Max Payne 3 Review

by Matthew Johnson

For me Max Payne 3 is the definition of a Beautiful Train-wreck.

I went into the game as a person who would not exactly call himself a huge fan of the originals but as someone who has played and enjoyed them enough to know how good they were. I was determined to not let nostalgia could my vision as I ploughed into it with full force and gusto.

I had been recommended it by someone saying that they had a lot of fun with it and was hoping I would feel the same way.

How wrong they were …

The latest in the series has been developed and published by Rockstar who happen to be one of my favourite companies producing greats such as Grand Theft Auto IV and LA Noire. It has however not had input from the series’ original creators or writers.

The game is set 9 years after the events of the second game it shows a retired and now alcoholic Mr Payne taking painkillers and feeling very sorry for himself. Having now taken up a job in private security in Brazil Max is working for the wealthy Bronco family tasked with simply acting as protection.

But as is always the case things do not go as planned and in the resulting chaos he is sent far and wide searching for answers. Some of the story is also told in flashback showing events leading up to the start and is an interesting diversion.

The story itself is one of the games greatest strengths which is why I have made sure not to spoil any of it here. Its twists, turns, and gritty realism are plain to see and are a staple from Rockstar at their best. Graphically breathtaking is another way I would describe this game with its stunning vistas and excellently displayed slums and nightclubs. There were quite a few instances where I found myself stopping play just to take in a view or study my surroundings.

The infamous Bullet-Time is back with a vengeance and is is very welcome. The few moments of enjoyment in this game came from diving through the air meticulously popping heads like they were coconuts at a carnival before slamming head first unceremoniously into the wall and collapsing into a heap.

Or diving through a window to land a pinpoint shot onto an exploding barrel taking several bad-guys out at once. Times like this actually brought a smile to my face which was a grand accomplishment considering its shortcomings.

The Euphoria engine also makes a return bringing with it very realistic movement and reactions from all the characters in the game from NPCs to Max himself with him and enemies reacting to their environments and acting how you feel they would to being shot, gripping body parts and falling over in a non-scripted manner. At one point in the game with a building shaking a bad-guy on a set of stairs held on to the rail to stop themselves from falling.

The good points of the game were overshadowed by the, for me, glaring miss-steps in terms of gameplay. Controlling Max felt like trying to wrangle a runaway milk float sliding on lard. Plenty of times I found myself heading in to opposite direction to where I was holding the joystick and having him overstep the mark almost every time.

The aiming was both twitchy and sluggish at the same time which is a hard concept to explain being fast when you do not want it to be but slow when it would be a help. The layout of the controls themselves is disastrous having almost none of the buttons where you think they would be. I had to force myself to learn them to such an extent that when I went back to a game with a normal layout I found myself pressing the wrong buttons via muscle memory.

The level design is an area that I could not overlook. There were many times where in a previous cut-scene would show you about to get the jump on your enemy only for Max, and out of your control may I add, would draw attention to himself leaving you very compromised in a situation where given full input could have been played out more to my liking. At one point in a cut-scene Max stealthed up to a group of enemies only to whistle, put his hands up and actively goad them before relinquishing control to me so sort the mess out for him like he was an unruly child.

Another word that describes the level design to a tee is linear with you boring constantly funnelled down a series of cleverly disguised corridors with almost no alternative routes only having side rooms as places to hide items such as painkillers.

As a whole the game completely fell apart for me with even with the obvious good points not being able to hold together the tears the gameplay created. With so much going for it I was saddened deeply with something that showed so much outward promise. In the end its hard to recommend this to someone when for me it was essentially unplayable.

5/10