Set in São Paulo, Brazil, where Payne is working in the private security sector for a wealthy local family, set eight years after the events of the second game.

RSS Reviews  (0 - 10 of 59)
10

Excellent game. The story and the characters are not nearly as tightly written as the previous two games, but for coming from a completely different developer, it is still an amazing experience. Easily the best third-person shooter I have ever played gameplay wise. Great gameplay, amazing visuals, it's all up to Rockstar's par of quality. Unfortunately, Max Payne fans generally do not like this game because of the difference in tone, and Rockstar fans generally do not like this because it's not open world. I'm fortunately a great fan of both and can appreciate the effort Rockstar took to take homage to the original games while still making it their own project. That is absolutely the best way to explain this game; it's a Max Payne game, but it is Rockstar's Max Payne.

+Gameplay. Bullet time seems to run out quicker forcing you to use the cover system in many instances. Some may think its not as run-and-gun but I found it made you think more tactically, choosing when to use what kind tactic. Using cover and picking enemies off, jumping out guns blazing or dodging and shooting if you can take out the last few. The damage on enemies makes them respond realistically, and I also like the melee attacks and how Max holds his secondary weapon in his left hand, also I appreciate separating the shoot dodge and roll (eventhough its awkward trying to go into cover after rolling).

+The Showdown mechanic, where a shot that would have killed you instead drains out all your bullet time to go slow motion giving you a chance to kill the enemy before you die. If you kill him your saved. It feels odd to rely on this to avoid death. However it ends up turning into a clumsy attempt at trying to cover the issue of headshots killing you, so you end up relying on the Showdown mechanic to much.

+- A change that some may appreciate and many probably won't, is the limit to 2 dual wielding weapons and 1 secondary (two-handed gun). I never like limiting weapon use but given that the game is taking a more realistic route I don't mind so much mainly because dual wielding is what its all about.

+Visuals, the city is beautiful, physics and destruction to the things you shoot at. Its not noir anymore, and the comic book style cutscenes have been replaced with these discoloured or zoomed in shots in regular cutscenes, with occasional popouts of words said kinda of like everything has happened already and Max is only seeing fragments of memories. I liked it but I think it was overused a bit.

-Headshots kill you
-Very few guns
-Shoot Dodge uses to much bullet time.

-Max's Character, hes all brooding, nihilistic old bastard. He spends almost all of his dialogue complaining, self hatred & seems to have a death wish. While it does seem like Max as a character with no one he cares about left alive, seems like a natural evolution, what made the series work before was not just his cynicism and metaphors, it was the fact he was a good guy underneath all that.. having something to fight for.

Nihilists on the other hand are self absorbed (which I'm alright with) but they also complain alot. We hate having to listen them go on, unless its something they keep inside of themselves.
Not just that, but alot of people can't relate to the whole drinking problem thing. What exacerbates the problem is we never get to see him try and see the lighter side of things. It make sense to me that after losing everyone he cares about and killing so many, he would no longer be able to live like a normal person but theres not even a single moment where he enjoys himself. We need a silver lining at the end of it all to make it worth caring about all the strife he goes through.

A change of scenery, a new pair of bad guys, but it just seems like hes doomed to repeat history. Never being able to be normal again, and no one left alive that can slap some sense into him to set his priorities straight. The exception of Bravura, but him and Max weren't exactly in the best of terms.

-The only reason why I enjoyed the game is because of the gameplay, and whatever connection I had to the protagonist was because of what I knew of him from previous games & the voice actors attempt to add personality to a otherwise bland story & characters.

-Max's looks. If they thought Max is your every man that the look could appeal to, they chose the wrong game and he doesn't really look like Bruce Willis yet they gave him that look half way into the game.
Max speaks in metaphors and is way to cynical to be your average man.

If you go into the game not expecting a Max Payne sequel, I see it as a continuation of Max's life, different developer starting a new story (and not a very good one), then you might enjoy it if you don't mind the negatives.

Excellent game with more variation in the scenarios and a lot more violent, i just wish there were more new jersey levels or flashbacks of the previous games levels, but is still fine.

This game is really good. Maybe because it pulls Max Payne fans from cloud nine back to earth.

Maybe The Best of Max Payne

Well, this is an awesome game, let me just say that off the bat. It has wonderful visuals, great story, smooth gameplay as always, and the slo-mo diving and shooting has never felt better with the new Euphoria engine. And for once in a long time, it feels like it was made for PC, it isn't a ****** console port, it runs just fine on my high-end PC, which I couldn't say the same for about GTA IV. The Campaign may have been a bit short, but it makes up for it with it's expansive multiplayer, which isn't just a gimmick, it works, and it works well. It's tons of fun to dive out windows and shoot your friends in the face, and social club is actually helpful for gathering up friends and getting them in-game. The only reason I don't give it a 10 is because the modding capabilities of the previous games are gone, and that is something I would have like to see. Don't believe the critics, this game holds up to, and even surpasses the other games on most levels.

