Okay, so I finished Max Payne 3 last night, well early this morning, and I had a little think about the game. I was perhaps a bit harsh on the game, in my ‘first thoughts‘ on it. Because all said, it was a fun play through.
Now admittedly I’m not a Max Payne fan. I had played a very little bit of Max Payne 2 and my initial thoughts on that game, was that it seemed a lot like Condemned. As I said in my first post about Max Payne, I felt that I had been there before.
I guess to an extent it felt like that because Rockstar had set the whole game up as a ‘Game Noir’ and that’s okay, but did they really have to have that ‘grind house’ look to it?
I am still trying to figure out why they did the scratchy and shaky appearance to the whole thing. It did look like a addicts vision of life around him, but the bleeding and blurry colours didn’t really make a lot of sense for a ‘third-person-shooter.’
If it had been a ‘first-person-shooter’ it would have fit a bit better, but I still maintain that it was an un-necessary distraction.
The story was okay. The bit about powerful, rich, corrupt families has been done before. I suppose that with the drug cartel problem in Mexico these days grabbing headlines, it seemed the topical thing to do. But again, it still felt a little like a ‘re-run’ that I had seen before.
My other main complaint? The game was short. Damn short. I guess they felt like the inclusion of a Max Payne multi-player would make up for that. I did play the multi-player for a bit after I had finished the game. Sorry Rockstar, it didn’t add anything to the game. For a start, my character wasn’t even Max, for crying out loud. That bit was locked.
I guess I do have to admit that I liked the almost easy task of blowing bad guys away in their dozens. I do like shooting things whether said things are aliens, bad guys or enemy soldiers I am a sucker for a gun fight.
The ‘bullet time‘ feature is still fun, although it took me ages to really master it and the R1 feature took me forever to remember I had it as an option. But when I did remember all I could think of was John Woo’s Stranglehold game.
To be completely fair I have to say that it was a good play, but, it did not have that wow factor. So in my thinking it is more of a rental versus a ‘gotta have’ game.
I will say that I did like the fact that Max was in his mid-forties. As an old fart myself, it was nice to see a protagonist who was not young, bronzed and muscle bound. Someone instead with a bit of character on his face. Grizzled and wrinkled and still able to get the job done.
Related articles
- Max Payne 3: Been There, Done That, Got The T-Shirt (mikesfilmtalk.com)
- Preview: Getting Gritty with ‘Max Payne 3′ Single Player (multiplayerblog.mtv.com)
- Max Payne 3 review: bullet time machine (theverge.com)
- How do you Solve a Problem Like Max Payne? (nightmaremode.net)
I’d really recommend going back and playing Max Payne 1 & 2 if you get the chance.
My biggest problem with this third installment is that it takes itself way too seriously. The first two entries had a lot of emotional, introspective, pulpy dialogue too, but it was always self aware of how silly it all was. Most importantly, Max never spent time drinking himself into a self-loathing stupor, which is what he spends most of his idle time doing in 3. It also lost a lot of the small gags that were in the first two, like the show ‘Lords and Ladies’ that would appear on the in-game televisions. This third game was made by Rockstar, who is notorious for using every opportunity they get to lampoon the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and this game seems to be very in line with that. Here’s some hot Lords and Ladies action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heJrK751zi8
Hey thanks for stopping by and sharing. Cheers mate!