Max Payne 3 reviewed....by Max Payne.
(Begin parody)
It's been nine years since I stepped foot in an action video-game, guns a-blazing as I dealt out more lead than a pencil factory. Countless dead mooks all laid out before me, as I wondered why, exactly, was my life more valuable than theirs. Some of these goons must have started their own families, with their old ladies and young children waiting for their father to come home and wash someone else's blood out of their hair before sitting down at the table for a nice pot roast. Who was I to take away some kid's father, a husband, maybe even some spoiled bimbo's sugar-daddy. I know the feeling of having loved ones taken away in an instant, and here I was, dealing the same hand to to hundreds, hell, even thousands of families every time I put a bullet in some minion's head. Misery must really love company.
Unlike my first two thrill rides, this game starts off in the confines of Sao Paolo, Brazil. Certainly a dramatic change from fighting through the blizzards of New York Jersey from my previous starring roles as a raving revenge-seeking lunatic with too much ammo and not enough temper. After losing my badge and finding my way into a very hostile situation in New Jersey, I escaped the good ol' USA and find work below the equator, providing security for the financially elite Branco family. Little did I know that even with a mind-numbingly security job, trouble would soon find me as a militant gang seeks to kidnap members of the Brancos, with me standing guard. I swore I would protect this family, and I will have to slip into my old methods to do so. At least the weather is beautiful this time around, and the booze is cheap.
Story
After accepting a gig as a washed-up ex cop turned bodyguard for a wealthy family, trouble finally catches up to me in Brazil, as a relentless gang decides to crash the rich people's party and kidnap my employer's wife, for an apparent ransom ploy. I know that most security guards are done with the job once they actually have to protect someone in times of crisis, but since I'm an angry gringo with a deathwish, I decide to do things my way and hunt the bastards down that dare try to mess with my employer's family. After all, who else is going to sign my checks and keep my liquor cabinet full. After the initial rescue in the first level, you would think things were all resolved, and my employers, the Branco family, could go back to throwing away their money, flying helicopters over the poverty-stricken slums on the way to their next neon-filled shindig where the music blares loud enough to awaken the dead. This, however, wouldn't be a Max Payne game if Murphy's law wasn't the only law enforced: things will get worse. The multiple gangs, the re-kidnapping, and the combination of these factions will unravel some conspiracy set in motion that would take a legit, state-funded detective quite some time to try to build a case against. A tumultuous, gun-toting presence such as myself, however, can crack leads faster with a little persuasion and a lot of gunpowder. Eventually, it'll be up to myself starring as the out-of-touch gringo that keeps getting yelled at in a language he doesn't understand getting to the bottom of this conspiracy, leaving an unspeakable number of bodies in my wake.
On certain missions, I'm accompanied by my friend Passos, who helped me get this gig after a little persuasion, and a lot of trouble created at my old stomping grounds. Several members of the Branco family move the plot along by being kidnapping victims, and somewhat useful escorts. Frankly, the Brancos don't seem to be enough of a motivation for me to keep pursuing all by themselves. Maybe I still got a little bit of cop left in me, but the story itself is mainly some reason, any reason for me to continue to deliver carnage to some mooks that just seem to want some ransom money lying around at the Branco's family mansion. Or so it would seem, since these minions with their high-powered guns and equipment seem to be financed pretty well already, and seem too eager to kill off the Brancos that give them trouble, instead of keeping them for ransom. Could these gangs just want the financially elite Brancos dead? Who would want them gone? If only I could interrogate people after I've killed them, like that douche with the hidden blades. Must take real cojones to stab people that can't see you.
Gameplay
Max Payne 3 is a third person shooter, with your typical selection of guns to procure and use, such as the standard 9mm pistols, uzis, shotguns, AK-47 and similar assault rifles, sniper rifles, desert eagles, etc. Oddly enough, I don't hold any grenades throughout the game, but who needs explosives, I'm the biggest ticking time-bomb on two legs. You can carry up to two short guns and one long gun. You can dual wield any combination of the two smaller guns, run around with a desert eagle in your left hand and a uzi in your right if that's up your alley. Dual wielding sacrifices your long gun, however, so pick and choose the way you want to handle goons. I'm sad to inform my old school fans that I am all about the guns this time, so there's no baseball bat to wield. I had to make room in my inventory for pills and whiskey.
What my old-school fans will remember, however, is my ability to use Bullet Time. I'm the granddaddy of using slow-motion in videogames to waste every goon in the room, while dodging their fire at the same time. Enemy fire slows down, which allows you to make quick work of some hairy situations. You can also dive in the middle of the air, in whichever direction you please, dual wielding as you fall toward the ground in style. You can jump off balconies, over railings, or my personal favorite, diving directly at a mook, taking precise aim at your enemies' head, or junk if you desire. The game keeps track of how many shots you place on seperate body parts, so go ahead and make me a ballbuster. My rampant alcoholism helps me sleep., so shooting a guy's dick off won't keep me up at night.
