Okay, bear with me here, because I played this over three days what with having other stuff going on. Right, there's Max, a disgruntled ex-cop who drinks heavily and takes his own body-weight in pills on a daily basis. He's contacted by a guy who was at cop school with him (it's like Hogwarts, but with less spells and more crime scene photos) called Raul Passos. Basically, Max is convinced by Passos to be work with him as a bodyguard for the Branco family, which consists of Rodrigo, his wife Fabiana and his brothers, Marcello and Victor. The game's story ranges from protecting the family from a gang of kidnappers, to uncovering certain conspiracies, which I won't reveal here.
The Good
With regards to the story, this is definitely a strong game. As usual with Rockstar, we're offered a mixture of dark comedy and harrowing drama. It's a rare occurrence for me personally to play through a video-game nowadays without skipping cut-scenes because they're slowing down the gameplay. Following Max after the events of Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne (2003) as he falls deeper and deeper into his drunken misery is extremely intriguing, and I certainly felt like I wanted to know more. I have to admit now that I haven't played the previous entries, but this game made me want to dig them out if possible and give them a go. I probably should if I'm going to retain any sort of credibility in terms of reviewing the third entry in the series.
My credibility aside, lets talk about gameplay for a second. Dear implausible deity, the words "satisfyingly superb" don't even come close to describing the shooting mechanics for Max Payne 3. I know that there might be some people who don't like Rockstar's typical aiming style, yet every aspect of it is improved tenfold by bullet time. Yes, bullet time, that one thing you know about in the Max Payne series that's not got anything to do with alcohol. Gone are the days of shooting people in the face at normal speed. To hell with every other action game, I can't play without the option to dive through the air in super slow motion, firing my gun repeatedly into the crotch of an unfortunate NPC.
The Bad
Character development, my favourite aspect of any piece of media, is certainly...there in this game. Thinking about it now, I'm not really that sure about it. I mean, yeah, I know who Max Payne is now, thanks to the character talking about his dead wife and daughter every five minutes, followed by a short whine about how he thinks he should be killed soon. However, everyone else is sort of just in the game for the sake of giving us supporting characters. They play their part, that's fine, but you don't find out much about them. The people you're meant to be fighting may as well be faceless. The big bad at the end of the game is a character that's barely featured. I seem to recall that he's in one cutscene. The same can be said for the people you're meant to be protecting. Whilst the story was compelling enough, at no point did I think to myself "I care about these characters and what happens to them." This is a real shame, since Rockstar usually offers quite a few likeable characters. To give an example, there's no character in Max Payne 3 that you warm to like, say, Little Jacob in GTA4.
The Ugly
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| Yeah, that's right, Two-Face is in this game. |
A superb and well-written game which offers us extremely entertaining gameplay with a fast-paced action heavy storyline is let down by poor character development.
As a final note, I should technically mention the multiplayer. I haven't ACTUALLY had a successful online game, as it keeps disconnecting me. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the servers, my wireless or simply that people don't want to play with me. I have played some multiplayer, emphasis on the word "some", as it lasted about three minutes and it consisted of me dying, a lot. Still, it was fun, give it whirl.
8/10
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