Max Payne 3 is an excellent game, and it introduced me to the Max Payne series. The graphics are stunning for a 2012 game, the gameplay is extremely satisfying, and Max is angrier than ever before. In terms of bugs, I only encountered a minor graphical issue during the last cutscene in Chapter 10. Aside from that, there is nothing game-breaking. This game serves as a series finale and is well worth everyone's time.

R.I.P James McCaffrey

Updated and one or two bad writing decisions but still overall some of the best Action Gaming there is.

Goodbye,Max!

6

ALT_OhDude says

May contain spoilers Agree Disagree

(The game was played on Hard difficulty)

Max Payne 3 as a game on its own is pretty good. Shootouts are good fun, in no small part thanks to the animation system, and weapons feel great. In this department, Max Payne 3 is terrific. The four-weapon inventory system went opposite of the originals, but the way it was implemented felt appropriate (if limiting). Moving Max around does get clumsy and awkward at times, though, feeling more like it was meant to be done on a gamepad rather than on mouse and keyboard.

All the classic mechanics are back as well, meaning you can still use bullettime, slowmotion, and painkillers, all of which come with some new twists. However, even though they're present and you're free to use them, it often feels like you're not encouraged to.

Bullettime still provides an edge, but it runs out very quickly and does not build back up nearly as fast. Shootdodges are cool as hell, but put you at such a great disadvantage when they're over that it's not worth it to use them if more than two enemies are still alive. To add to that, Max will sometimes jump in the wrong direction or, in some situations, after a really long delay, at which point you might have already changed your mind. And since Last Man Standing is a thing in this installment, painkillers go from healing items to counting as lives.

The game will also (sometimes frustratingly) frequently take away control from you for cutscenes which are in a lot of cases unnecessary and lock doors behind you, such that backtracking is made impossible.

There are also some other questionable design choices, like the dreaded unskippable cutscenes, which usually consist of a 30 FPS video that scales badly to different display resolutions and which is supposed to disguise a loading screen, during which pressing Enter will flash a "STILL LOADING" message at the bottom right corner. However, loading a checkpoint directly through the main menu will see you ingame in no more than a few seconds at most on a powerful desktop rig. Which is a shame, as it shows that the game has very well optimized loading times, but doesn't let you enjoy them. This is one of the things keeping me from coming back to the game more often.

I thought the story was OK, to an extent. On its own, it wasn't bad. As a Max Payne storyline, though, it was a bizarre departure. Nothing of the Remedy-era Max remains to be seen, voice actor aside. Max is turned into a drug addict and alcoholic whose vocabulary knows nothing more than simple observations, vulgar comparisons and nonstop profanity which starts out jarring, ends up tiring, and for which there's really no good reason.

Here's two quotes which illustrate the differences in the tone and quality of writing. This first one comes from the last chapter of Max Payne 3:

"Smart move would have been sticking with Da Silva and going straight to the hangar, but when was I ever about smart moves. I'm a dumb move guy. “Hey Max, we'll drive onto the runway.” “No thanks, let me walk into the main entrance. I'll put a big ****-eating grin on my face and let these ******** take turns trying to kill me.” That's my style and it's too late in the day to hope for a change."

This one is the ending to Max 2's hardest difficulty setting:

"It was almost morning, waking up from the American Dream. We are willing to suffer, to die for the things we care about. For love, for the right choices. Because of her, I had solved the case. My case. All of it. Who I am. Is it worth it? Saying that it never is would be a lie. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes, something good comes out of it. Something you know you wouldn't deserve in a million years. Something that gives you a reason to go on."

There wasn't zero percent "strong" or "improper" language in the first two games. But it was used as a resource for certain characters and moments, not as a global crutch or to pad sentences. It feels simply out of place for Max when his dialogue and narration used to be thoughtfully constructed, and the 'worst' you remembered him saying previously was "bastard".

Graphic novels were essentially scrapped completely, which wouldn't have been a problem if their replacement had been something of equal or greater value. However, I feel the style they went for fell flat a lot of times while getting lost in the visual effects frenzy the others.

All in all, it wasn't a bad experience, but it felt like one that was constantly forcing itself to be a Max Payne game through classic mechanics and references to the first two titles while at the same time managing to go the absolute opposite direction through its design choices, direction, and over-the-top edgy writing.
The score stays at a 6 for me because the game's not bad, but a lot of potential was wasted, you're often reminded of its flaws, and the game doesn't really feel like it deserves to be called a Max Payne game.