The controls themselves feel very tight and responsive, which is a pleasant feel to have, since making the wrong move in any room will have your enemies turn you into swiss cheese and kill you fairly quickly. There's no regenerative health in this game; you have to scavenge for painkillers and munch them like candy for the side-effect of not dying horribly from the next shot you take. Bullet Time is built up by killing enemies without using Bullet Time, so earning enough BT to stylishly exert my Second Amendment rights in a different country requires some skill. The enemies are pretty tough, taking cover and attempting to overwhelm you with numbers and hot lead. A "new" mechanic, at least to the Max Payne franchise, is sticking to cover. Some may see it a blasphemy to the older games, but an old dog can learn new tricks, and the game itself doesn't insist on using cover for most of the game. You can still go in guns a'blazing, shootdodging and Bullettiming your way through shootouts if you dare to. Even with the wrinkles, I'd still consider myself a lethal weapon. However you choose to fight your way through a room, I'm not too old for this shit. There's a killcam for the last henchman you kill in a scene, signifying the area is clear. During this killcam, you can empty out your clip on the last target and watch as your bullets shred through the guy while flesh and gore splatters about mercilessly. There's even a feature called ?Last Stand? which activates when you have any painkillers on hand and a goon delivers a fatal shot; you'll have a limited amount of time to kill the guy that delivered that shot. Success means taking a painkiller and continuing on to clearing the room. Failure means you're dead, of course, and you're going back to the last checkpoint. I wish my wife and kid could go back to the last checkpoint...
The game presents a challenge throughout the entire campaign. I'm always outnumbered by guys that have a substantial amount of firepower, and itchy trigger fingers. Just about every encounter can go wrong if you're not being accurate. While enduring on Normal Mode, you will receive extra painkillers after every death if you respawn from the same checkpoint. It's the game way of pushing you along the tougher areas if you can't seem to get past it. There will be some ?Last Stand? moments where you can't find the guy that gave you the last shot, or you empty your clip, or there's something in the way that you can't shoot through, which will lead to some frustrating moments. However, the satisfaction of killing everyone in the room and finally achieving the next scene is what I consider a "nice thing".
Presentation
Max Payne 3 takes a radical change from the gritty all-American urbania of New York Jersey. This time, I switch out the trenchcoat for a suit, and later on a hawaiian shirt, in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The setpieces for every battle vary throughout each chapter. You'll start out fighting a platoon of goons in an expensive condo, and make your way fighting off more mooks in vibrant nightclubs, boatyards, abandoned buildings, airports, and the streets of Brazil themselves. Each level has some amazing attention to detail, with the nightclub scene possessing glossy floors and neon lights, accompanied by ear-splitting music and oblivious DJs, along with the streets of Brazil littered with graffiti, colorful houses, plastic furniture on rooftops, and run-down bars set under the sunlight. At times during the story, I'll even have action-packed flashbacks back to my origins in New York Jersey, rampaging my way through snow-covered alleys, graveyards, and brown-tinted brick buildings explaining how I got into this tropical mess in the first place. The settings themselves are accompanied by some moody, usually bass-heavy background music that feel in place with the action and my alcoholism.
The cutscenes themselves can be a bit on the long side, but they move the plot along nicely, as well as establish the relationships between the characters involve, which is all any critic can ask for in their cinematics, aside from nudity. Voice acting is good enough, you can tell when Max is dumbfounded, angry, or for the rare occasion, satisfied, while the guys who are supposed to be douches can come off as reaaaaal douches. There's attention to detail in the emotions displayed on characters' faces, as well as the environment around them. Max Payne 3 itself could have the chops cinematics-wise to be a full-length film itself, at least better than that ?thing? Marky Mark portrayed me in some years back.
Opinion (parody of Max Payne ends here)
While the game has its flaws (laser sights suck, Max's motivation is unclear, no memorable villains, knack for cheap deaths, ending is a bit unsatisfying) Max Payne 3 mixes old-school mechanics with some new-school features and does it well. Controls are tight and responsive, the setpieces accompanied by the bass-heavy soundtrack is engaging, and coming out on top after participating in the game's challenging shootouts is a blast. Even if you feel a bit overwhelmed by all the bang-bang shoot-em-up titles you may already have or played, MP3's vibrant presentation, voice acting, and noir-style writing gives it a engaging, nostalgic feel to the shooter genre. I'd say its worth a rental at least.
