Max Payne 3 opens up with a brief flash into the future, with Max standing over a horrifically injured man. After a brief story sequence complete with monologue, the action shifts back into the present day. A cutscene will introduce Max, his cohorts, and his wards. Now working as a bodyguard alongside the loyal Passos, Max's job is to protect the rich family whose party he is currently chaperoning. The Brancos are one of the most powerful families in Sao Paulo, local celebrities as Max puts it. The husband, Rodrigo, will be a target in this mission along with Marcello, the playboy, but it's the rich Rodrigo's wife Fabianna who you will have to worry about in the long run. Max will introduce all of the characters through monologue during the cutscene.
Naturally, the party goes downhill quickly after Max is finished with his little speech. A group of thugs will come up through the elevator and open fire into the balcony, grabbing Fabianna and Rodrigo before absconding back down the elevator. You and Passos will have to rush out to rescue them. Passos will head downstairs to take the lower floors, while you as Max will have to sweep the upper floors. As it turns out, both areas will be swimming with thugs.
As a tutorial section, the combat in this level is fairly simple. As you gain control of Max for the first time, run out into the foyer ahead. An enemy will immediately rush out in front of you. A tutorial prompt will appear asking you to click in the right stick to enter bullet time. Do as it says, and then follow the aiming and shooting prompts to put a bullet into the bad guy's skull. When he falls, move forward. There will be more enemies to your left, but they will be dealt with in tutorial prompts too. Do as the tutorial says and click in RB to dive forward in slow motion. Target the two enemies to the left and pull the trigger to take them out.
From where you come to lie on the ground, you will be able to see two more enemies in the room beyond you. Stay on the ground and focus on taking them out. You should be able to kill at least one of the enemies before they retreat and you have to stand up and proceed into the next room. Grab ammo from the corpses and head on in. You will walk past a piano and through a little kitchen. Bodies will litter the floor in the living room, and if one or both of the enemies who you fired at through the doorway were able to escape, you will find them waiting for you here, on the opposite side of the room as the couches. Take them out quickly.
You will hear Fabianna screaming after dealing with the enemies in the room. If you want to find a nice easter egg referencing the original Max Payne games, approach and interact with the piano. Also note that you can find your first clue here. On the table in front of the fireplace sits a tabloid magazine. Examine it to unlock your first clue, crucial if you are trying to hunt them all down. Otherwise, head out the door to the right to get out onto the balcony.
When you get out to the edge of the balcony, a cutscene will trigger. Fabianna will be below you, on the lower balcony. Two armed thugs will have her under their control, although a quick shot from Passos will remove one of them from the equation. In what even Max acknowledges as a desperate attempt to save Fabianna, he will jump onto the sloped roof of the lower balcony and slide down. The game will enter slow motion. You will have until Max reaches the end of the sloped balcony to put a bullet into the attacker without hitting Fabianna, who he will be shielding himself with. Go for the head and you should be able to bring him down just before sliding off of the roof and into the pool below. Passos will rush over to help.
You may have saved the wife, but as Max quickly points out, the husband Rodrigo is still nowhere to be found. Max will volunteer to go after her. He will rush into the elevator, postulating about how he expects a small army to be waiting on the other side. When the doors open, head out of the elevator and to the right. Just as you exit, you will see the thugs shooting down one of the other security guards. Enter Bullet Time by clicking the right stick and pop two quick shots off into the two enemies standing on the other side of the bar, one in each of their heads.
As you approach the column across from the bar, another tutorial prompt will appear. You can hit the X button to take cover, a technique that won't be so necessary now but which will prove invaluable later on in the game. Take cover behind the pillar and two more enemies will run in. Lean out from cover to take them out when they pop out of their own cover points, and watch out for a third enemy who will be hiding in the back of the room. Finish them all off and leave cover. Leave the area via the door to the back left of the room. As you approach the door, a final thug will burst through. Another tutorial prompt will appear instructing you on how to kill him. Sometimes when you attack the last enemy in a wave, the game will enter a shot-tracing camera mode that follows the bullet to its destination. During this period, you can hold A to slow time, and you can hit RT repeatedly to fire out more bullets. Doing so now will effectively reduce the enemy's face to a pile of mush.
Run through the door that the enemy emerged from and you will find yourself in the garage. Round the corner and more enemies will come after you. In a cutscene, you will find a massive amount of enemies waiting for you. They will take cover, and so should you. Jump out from cover in Bullet Time to the right. From here you will be able to get a clean vantage point on at least three of the enemies. Try to take all three of them out before you hit the ground, and then scurry to the closest cover point behind the pillar to your left. Another enemy should be waiting for you behind the last pillar in front of you. Flank around to either side of him, and watch out for a final enemy attempting to do the same to you.
After all of the enemies in this area are dead, head to the opposite wall and hit the Y button near the flashing control box to open up the gate to the next area of the garage. Run through this room and up the ramp to your left. A tutorial prompt will appear explaining clues, although this isn't the first clue that you will have found. Pick up the photograph on the exit ramp to collect another of the clues, and keep heading upwards.
When you round the corner ahead, a small army of enemies will be waiting for you, already entrenched behind cover points. For the most part, their cover will consist of the concrete columns on either side of the garage. A tutorial prompt will appear instructing you to take a Painkiller in order to restore your health. You'll probably need it at this point anyway, so hit up on the D-Pad to restore your health and immediately dive to one side or the other in Bullet Time. Fire at the enemies on the opposite side of the room as you dive away from them. Take cover behind the nearest column when you land, and pop out to fire upon the remaining two or three enemies at the far side of the room. You will know that you have cleared the room when the game enters slow motion and allows you to fire your final shots, just as it did with the enemy in the doorway earlier.
As you approach the next gate, you will see a few of the masked thugs escorting a hooded Rodrigo into the back of their van. Punch the gate switch to open up the gate and run after them. Just as it seems they're getting away, the game will sink into slow motion and give you the opportunity to fire a bullet into the van's back tire. The game should automatically target the tire for you, so just pull the trigger to send it skidding down the road and into a column. The two thugs will exit the van and attack you. Kill them and approach the back of the van to free Rodrigo. When he gets out of the van, he will be panicked and he will accidentally knock Max over. When he does, more enemies will rush out from behind you. The game will sink into slow motion again, allowing you to get a bead on both of the enemies rushing towards you. Kill both of them and a cutscene will trigger.
As Max helps Rodrigo, reinforcements will come in the form of cops, soldiers, and Passos. They will argue in Portugese, which Max can't understand, even in the subtitles. This will mark the ending of the first mission in Max Payne 3.
