My Usual Spiel: Max Payne 3, another round of gun-slingin' mass-murderin' depressed-narraratin' action

Not time for hostage rescue, time however, for whiskey

Release Date: June 1, 2012
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar Studios
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Players: 1 and Online Multiplayer
Classifcation: MA


Depression, it affects all of us at some point in our lives, but none other than our good friend Max Payne, I never really imagined how the story would continue after this but it looks like it has, and after watching my brother play through the game, I had to have a go myself.

As in all Max Payne games the story starts with a flash-forward of one of the last scenes in the game, the we go back to how Max got there. This is a very different setting for Max Payne as to critical fan review most of the game is mostly set in Sao Paulo Brazil which is a Far Cry from the gloominess of Noir York. It's been eight years since the events of the second game, Max has been fired from the NYPD for collaborating with Mona Sax, a wanted criminal and is now working as a bodyguard with his police academy buddy Raul Passos for a rich Brazilian family: the Branco’s. I won’t spoil the story but important people get kidnapped, other people die, shit generally hits the fan and Max and Passos have to murder a lot of bad guys.

"I don't like the looks of this place"

We do actually find out how Max got to be in Brazil through playable flashbacks where Max meets up with Passos in Hoboken, New York where they end up killing a mob bosses son then have to flee for their lives. Max, who is now more of an alcoholic and pill-popper then ever is his usual depressed melancholy self and narrarates the story accordingly. I do agree with Yahtzee’s ranting that Max Payne should just cheer up a little but it’s not exactly his fault that nothing good has happened to him ever since the tragedy with his family (well almost nothing) he could almost be the most depressed protagonist in gaming history.

His shirt may be having fun but the rest of him is just as downhearted-killer as usual

A couple of things I was disappointed to see gone were the comic strip scenes and Max’s nightmares from the first two games. Seeing as Max Payne 3 actually had a comic made for itself I found it strange why it didn’t feature in the game, though this time the game wasn’t exactly set in “Film Noir” style so I suppose it made sense. One of my brother and I’s favourite parts of the first two games were being able to play out Max’s nightmares about previous traumatic experiences (family murdered etc) but I suppose he may have gotten over them by now, but seriously couldn’t he have a nightmare about something else? Anyway I could rant on all day about it butit's been awhile so I suppose things can;t be the same all the time.

The graphic-novel style storytelling and being able to play Max's nightmares in the previous games were a favorite of mine, sadly they are no more in Max Payne 3

I loved the previous two Max Payne games as there was something crazy fun about being Max and going on a violent gun rampages while slow-mo flying through the air and massacring hundreds and hundreds of (supposed) criminals. Though I knew eventually that as the series wore on it was going to get more serious, gameplay wise that is. There was not much humour in the first Max Payne storyline and it has pretty much stayed that way all the way through but the way you ran and jumped around with bullets and bodies flying everywhere just seemed comical. This was made even worse by the introduction ragdoll physics for Max Payne 2 where you were deliberately shooting enemies in certain angles and using explosives at just the right time to make both their death and where their body ended up after all that more spectacular and hilarious in stark contrast to the dark and gritty story.

I wear one of these headsets for work though it isn't quite like whats pictured and also no I'm not a telemarketer.

As I suspected Max moves a lot more realistically this time around, gone are the days where you effortlessly pivoted all over the place while running then did a suicide dive in the middle of a group of enemies and took them all out someway with only a shotgun, you are now constrained by (semi) normal human anatomy which is evident the way Max grunts when he performs a shootdodge and grunts as he hits the floor though this could just be old age. Strangely enough while I was flying crazy in the last two games the new realism basically deterred me from shoot dodging and I didn’t do it much at all throughout the entire campaign. Max is now able to aim and use cover, so with the combination of these two and bullet-time I had much more fun ducking in and out of cover and popping off the bad guys through timing and strategy. I found myself not bothering to use bullet time as much either it made things a bit too easy in some areas as unlike the cover-based shooting in GTA4 there is no crosshair when you are behind cover, and rightfully so as it was kind of silly in GTA the way you could line up your target and then headshot an enemy with a single blind fire, but in Max Payne 3 (and most other cover based shooters) it only appears when you duck out of cover so you have to be ready, especially without bullet-time and your aim has to be hard.

