Product Features

Genre: Action and Shooter
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Release Date: May 18, 2012
Available Platforms: XBox 360

Max Payne 3

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Max Payne 3 For Max Payne, the tragedies that took his loved ones years ago are wounds that refuse to heal. No longer a cop, close to washed up and addicted to pain killers, Max takes a job in S GBPo Paulo, Brazil, protecting the family of wealthy real estate mogul Rodrigo Branco, in an effort to finally escape his troubled past. But as events spiral out of his control, Max Payne finds himself alone on the streets of an unfamiliar city, desperately searching for the truth and fighting for a way out. Featuring cutting edge shooting mechanics for precision gunplay, advanced new Bullet Time and Shootdodge effects, full integration of Natural Motion TMs Euphoria Character Behaviour system for lifelike movement and a dark and twisted story, Max Payne 3 is a seamless, highly detailed, cinematic experience...

George Orton July 23, 2012 360

****

I picked up Max Payne 3 largely on the strength of its name, as I was a big fan of the original Max Payne 1 & 2 when they came out on the PC a decade ago. I remember those games being both very fun and very original, with three elements in particular sticking in my head: the 'film-noir' atmosphere; the use of comic-book panels to illustrate cutscenes; and the ability to pull off slow-motion kills in a manner that aped the 'bullet time' slow-mo effects of the Matrix movies. Unfortunately, Max Payne 3 chooses to retain just one of those elements - the 'bullet time' slow-mo - and ends up feeling far more conventional and less distinctive as a result.

The game is admittedly very polished. After all, it's made by Rockstar - the same developer that brought us the likes of Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire - and they've yet to turn out a truly dud game. However, in the case of Max Payne 3, the polish doesn't extend to any true innovation or depth of the same sort that those earlier games offered. Instead, it's used to dress up a very straightforward shoot-and-run game that piles on the action clichés but never feels as though it has a true style of its own.

Perhaps part of the problem is that the game relocates its action from New York (as in the first two games) to Brazil. This instantly forces a significant change in tone, moving away from the noir-drenched, city-based action of the first two games in favour of a more colourful, slightly more outlandish Latin American feel. At the same time, the graphic-novel storytelling style of those earlier games - which again played a big part in setting their tone - is abandoned in favour of straight 'live-action' cutscenes, no different to any other shooter you could name. It wouldn't be so bad if these cutscenes weren't so long and so prevalent, often feeling more like a barrier to enjoying the game than an enhancement of it. It's no exaggeration to say that Max Payne 3 frequently feels like just a few minutes of actual gameplay followed by ten minutes of cutscenes: more of an occasionally-interactive movie than a game.

Another issue I had with the gameplay is that this game introduces far more of a 'cover' element than in the first two games. Whilst Max Payne 1 & 2 were more about taking your enemies by surprise and executing outrageous takedowns, this third game places more of an emphasis on a take-cover-and-shoot approach to gunbattles - which for me, makes them more tedious and frustrating and less fun.

I don't want to be too down on this game, because it has a lot to offer: a complex and adult storyline, some decent acting performances, some exotic locales, and some great-looking graphics. Unfortunately, in updating the franchise, Rockstar seem to have abandoned much of what made it distinctive in the first place. Maybe you'll have more fun with this game if you've never played its predecessors, and come to it as a new fan looking for a meaty, grown up, crime-based shooter to get stuck into. But personally, I'm disappointed to see the edges smoothed off the Max Payne series, turning what used to be a kooky, atmospheric, noir-drenched franchise into a game that's virtually indistinguishable from any other standard shooter you could name.