Max Payne 3 Review
One thing you could count on: you push a man too far, and sooner or later he'd start pushing back
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It was with caution that the fans of the series looked upon the very first screenshots of Max Payne 3 a few years ago. A new setting, plot, and a new look for Max had many worried about the direction that the title would take place in the hands of Rockstar Games. As it turns out, many of those fears were well-founded. While Max Payne 3 isn’t a bad game by any stretch, this isn’t the Max Payne we once knew and loved, and even if you attempt to accept this title as standalone, gameplay issues hold it back from greatness.
If you’ve never played the original two games, you should be OK heading into this one. The game’s plot and mechanics perform without issue as a standalone experience, and apart from a number of references in Max’s dialogue, there’s nothing here that requires familiarity with the originals to enjoy. On the other hand, if you did play and like the first games, Max Payne 3 comes across as a very mixed bag.
There are some incredible high points in both story and character interactions, but they can only work if you completely let go of Max as you once knew him and fully embrace this, sometimes generic, badass bald dude fighting in the middle of Brazil. When all hell breaks loose, and you finally let go of the notion that this is Max Payne, the game really does pick up steam and can be thoroughly enjoyable. It seems a clear case of taking the Max Payne name and retrofitting it to a world that was already designed, and probably existed for a new IP.
And as much as you try to embrace this new character, however, the game continuously attempts to pull you back in and remind you that this is what Max has become – whether it’s with familiar soundtrack or constant references to plot elements from the original games. And that’s probably the biggest issue; Max isn’t who he once was, and the change from dark and snowy streets of New York to a bald, aging man engaging in gunfights in a tropical country is simply unnatural. The game would have simply been so much better off if it picked a new protagonist, or at least stopped constantly reminding us of this character’s past persona. As such, your overall enjoyment of the campaign is largely dependant on your ability to embrace this new image – or if you’ve never played Max Payne previously, you’re probably fine.
Max Payne 3 picks up some time after the events of the previous game. Max, now completely hitting rock bottom with alcohol and pills addiction, is offered a chance to escape his old life. Before he can decide, a series of events makes New York no longer a safe place to live, so he has no choice but to accept the offer from Raul, who is a former acquaintance and also an ex-cop. Max finds himself in Sao Polo, Brazil, protecting a wealthy family as a private gun for hire. His habits aren’t really getting any better, and it isn’t until the wife of the man he is protecting is kidnapped that Max snaps out of it. From there, we see Max rather quickly become involved in something far greater than a simple kidnapping.
There are many elements in the campaign that reference Max’s past, as he is once again trying to save a woman in his life. Except that he isn’t, really. One of the key factors in Max’s terrors has been his personal connection and affection for the suffering that he has caused. Max Payne 3 lacks this – there is nothing holding Max except his own twisted desire to save everybody, which falls flat and is nowhere near as strong a motivator to keep going. Max literally feels like he’s just being told what to do the whole game, whether it’s due to his own ambition to set things right or direct hints from others. He’s not really the lonely, tormented character anymore, instead just a guy with hidden suicidal tendencies, trying to play a hero for some people he doesn’t even like.
Campaign in Max Payne 3 is easily the longest in the series, providing plenty of opportunity to showcase a variety of situations and locales. Your path is strictly linear, almost becoming claustrophobic during some levels in the poor areas of the city. It provides plenty of opportunity to tell a story with good pacing, but it also begins to feel a bit monotone as you have yet another firefight with a bunch of goons who don’t speak English in the middle of a slum. The game uses cutscenes with abundance, as they hide all loading screens seamlessly which is impressive to see, but it also means you can’t turn a corner without a short cinematic.
The gameplay is similarly solid overall, but not without some glaring issues. Probably the greatest concern with the game is the difficulty – somehow, Rockstar Games got it absolutely wrong. It’s no longer a run and gun affair, and the addition of a cover system serves to support that notion. Max Payne 3 is often frustrating, with enemies killing you from strange angles and rather quickly, while themselves requiring a healthy dose of led to take down – whether they are wearing vests or t-shirts. The bullet time mechanic is here, and works the same way as before, brining great satisfaction to slow motion diving and headshots as bullets fly by. But using it is actually not advisable if you want to stay alive for very long. A feature called Last Man Standing gives Max a chance to kill his attacker if you’ve been critically wounded, and return to battle at the expense of an automatically used painkiller. It’s a neat feature, and one that kicks in very, very often. Thus is the fall of Max – its key mechanic is underused, because you’re forced to sit in cover all day instead. And even with that, the cover system isn’t very good; Max will take his sweet time getting in and out of cover, and there are no mechanics that let you wrap around or jump to another side of a wall.
Max Payne 3 does offer three difficulty settings, but Easy feels too much so, and Medium is frustrating more often than it should be. There’s also three different aim settings, from Free Aim (which was my initial approach, and boy was that painful) to hard or soft lock-on targeting. If you play around with the settings, you’ll likely find a decent balance for the difficulty, but by default this game is just too frustrating in some sections. To the game’s credit, failing a checkpoint enough times grants you extra painkillers. These moments of anger are only barely outweighed by some of the awesome set pieces in the game. Hanging upside down from a helicopter, jumping through windows in slow motion, and much more are all in a day’s work for our redefined action hero. If there were more of these memorable moments and less checkpoint restarts for the millionth time, the overall experience would have been much improved.
