ve beaten many on their hardest settings. But this game just seems like it’s more interested in wearing you out or frustrating you than actually challenging you. Another words, its difficult for difficulty’s sake; not because it makes sense or because it makes it challenging. I’m not saying Max Payne 3 is a bad game, no not at all. But if they had just toned down the number of guys in each area and maybe cut the game’s length a little. The game would have been AMAZING.
The biggest testimony to this is that probably by the end of Chapter 3(about a half hour or so into the game). I was really interested in the story; but the more combat sequences they threw at me the more I just wanted to give up. I hated the fact that I had to know where all the enemy A.I. were in every area; even with bullet time. I did like the scaled down HUD, but I think some players might have trouble knowing when they can use bullet time or how many bullets they have left or how many shots they can take. Most of this was fine for me, but I can see someone who isn’t as familiar with shooters having some trouble. Also, every now and then having a guy come up behind you and spray you with a shotgun, is just not cool. Sorry… And then, the thing that got me the most, the one thing that the more I go over it in my head the less sense it makes comes from one particular scene about 4 hours or so into the game. Where Max Payne and Passos are dropping a ransom off at a stadium. They are alone and under siege by paramilitary guys. This scene begins when Passos runs out of sniper rifle ammo and Max, on the other side of the stadium must cover him so he can escape. Problem is that with every guy Max shoots Passos gets more agitated that there is this endless streams of guys coming from all angles.
He even points out, “Where are all these guys coming from?”
“NO shit!” The player wants to cry out.
This fact alone is enough to break a suspension of disbelief; I have thought that perhaps this was done in a satirical way or perhaps to break the third wall, because Passos was that kind of character. So I could give it that; but THEN you notice that with every guy Max shoots, the enemies drop their guns. So the unarmed Passos could simply pick up a gun and shoot these guys himself. Passos is a badass ex-cop who has been doing bodyguard work for years; so he can take care of himself. Except when the game wants you to play a sniper scene that is. The whole scene is WAY TOO LONG and made me wish that Passos would just shut up and pick a gun all ready. I do have to say however, that in the scenes where Max and Passos are talking back and forth; usually in the same place or near each other there is some gold. I really loved just about all their actual one on one interactions. But most of the stuff over radios could have been completely gutted. All most all of it just served to annoy the player further in what was usually an incredibly annoying situation to begin with. Although in the beginning of the game Max DOES kind of infer that Passos is a bossy and annoying guy. So maybe that was their point, well made Rockstar. I guess…
The sound and graphics throughout the game were pretty descent and while on the XBOX 360 the game didn’t look great; and in some cases some of the character models looked terrible(see anywhere in the beginning of the game where there are more than 3 people in the room). I felt the overall story made up for this. Based on the single player game alone it is very hard for me to recommend this game to anyone. It has a lot of issues and unless you like your third person shooters with a sprinkle of Call of Duty you will probably want to avoid this game completely. I’ve seen the multiplayer at events and have certainly been impressed by its different modes and interesting choices. But at least for the console game this one is a pretty hard sale to me. I did really love the story and voice acting, which for some people will probably make this game a “must buy”or a “must rent” But if I had to give an opinion, I would have to say to wait for some price cuts. $60 is just a little too much to pay for this game as is. 6.5/10….
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