Score: 8.5/10
(Begin parody)
It's been nine years since I stepped foot in an action video-game, guns a-blazing as I dealt out more lead than a pencil factory. Countless dead mooks all laid out before me, as I wondered why, exactly, was my life more valuable than theirs. Some of these goons must have started their own families, with their old ladies and young children waiting for their father to come home and wash someone else's blood out of their hair before sitting down at the table for a nice pot roast. Who was I to take away some kid's father, a husband, maybe even some spoiled bimbo's sugar-daddy. I know the feeling of having loved ones taken away in an instant, and here I was, dealing the same hand to to hundreds, hell, even thousands of families every time I put a bullet in some minion's head. Misery must really love company.
Unlike my first two thrill rides, this game starts off in the confines of Sao Paolo, Brazil. Certainly a dramatic change from fighting through the blizzards of New York Jersey from my previous starring roles as a raving revenge-seeking lunatic with too much ammo and not enough temper. After losing my badge and finding my way into a very hostile situation in New Jersey, I escaped the good ol' USA and find work below the equator, providing security for the financially elite Branco family. Little did I know that even with a mind-numbingly security job, trouble would soon find me as a militant gang seeks to kidnap members of the Brancos, with me standing guard. I swore I would protect this family, and I will have to slip into my old methods to do so. At least the weather is beautiful this time around, and the booze is cheap.
Story
After accepting a gig as a washed-up ex cop turned bodyguard for a wealthy family, trouble finally catches up to me in Brazil, as a relentless gang decides to crash the rich people's party and kidnap my employer's wife, for an apparent ransom ploy. I know that most security guards are done with the job once they actually have to protect someone in times of crisis, but since I'm an angry gringo with a deathwish, I decide to do things my way and hunt the bastards down that dare try to mess with my employer's family. After all, who else is going to sign my checks and keep my liquor cabinet full. After the initial rescue in the first level, you would think things were all resolved, and my employers, the Branco family, could go back to throwing away their money, flying helicopters over the poverty-stricken slums on the way to their next neon-filled shindig where the music blares loud enough to awaken the dead. This, however, wouldn't be a Max Payne game if Murphy's law wasn't the only law enforced: things will get worse. The multiple gangs, the re-kidnapping, and the combination of these factions will unravel some conspiracy set in motion that would take a legit, state-funded detective quite some time to try to build a case against. A tumultuous, gun-toting presence such as myself, however, can crack leads faster with a little persuasion and a lot of gunpowder. Eventually, it'll be up to myself starring as the out-of-touch gringo that keeps getting yelled at in a language he doesn't understand getting to the bottom of this conspiracy, leaving an unspeakable number of bodies in my wake.
On certain missions, I'm accompanied by my friend Passos, who helped me get this gig after a little persuasion, and a lot of trouble created at my old stomping grounds. Several members of the Branco family move the plot along by being kidnapping victims, and somewhat useful escorts. Frankly, the Brancos don't seem to be enough of a motivation for me to keep pursuing all by themselves. Maybe I still got a little bit of cop left in me, but the story itself is mainly some reason, any reason for me to continue to deliver carnage to some mooks that just seem to want some ransom money lying around at the Branco's family mansion. Or so it would seem, since these minions with their high-powered guns and equipment seem to be financed pretty well already, and seem too eager to kill off the Brancos that give them trouble, instead of keeping them for ransom. Could these gangs just want the financially elite Brancos dead? Who would want them gone? If only I could interrogate people after I've killed them, like that douche with the hidden blades. Must take real cojones to stab people that can't see you.
Gameplay
Max Payne 3 is a third person shooter, with your typical selection of guns to procure and use, such as the standard 9mm pistols, uzis, shotguns, AK-47 and similar assault rifles, sniper rifles, desert eagles, etc. Oddly enough, I don't hold any grenades throughout the game, but who needs explosives, I'm the biggest ticking time-bomb on two legs. You can carry up to two short guns and one long gun. You can dual wield any combination of the two smaller guns, run around with a desert eagle in your left hand and a uzi in your right if that's up your alley. Dual wielding sacrifices your long gun, however, so pick and choose the way you want to handle goons. I'm sad to inform my old school fans that I am all about the guns this time, so there's no baseball bat to wield. I had to make room in my inventory for pills and whiskey.
What my old-school fans will remember, however, is my ability to use Bullet Time. I'm the granddaddy of using slow-motion in videogames to waste every goon in the room, while dodging their fire at the same time. Enemy fire slows down, which allows you to make quick work of some hairy situations. You can also dive in the middle of the air, in whichever direction you please, dual wielding as you fall toward the ground in style. You can jump off balconies, over railings, or my personal favorite, diving directly at a mook, taking precise aim at your enemies' head, or junk if you desire. The game keeps track of how many shots you place on seperate body parts, so go ahead and make me a ballbuster. My rampant alcoholism helps me sleep., so shooting a guy's dick off won't keep me up at night.