And that’s actually about it as far as gameplay is concerned. It’s all a bit one-note, as you clear levels of bad guys and progress forward, occasionally using bullet time for stylish kills and more often waiting in cover. Max can now only carry two handguns and one rifle, and if you want to dual wield you have to drop the rifle. Signature takedown camera appears on the last foe in an area, and painkillers are still key to your survival. Grenades thrown by enemies can be shot out of the air, but this time around you don’t get to carry or throw any yourself. It’s perhaps a design decision to remain the game grounded in reality (as Max would have nowhere to put the grenades), but it limits your ability to clear out rooms full of goons.
The presentation in Max Payne 3 has been revamped, but not without some hitches. Gone are the series staples comic book cutscenes, instead replaced by in-engine cinematics. The visuals and most animations are decent here, and the developers tried to replicate some of the original aesthetic by adding a dizzying filter to most of the scenes as well as text overlays. The text looks OK, but the screen tearing/duplication effects really don’t work, instead growing to annoy you with time. It starts off reasonably, but by the time our hero has a clear (and bald) head, there was no reason to keep these effects going. Another notable issue lies with sound during cutscenes – which can inexplicably disappear, requiring you to load an older checkpoint in order to enjoy important bits of the story.
Max’s original voice actor James McCaffrey is once again present, and he is able to pull off both dramatic internal monologues and screaming at enemies at the top of his lungs. The said dialogue though is nothing out of the ordinary, and lacks much of the self-aware comedy that underlined the original games. There are still some good one-liners here, but the memorable quote status is never reached. In fact, and again I am starting to repeat myself, the dialogue works great alongside the action when it’s all-out mayhem, without attempts to reflect on Max’s past or throw in another flat self-degrading comment.
In addition to the campaign, Max Payne 3 features a couple of arcade modes. Classic New York Minute returns and once again challenges you to complete each level before time runs out, with kills adding a few precious seconds to the clock. Meanwhile Score Attack rewards players for performing specific shots or kills, including racking up multipliers. All of your results from these modes are tallied and can be compared on leaderboards via the Social Club. Both arcade modes provide quick action and a reason to play through the game’s campaign again.
For the first time in the franchise, the game has some solid multiplayer options as well. The gameplay mechanics of using cover and carrying a limited number of weapons remain unchanged, included alongside some online-specific tweaks for up to 16 players per match. Players earn XP and cash to unlock/buy new weapons, characters, and special perks called Bursts. Bursts offer special abilities to players, including cool ideas like appearing as a teammate to enemies, seeing the map more clearly, and even Bullet time. Rockstar Games have managed to make this special mechanic work online, by implementing it via line of sight. It works wonderfully well, but sometimes you can get sucked into bullet time from across the map if the engaging player sees even a tiny portion of your body, which can be a disadvantage to your own nearby firefight.
All bursts require Adrenaline, which is earned by taking out other players or, in another cool mechanic, looting fallen enemies for goodies. Players regenerate health very slowly, which makes for a tenser experience than most games these days, so painkillers come in handy and looting them is often a useful risk. There’s also a stamina meter, which refills automatically and drains when you sprint or roll.
Mode-wise, the offerings are decent. Deathmatch and team variation of it is a standard affair, usually scattered across smaller maps from the single player campaign. In Payne Killer, two players assume the roles of main characters from the game and must fight to stay alive against the rest of the players. The two players get special weapons and abilities to help them survive the onslaught, but if they fall the role is given to new players.
Gang Wars is the main attraction of online play, integrating story elements from the campaign and presenting players with random variety of objectives to complete. It’s not unlike the mixed-mode offerings of other online shooters, but it bodes well to include some voiceover from Max and story elements thrown in. For those interested, Crews are groups of players organized via Social Club that can work together in order to earn extra XP and other goodies in the game. They also carry over to Grand Theft Auto V.
Max, the dearest of all my friends, time has not been kind to you. An aging Bruce Willis of sorts, fighting slum gangs and paramilitary troops in South America. It’s a transition that won’t sit well with fans of the original character and noir world that Remedy once created. But if you’re able to get over it, and avoid letting the game pull your memories back in as hard as it sometimes tries, the game can be enjoyable with this new action hero. Those meeting Max for the first time are in the best position here, aside from a few dialogue bits that will fly over your heard, this is an all-out action title that can be easily enjoyed. Tons of cool slo-mo shootouts and a solid story punctuate the experience, though uneven difficulty and one-note mechanics keep the game from reaching the heights of the top crop of shooters. As a new comer to the series, multiplayer offers enough content to keep players busy for a while, with cleverly incorporated mechanics. All in all, Max Payne 3 presents an enjoyable experience, but with some gameplay issues and a new persona on the side.