Max Payne 3

Rating: 1 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Third Person Shooter; Sub-genre: First person narration

ESRB: M (hyper realistic bullet impacts on humans, tons of profanity, non-interactive naked women)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 12/6

Developer: Rockstar Vancouver 

Wiki page

I never played the original Max Payne games, so I can't rate this as a sequel. Although I will say that I'm not a fan of Rockstar. Yeah, I'm probably the only one not excited about Grand Theft Auto 5 (unless there's another magic swingset). I just find their games too clunky. They're fun to screw around in, but the gameplay is boring and the missions are mundane. Like the whole man-dating thing in GTA4? What was that? And this game uses the same engine and the same head writer, so I expected more of the same.

Fortunately this game avoided a mistake that the movie did not.

Unlike those other Rockstar games, this is a linear game and not a sandbox. Strangely, this doesn't help much with the level layouts. Video games nowadays have this balance they try to seek of having levels that both feel like real places that real people might live in while still retaining the fun mazes and combat-friendly warzones that make the player realize it's a damn game. Max leans far towards making levels that feel real. Too far, in fact. This is particularly awkward in a cover-based shooter when it feels like there is very little "good" cover and far too much "no man's land" so I found myself hauling ass to hunker down in one spot for the entire fight. This is not very in-line with a game that encourages you to jump in slow motion and gun people down, but perhaps I shouldn't have played the game on hard. Aside from that bit of unpleasantness, there's far too much sameness in combat throughout the game. This is because it's a "realistic shooter" in terms of setting and enemy design and I hate those, sure, but I still consider that a valid issue. But also there's no second part to the game. For example, another Rockstar game called L.A. Noire had the player interrogate people and examine clues. This game only has shooting and more shooting. The final nail in the coffin is that same ol' clunkiness from other Rockstar games. To be fair, though, Max is drunk 100% of the time. So that COULD be used to explain his inability to understand things like "walking" or "running" or "sit still when I'm in cover GODDAMMIT."

Perhaps they could have added a mini-game for Max's drinking problem.

I love the "loose cannon cop" cliche, but it seems I might not be as in to Noir. The whole cynical monologuing with witty, self-deprecating quips stuff works well enough in a movie, but a video game is much longer than two hours. So I became kinda freakin' tired of it after a while. I could say that the problem lies with the fact that- despite Max having shitloads of dialogue in it- he only ever makes time to hit that one note. The story is all well and good for a video game. Hell, it's even good enough for a cheesy movie. But Max has no other dimensions to him; no arc. I stop caring about him and started to dodge through every glass window I found to invent him the characteristic of having a child-like obsession with smashing things. Another major problem is he doesn't really bounce off of other people much. Granted, he is an incredible curmudgeon who hates the human race. But what he needs is some kind of buddy. Anyone, really. And Passos (a person he seems to respect in the game) is not it. Keep in mind, I want to give positive marks here for being story driven. It just stays stuck in being a video game. And that game might not have been the best vehicle for this type of thing.

Every loose cannon cop needs a buddy. Preferably one who knows martial arts!

Regrettably, I was not able to fully try out the multiplayer. I got into like five different games and each one kicked me out due to a sync'ing error or some bullshit after about three minutes. And when I looked for a new game, it generally put me in the same one where I couldn't help but notice that no one else was kicked. So I don't know entirely, but it looked decent. There are loadouts, killstreaks, and all kinds of goodies. So if it works for you, it might be fun. Unless you have a copy of Black Ops 2. If you do, just play that.

Conclusion:

The strongest point in the game for me were the details; like how Max doesn't magically stick a gun on his back, he has to HOLD it. This game ended up reminding me of Uncharted, but not in a good way. In a "I wish this was as good as Uncharted" way. I did find it very enjoyable for the first few levels, but grew completely exhausted with it by the end of the game. But if you absolutely love slow motion and Rockstar's clunky controls, have at it! 

This is the whole game right here, is what I'm saying.