2012.19: Max Payne 3

Time took to complete: 9hours 42minutes 11seconds on HARD

This game had an amazing start and a middle, it was everything I wished for and more. I am a huge fan of the Max Payne character and was scared shitless they would ruin the franchise but the beginning and the middle put that to rest, if anything it made me like Max more.

I was thinking, "Rockstar did it again". Then, I guess to celebrate how well the game was going, they decided to get drunk while developing the last couple or so chapters. Because in late stages of this game, it throws everything that was good about it out the window and turns into a mind numbing 3rd person shooter with the only characteristic remaining being the music.

You forget you are Max Payne, you forget the feel, you forget everything, all you are doing is getting annoyed at the uninspired wave and wave of enemies coming. "Same shit, different room", it becomes. Cutscenes are literally left out, there is hardly any in later stages and Max just stops feeling like Max in every sense of the word.

On top of ruining the feel, which is very VERY important in Max Payne, they also literally ticked all my pet peeves in gaming in the last couple of levels (see above).

That's the turn it takes for the shitter but what is great before that is the monologues remain well written, it doesn't even feel like it was written anymore, it just feels like Max. The flashback story that has gameplay is a nice touch that provides a nice contrast of locations between NY and San Paulo.

It stays true to Max in gameplay. Cover, shootdodge at right time, cover. The key difference of course is there is automatic cover here to make your life a little easier.
The small touches remain too, when he picks up a painkiller, he makes comments similar to MP1+2 and there are things in the location to interact with although a "!" prompt doesn't come up over Max's head, nor does his head direction get locked on to it. The location and the story presentation changed but trust me, at heart it's still gritty thanks to the monologues and just what happens in the story (and how it happens too is Max Payne like).


So.....From very great, to good, to downright "what was Rockstar thinking". I guess it's something like 7.5 but because the game forgets what it is near the end, which is very disrespectful to the fans and Remedy, along with gameplay that just becomes so dumb and dull, so all that rounds off to a good;

7/10.