Max Payne 3 is an exhilarating shooter that
grabs hold of you and doesn't let go. With savage gunplay and an absorbing
personal story
Like it or not, times change. When Max Payne
last appeared in a game in 2003, he blasted his way through countless enemies
with reckless abandon, aided by his signature ability to slow time and deal
graceful death. Today, reflecting modern sensibilities and perhaps his own age,
Max takes things slower and makes judicious use of a new cover mechanic. Yet
the addition of this contemporary element doesn't mean that Max Payne 3 plays
like every other third-person shooter. Far from it. With its gripping narrative,
brutal violence, and fantastic implementation of Max Payne's bullet-time
ability, this is a distinctive and outstanding game through and through, and
it's easily a worthy successor to the Max Payne games that preceded it.
Wherever you go, there you are. It's a truth Max
Payne knows better than anyone. Fleeing his New York life to take a job working
security for a wealthy family in Sao Paulo, the hard-drinkin', pill-poppin' Max
finds that his demons come along for the ride. Though the details of the plot add
up to your typical story of conspiracy and corruption, of the rich and powerful
preying on the poor and helpless to become even more rich and powerful, the
writing, acting, and presentation elevate this tale well above a boilerplate
video game crime story.
It's hard to stay ambivalent once you see the
horrors being suffered by the innocent here, and you'll likely want to see
Max's quest for vengeance through to its conclusion just as badly as he does.
Max reveals a complexity here not seen in earlier games, as he hits rock bottom
and must either stay there or face his demons head-on and make himself anew.
Other characters, too, reveal a surprising humanity. You might be tempted to
write off Marcelo, the youngest brother in the wealthy Branco dynasty Max is hired
to protect, as the shallow playboy he often appears to be. But in moments of
disarming honesty, he reveals to Max a depth that lies beneath the facade he
presents to the world.
Cutscenes use multiple moving panels to pay
homage to the graphic-novel-style storytelling of previous games without
feeling beholden to it, and the considered use of blurring and other visual
effects echo Max's state of mind, perhaps making you feel as if you're the one
who has been hitting the bottle a little too hard. James McCaffrey does an
excellent job reprising his role as Max, bringing a wider range of emotions to
a character who has previously often been one-note. The writing is terrific;
Max's world-weary wit is as bone-dry as ever, and as he ruminates on things
like loyalty and loss, much of what he says has the sound of hard-earned
wisdom. Subtle touches throughout the game make Max seem convincingly alive,
such as the complex look that crosses over his face at the start of one stage
when bloodshed seems inevitable; it's as if he dreads what's coming, but does
his best to mentally prepare himself for it.
In the context of the campaign, shootdodging
typically looks like a stylish way to kill people. In multiplayer, however, you
might see people belly flop gracelessly onto the ground, which can make things
a bit comical. The action is wilder in multiplayer than in the campaign, as
players scramble to kill each other, using their various bursts to aid their
team or to wreak havoc on their opponents. It's all chaotic fun, and the option
to start vendettas against players who have killed you twice in a row, which
earns you more experience points for the next kill if you get them before they
get you, brings a dynamic and personal aspect to the competition as you're
often trying to seek out and kill one player in particular.
But while the multiplayer is enjoyable, the
single-player campaign is a knockout. There's incentive to return to the
campaign and conquer it on higher difficulty levels, or to tackle the
leaderboards in Arcade mode and in New York Minute mode, in which you race
through levels, earning time for each kill. Times change and people change,
too; Max Payne isn't the same man by the end of this game that he is at the
beginning. It's fitting, then, that the gameplay has also evolved, that Max
needs to proceed with a bit more caution than he did in his younger days. They
say the more things change, the more they stay the same, and one thing remains
true: you can still count on the Max Payne name to deliver some of the most
stylish, distinctive, pulse-pounding shooting around.
INTEL CPU: Core 2 Duo E4600 2.4GHz
AMD CPU: Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5400+
Nvidia GPU: GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB
AMD GPU: Radeon HD 3400 Series
RAM: 2GB
HDD Space: 35GB
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