Max Payne 3 Review

Max Payne 3 was developed by Rockstar Games and released in May 2012. This is the 3rd installment in the popular Max Payne franchise and the first game in the series that was not made by its original studio Remedy Entertainment. Rockstar is known for making great games but can they take a proven winner and find a way to make it any better?

It’s now been nine years since the events that took place in New York during Max Payne 2 and Max has gone from bad to worse. Max now spends his days trying to drink away his memories of the past in a run down little bar in Hoboken New Jersey where he runs into an old friend from the police academy named Raul.

Unfortunately for Max one night, while drunk he picks a fight with a local mob boss’ son and manages to kill him, leaving Max with a bounty on his head. New Jersey is no longer a safe place for Max to be so he decides to take a job offer from Raul doing private security for the Branco family in Brazil. Obviously things go wrong and Max once again ends up in the role of a reluctant hero.

 

Max Payne 3’s gameplay is as straight forward as it ever was. Whether you are shooting it out in an office building or making your way down the docks, there’s always someone to kill. Like with all Max Payne games you start at point A and try to get to point B while killing a crazy amount of henchmen. Its all very linear and straight forward. Deviating from your set path is almost impossible meaning there is very little exploration to do. I think Max Payne 3 would have benefited from larger areas where enemies can try to flank you especially given the fact that you can use your bullet time ability to clear narrow areas pretty easy.

Graphically Max Payne 3 looks good. The scenery is beautiful in some areas and beautifully destroyed in others. The bright lights of night clubs look amazing in contrast to the dreary run down shanty town you make your way through. The water effects are brilliant. Waves crash realistically on docks and puddles ripple even when a shell casing is dropped into it.

I was less impressed by the characters however. Things like hair or edges of shirts have rough edges that tend to stand out a little bit. Rockstar did a good job of covering it up most of the time with the artistic style of the game. Since Max loves booze and pain killers sometimes his view gets a little blurry sort of like an old VHS security video. This hides the rough edges pretty well but not always.

 

Max Payne 3 has a huge selection of all types of weapons from close range to long distance. Things like a cattle prod or pepper spray are great when your up close and personal. You also have a full assortment of handguns, sub- machine guns, shotguns and assault rifles. Each gun has a different feel to it while aiming. Things like assault rifles are fairly steady and accurate while handguns tend to wobble as you hold them a bit.

Max Payne 3’s audio is very nice. Each gun has its own distinct sound that’s easily identifiable so you know if you arr coming up on a group of thugs with handguns or assault rifles. Shooting is loud and during some gunfights hearing anything but gunfire is hard and that’s the way it should be. People across the room shouldn’t be able to hear you talking to yourself in a gunfight; they should be hearing bullets ricocheting and things breaking.

The voice acting in Max Payne 3 is great. When Max is drunk and depressed he really sounds like it. Max isn’t the only one who sounds good though. The entire cast of characters from Max all the way down to the henchmen he’s killing do a great job of conveying how they feel in any situation whether they are hiding behind a desk or charging right at you guns blazing.

The online multiplayer in my opinion is the best part of Max Payne 3. You get to customize the loadouts you bring into battle and even what you wear. There is a lot of different game modes to chose from including your standard deathmatch and team deathmatch. On top of that Max Payne 3 comes with a good number of maps with lots more via DLC. Maps are big and open with plenty of places to hide or take cover. I think this is how the single player maps should have been made.

Overall Max Payne 3 is a good game. The single player is fun to run through once and finding out what happened to Max after New York is great but I felt rushed the entire time because of the small liner maps. The multiplayer is amazing though and I can’t get enough of it.