The controls themselves feel very tight and responsive, which is a pleasant feel to have, since making the wrong move in any room will have your enemies turn you into swiss cheese and kill you fairly quickly. There's no regenerative health in this game; you have to scavenge for painkillers and munch them like candy for the side-effect of not dying horribly from the next shot you take. Bullet Time is built up by killing enemies without using Bullet Time, so earning enough BT to stylishly exert my Second Amendment rights in a different country requires some skill. The enemies are pretty tough, taking cover and attempting to overwhelm you with numbers and hot lead. A "new" mechanic, at least to the Max Payne franchise, is sticking to cover. Some may see it a blasphemy to the older games, but an old dog can learn new tricks, and the game itself doesn't insist on using cover for most of the game. You can still go in guns a'blazing, shootdodging and Bullettiming your way through shootouts if you dare to. Even with the wrinkles, I'd still consider myself a lethal weapon. However you choose to fight your way through a room, I'm not too old for this shit. There's a killcam for the last henchman you kill in a scene, signifying the area is clear. During this killcam, you can empty out your clip on the last target and watch as your bullets shred through the guy while flesh and gore splatters about mercilessly. There's even a feature called ?Last Stand? which activates when you have any painkillers on hand and a goon delivers a fatal shot; you'll have a limited amount of time to kill the guy that delivered that shot. Success means taking a painkiller and continuing on to clearing the room. Failure means you're dead, of course, and you're going back to the last checkpoint. I wish my wife and kid could go back to the last checkpoint...
The game presents a challenge throughout the entire campaign. I'm always outnumbered by guys that have a substantial amount of firepower, and itchy trigger fingers. Just about every encounter can go wrong if you're not being accurate. While enduring on Normal Mode, you will receive extra painkillers after every death if you respawn from the same checkpoint. It's the game way of pushing you along the tougher areas if you can't seem to get past it. There will be some ?Last Stand? moments where you can't find the guy that gave you the last shot, or you empty your clip, or there's something in the way that you can't shoot through, which will lead to some frustrating moments. However, the satisfaction of killing everyone in the room and finally achieving the next scene is what I consider a "nice thing".
Presentation
Max Payne 3 takes a radical change from the gritty all-American urbania of New York Jersey. This time, I switch out the trenchcoat for a suit, and later on a hawaiian shirt, in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The setpieces for every battle vary throughout each chapter. You'll start out fighting a platoon of goons in an expensive condo, and make your way fighting off more mooks in vibrant nightclubs, boatyards, abandoned buildings, airports, and the streets of Brazil themselves. Each level has some amazing attention to detail, with the nightclub scene possessing glossy floors and neon lights, accompanied by ear-splitting music and oblivious DJs, along with the streets of Brazil littered with graffiti, colorful houses, plastic furniture on rooftops, and run-down bars set under the sunlight. At times during the story, I'll even have action-packed flashbacks back to my origins in New York Jersey, rampaging my way through snow-covered alleys, graveyards, and brown-tinted brick buildings explaining how I got into this tropical mess in the first place. The settings themselves are accompanied by some moody, usually bass-heavy background music that feel in place with the action and my alcoholism.
The cutscenes themselves can be a bit on the long side, but they move the plot along nicely, as well as establish the relationships between the characters involve, which is all any critic can ask for in their cinematics, aside from nudity. Voice acting is good enough, you can tell when Max is dumbfounded, angry, or for the rare occasion, satisfied, while the guys who are supposed to be douches can come off as reaaaaal douches. There's attention to detail in the emotions displayed on characters' faces, as well as the environment around them. Max Payne 3 itself could have the chops cinematics-wise to be a full-length film itself, at least better than that ?thing? Marky Mark portrayed me in some years back.
Opinion (parody of Max Payne ends here)
While the game has its flaws (laser sights suck, Max's motivation is unclear, no memorable villains, knack for cheap deaths, ending is a bit unsatisfying) Max Payne 3 mixes old-school mechanics with some new-school features and does it well. Controls are tight and responsive, the setpieces accompanied by the bass-heavy soundtrack is engaging, and coming out on top after participating in the game's challenging shootouts is a blast. Even if you feel a bit overwhelmed by all the bang-bang shoot-em-up titles you may already have or played, MP3's vibrant presentation, voice acting, and noir-style writing gives it a engaging, nostalgic feel to the shooter genre. I'd say its worth a rental at least.
Score: 8.5/10
