Max Payne 3 Review

This is one of the hardest reviews I’ve ever had to write. “Max Payne 3” may be the most polished and thoughtfully executed entry the franchise has yet had, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the best. Rockstar Vancouver clearly set out to modernize Max, to put a fresh coat of paint on him and bring him up to speed with current gaming trends, and they succeeded with military precision. But they also changed the focus of the series, and perhaps not always for the better.

 Hit the jump and decide for yourself.

Presentation. A knock-out. Rockstar knows how to submerge you in their games, and they commit with lusty abandon to the sweat-drenched, booze and pills world of “Max Payne.” The menus are functional but stylish, and the whole package drips atmosphere. In the past, Rockstar has let their ambition get the better of them, creating menu systems that are cool in concept but a pain in execution (cough GTA IV cough). Not so here. Talk about a winner. 9/10

Graphics. “Max Payne 3” is one good-looking game. It doesn’t quite reach “Uncharted” territory (ha! get it?), but the lighting and texture work is sublime, animations are solid, frame rate is steady, and the Tony-Scott-doing-“Man-on-Fire” flourishes are cool, if perhaps overdone (in fairness, so are Tony’s). A few levels show off an impressive amount of destructibility, but it’s inconsistent. The art direction is nothing short of victorious, good enough to compete with Hollywood. All around, very impressive. 8/10

Sound. Can I give it an eleven? The weapons each have unique sonic personalities, the dialog is crisp, atmospheric cues are immersive and perfectly mixed. And then there’s the music, which is some of the best I’ve heard in a game this year. From bracing nightclub techno to pulsing Brazilian drums and, of course, that sad violin solo that serves as Max’s theme, a wide array of styles are merged into one cohesive whole. 10/10

Single Player. Okay, first the good things. The campaign is nice and long, full of action set pieces, and features an amazing variety of locales, all of them knockout beautiful. There’s a burning building sequence that gives Nathan Drake a run for his money, a thrilling boat chase, and a high-speed pursuit over the rooftops of New Jersey that reminded me of “The Matrix.” The writing is the best ever for the series, toning down the eye-rollers without sacrificing the pulpy fun. The gunplay is sturdy, strongly built stuff, and Rockstar was wise to let the player choose their level of auto-aim independent of overall difficulty. Max carries only what a human being could actually carry, and when he’s got a heavy weapon, he literally has to haul it around in his right hand; swapping to dual-wield makes him drop it. It sounds aggravating, but it makes you believe you’re in the thick of battle.

But now the problems. First off, this is not the “Max Payne” you remember. The introduction of a cover system, which is used copiously by your enemies, relegates Bullet Time to a secondary position in combat; it’s simply not useful to dive around in slow-mo when your targets are huddled behind indestructible objects. You’ll still use it to close the deal on head-shots, but it’s more like Dead Eye in “Red Dead Redemption” than the foundation of battle. This annoys me because the heart of “Max Payne” has always been had-to-be-there moments of reckless glory: you charge into a room without thinking, click on Bullet Time, dive and fire like a madman, and somehow come out on top. Those moments are mostly gone from “Max Payne 3,” occurring only when Rockstar deigns to pre-cook them for you. It’s a fastidious experience, demanding trial-and-error patience and eschewing the blazes of glory that made the other titles such fun. I won’t even get into the bullet-sponge nature of your enemies or their fondness for spawning on your flank.

Lastly, I know I’ve been harping on changes Rockstar made to the franchise that I don’t like, but here’s something they kept that doesn’t work: the pain pills health system. The two games “Max Payne 3” is most conspicuously aping—“Gears of War” and “Uncharted”—both have regenerative health, and with good reason. MP3 is miserly with pill distribution, and as a result, weird difficulty spikes pop up unintentionally all over the game. Rockstar tries to band aid it by discretely slipping you a free bottle if you get killed too many times, but the clumsy nature of this tweak just proves my point: they should have dumped the pills and gone regen.

I know I sound critical here, but there’s no debating Rockstar’s mastery of craft or commitment to polish. What I do question is their decision to alter the core of the “Max Payne” experience. Maybe you’ll like what they’re offering, which is basically “Uncharted” or “Gears” sans a competent melee system and plus a little slow mo, but I want my reckless Max back. 6/10

Multiplayer. Brace yourself: multiplayer may be the best thing about “Max Payne 3.” This is a damned good online suite, stacked soup to nuts with enough accoutrements to make “Call of Duty” jealous. Custom classes, leveling up, purchasable weapons and perks, robust clan support, the gang is all here and it works great. There’s a ton of fun game modes, but “Gang Wars” takes the cake, throwing two teams into four rounds of randomly generated objective matches before letting deathmatch decide the issue for good. There’s little here you haven’t seen elsewhere, but on the other hand, there’s little elsewhere you won’t see here. Best of all, Rockstar found a way to blend a little Bullet Time into multiplayer without letting it overpower the gunplay. Rockstar was clearly serious about multiplayer, and they delivered serious results. 8/10 

Verdict: “Max Payne 3” is a triumph in a lot of ways, especially the writing and the multiplayer, but the single player is a real departure for the series, and fans will have to decide for themselves if that’s what they want.

Total (Not An Average): 8/10

_AA

what could I say, I was having a f*cked up day