Max Payne 3

As a huge fan of the originals, so I was a bit skeptical when I saw that Rockstar was going to develop their own Max Payne game. I loved the noir and the grittiness that Remedy crafted with the first two Max Payne games as well as the Matrix-esque bullet time gameplay. I have also loved most of Rockstar's own developed games such as the GTA series and Red Dead Redemption. Finally got around to getting Max Payne 3 when it was super cheap, and boy was I glad I got it for as cheap as I did. I will start off saying that the shoot-dodge/bullet time mechanic is still a fun one to play and it is the main reason why I kept playing through the game. As for the rest of the aspects of the game, I could not care less about any of it when playing the game. I will admit it is a well produced and made game as most Rockstar titles are. I commend Rockstar for trying to make it in their own vision and I really have no problem with the Heat/Man on Fire style they were going for. But the shortcomings stack up too hight and make this a very unlikable game, especially for fans of the original two.

One of the things that I felt didn't work at all was the constant blur and over-saturation effects constantly happening through all cutscenes. The image will appear washed out and flash, stretch, and return back to a normal look throughout every cutscene. It is an aesthetic style Rockstar probably wanted to change up the normal cutscenes, but happens just far too often and does not need to happen unless it's a scene when the effect is emphasizing when is Max drinking heavily or taking painkillers. In addition to this action vignetting, cutscenes happen way more often than they need to. I'm not against cutscenes in games (I love the MGS series and their LONG cutscenes), but Max Payne 3 feels like it has too many small scenes that happen way too often. Many of them are unnecessary and take you out of the action for no reason whatsoever. In many instances the scenes linger on a bit too long while Max takes cover ready to shoot a group of enemies just ahead. By the time the game gives you back control you could have killed all of them and reloaded. It's almost as if the creators wanted to give your opponents a chance. I'm all for a challenge, but it seems pointless to already have you looking at Max as if you should control while all the enemies get a chance to take cover and making the shoot outs harder than they should be. Cover is another reason this game isn't as good as it should be. Rockstar probably felt the need for a cover mechanic as it is in nearly every third-person shooter these days. But this addition of hiding behind cover defeats the main shoot-dodge gameplay of a Max Payne game. There are too many moments where you NEED to take cover or you'll be blown to bits in an instant. Even though slowing down time and shoot-dodging can get you the upper hand at times, the game gives you way too many enemies at once that it defeats the purpose of these mechanics and forces you to rely on cover. It's a shame because these games should be ALL about the slo-mo and shoot-dodging, leave cover systems to third-person games that need it. In addition to cover ruining the core game play of Max Payne games, it's also one of the buggiest aspects. I found myself getting stuck on cover way too many times. Max would be glued to the cover, unable to shoot or even get off of the wall with the normal button press. The only way to break the bug is to double tap the button to roll away. It wouldn't be too bad if it was a rare glitch, but it happened a good twenty to thirty times while playing, forcing me to restart areas just because I had to roll out of cover and get shot to hell or have enemies straight up walk next to me.

Checkpointing in Max Payne 3 is also a literal "pain" (pun intended). Too many times did I find myself barely making it through rooms of endless enemies only to die instantly when entering the next one and running into an unexpected guy. There were instances that drove me crazy how many times the game forced me to replay areas just because I got ambushed a final guy found well after a gun fight and had less that 10% health. Some stretches of areas are just way too long and go without checkpoint. It wouldn't be so bad, and I do like challenging games, but the game likes to send too many enemies to create these huge gunfights. It worked well in 1 & 2 as the shoot-dodge and slo-mo mechanic made Max a little faster than everyone else around. This game makes Max the same speed as the world around him and often makes the time slow down gameplay frustrating and more of a chore. The quick reload is also gone from 3 and boy does it make reloading in slo-mo impossible. Painkillers, which serve as the series' de-facto health pack, seem way too rare, especially for the mass amounts of enemies that the game sends your way. If you die over and over in a certain spot, the game is nice enough to grant you painkillers when you restart a checkpoint, even allowing any painkillers in the area to count for two picked up rather than the one . It's pretty much a needed addition as you will find yourself dying over and over and over in some sequences with little to no cover and no health. In additon to what little health is found, it's place in spots sometimes that are nearly impossible to find when needed. The developers added an option to make them glow green to stand out, but even then it's hard to spot them when they aren't in a first aid cabinet. Developers added a mechanic called "Last Man Standing" which gives you a chance to come back to life given you have at least one painkiller left. It will spend one painkiller and allow you to live so long as you kill the one who caused your pending demise. It is an interesting way to keep the game going that fails mostly due to it placing you lying on the ground after happening. When this occurs and you are still surrounded by a group of guys, it pretty much always ends with you dead unless you get very lucky.

The final straw that really lead me to disliking this game was the writing and storytelling. Rockstar tries to somewhat retain the graphic novel cutscenes that Remedy perfected in the first two games by sometimes pausing real time cutscenes into comic-like panels. This only adds to the already frequent slowdown that the many small cutscenes cause on their own. That mixed with some pretty mediocre writing really detract from the superb writing from the Remedy games. James McCaffery returns as Max's voice and he is still the perfect one for the character. He does a great job as Max again, it's just as shame that what he is given to read isn't particular interesting. None of the inner monologues that Max has are interesting in any way, and kind of made me wish that Max would just shut up and stop whining all the time. They added little bits of dialogue every time Max picks up more painkillers, even as infrequent as they are gotten the lines of dialogue each time just get annoying. They never repeat (unless you play areas more than once) and are unique to the setting, but I just got tired of him saying something EVERY time I picked up health. This lack of quality writing makes the paper-thin plot look even thinner and pointless. Max Payne 1 & 2 didn't have any expansive plots on their own, but the detail in the dialogue and writing mixed with a bit of tongue-in-cheek plot points made it really stand out. Max Payne 3 just plays it by the books and never really engages you in the plot. As characters die and Max keeps fighting for seemingly no reason, it's hard to care much about what is going on. He's lost much of what made his character fun and interesting, and even those around him are written so thin that it's hard to care why Max wants to protect them. It's just a simple action plot with some cookie-cutter dialogue that think it's as slick and as original as the first two in the series

It was tough to get through the last half of the game as I just lost so much interest in anything that was going on. The bullet time gameplay was still fun enough to get me to finish it, but the added cover system makes it almost obsolete as the game gives you too many enemies to deal with even when in slo mo. Too many contrivances like the half broken cover system and sparse health make it too frustrating to play and kills any feeling fluidity the gameplay had before. You'll find yourself playing some moments 15+ times just to get the last few movements and shots right so you can hopefully find a checkpoint and trudge through the next area. It definitely drags on around the half-way point plot-wise as Max seems to have absolutely no reason to keep doing what he is doing, and it's about this point you'll probably start caring less and less about this game. As a huge fan of the original two it's hard to like this game even in the least bit. Anyone who hasn't played the originals might like this game more than I did, but even then I don't recommend they play it. I'd recommend instead they go out and find the original games on eBay if they have an original Xbox or PS2. PSN has the first game on it's downloadable service, but I've heard the PS2 ports of the game are buggy (I played them on original Xbox). I doubt we will see HD remakes of those games as the time they would have happened would have been when this one was coming out, but maybe if some sort of GOTY version happens (which it is undeserving of) we could see. But I doubt Rockstar wants to spend resources doing that when they're hard at work finishing GTA 5 at this time. Max Payne fans, steer clear and dust off your copies of the original games instead of wasting time with this game.