Ahh good'ol third person games, where you can peer around corners without your character even moving, none of that mirror-on-a-stick stuff

The weapons (and weapons system) in Max Payne 3 have undergone some big changes, unlike the previous games in the franchise, Max Payne 3 will limit the number of weapons the player can carry. The limit is two handguns and one larger gun. Max is able to carry up to two single handed weapons that can be mixed for dual-wielding, and one two-handed weapon; a total of three weapons at a time. Similar to Rockstar's other title Red Dead Redemption, Max's arsenal is accessible quickly via a weapon-wheel. If the player switches to a single handed weapon, Max will hold the long arm weapon with the other hand. However, if the player opts to dual wield, the long arm weapon will be dropped. There is a wide array of dangerous weaponry inc Handguns, SMGs, Shotguns, Assault and Sniper Rifles as well as the grenade-launcher type guns. What’s more is that in the cutscenes Max is holding whatever guns he had while playing (finally!).

The new weapon wheel, very useful as it's a staple of many other shooters. Also I really like this screenshot

As you can probably guess since the last Max Payne was released in 2003 this is the most realistic and bloodiest one yet, when you pump bullets into enemies their bodies flail and jerk around in the right ways. With every last enemy shot in the room you are treated with a slow mo kill-cam which you can slow down even more with the click of a button, this really lets you see the minor details put in this time such as the blood splatters, bullet holes and exit wounds. Needless to say the game is quite violent as well there’s some pretty disturbing scenes of graphic murders and executions which sometimes involve women.

A pretty nice gore montage for the game, this guy has quite a different playing style to my 'cautious duck-and-cover ammo-conserving' style though I suppose it's a bit more epic.

There is also the introduction of “scripted” bullet time events where the game automatically slows down at a critical juncture where Max is sliding down rooftops or swinging from cranes so that you can pull off that critical shot on the kidnapper or floor a room of baddies which hopefully you successfully do as you can’t feel any stupider when you take that cool slow-mo dive then end up on the floor with no bullets left and just hope the enemies with their guns pointed at you will hold off until you can get up and reload. The graphics themselves are awesome looking, the character models are excellent, the environment looks great and reacts when you hit things, of course most of this is just expected nowadays, it isn’t really as groundbreaking as Max Payne 2 when most of us first encountered realistic objects physics and ragdoll and went crazy with it.

Scripted Bullet time: "Hang in there Max" "Hey guys just thought I'd swing by" oh there's a million of em

I unfortunately haven't played much of the multiplayer due to my brother owning the game not me though I must say it's pretty fun, especially the gang wars where you go through a story-like series of challenges such as a band of corrupt UFE cops trying to escape the town and being attacked by the local Comando Sombra street gang, and don't worry there's deathmatch, team deathmatch and 'capture the bag' modes too. I spose you might be screaming out the question "How does bullet-time work in multiplayer this article by Kotaku's Stephen Totillo should tell you all you need to know and he explains it much better then I could it's a great article that says why Max Payne 3's multiplayer is such a good move by Rockstar.

There's the bag, but is it safe to collect? also someone doesn't seem to like Yoss

Though with the singleplayer, I had a ball playing it, right up to the end the story keeps you so engaged, this probably wasn’t my favourite Max Payne though it was mainly the player-made modifications for them that were the source of much fun for me though I highly doubt that this game will allow that as modifications of new games go, maybe sometime in the future I guess. Bottom line, if you are a fan of the previous Max Payne games or a fan of third-person shooter in general, chances are you’ll like this it’s a great mix of story and action and although Max is a bit of a depressive bastard you can’t deny he’s an absolute bad-ass as well.

JD

The sad, sad hero