Max Payne 3

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I was terribly disappointed in MP3. I picked it up on sale and have been so frustrated with this game that I've been tempted to just stop playing it and sell it off. I had MP1 and 2 on PC back in the day and was looking forward to this game. I had heard that the controls were not very good on PC so I opted for the PS3 version and it has not been a very fun experience.

The Good:

* Graphically it looks fairly nice. Colourful and varied environments. Unfortunately, the anti-aliasing is poor and there are often a look of distracting jagged edges. The models and textures look pretty decent though.

* AI isn't bad. The enemy is pretty good at flanking you which can be utterly devastating since Max's mobility is quite poor.

* Gun play can be entertaining. There are some situations where the gun play can be quite fun but it is so incredibly hampered by the control issues that it really detracts from the entertainment.

The Bad:

* I don't find the story very compelling. Max's anti-hero schtick can get a bit annoying at times but it's expected for a MP game. But the supporting characters are just not very interesting and do things that don't make sense in the context of the story. For example, where did Passos go? Why is he never around to help you? I understand that MP 3 single player is a solo-experience but why create a character who is supposed to be so reliable and then never have him actually do anything useful? So much of the story is also explained through unskippable cutscenes which are just incredibly annoying. Loading screens are also long and include long load times to even quit what you are doing.

The Ugly:

* I have played a lot of 3rd person shooters and I have never experienced such a frustrating game as MP3. The cover mechanic is absolutely appalling. The transitions aren't smooth and there are many things in the environment you can't cover behind even if it would seem like you could. Not only that, but there are things you can't aim from behind either. Entering and exiting cover is jerky and imprecise and the entire time enemy are unloading bullets on you. There are no smooth cover-to-cover transitions so you just become a giant bullet sponge. I elected to play with free aim since I find auto-aiming too easy, but the game really punishes you for it. It also makes absolutely no sense then when you try to exit cover, you often just stand up. Let's say I'm behind a low wall and "in cover" and I want to move somewhere else. Rather than exiting cover and remaining crouched, I'll just pop and get absolutely hosed. This makes no sense. Can't I just "detach" from the cover and remain crouched?

* As I mentioned, Max's mobility is really poor. Even when sprinting you are rather slow and since you are almost always completely overwhelmed, every extra second you spend exposed you are getting shot. It would be fine if you could easily enter and exit cover while moving around, but everything feels just so slow and uncoordinated. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that when you are hurt enough you automatically enter bullet-time to try and kill the bad guy shooting you. This is made all the more irritating because you are often locked into a camera position where you can't even hit the enemy.

* I have unfortunately encountered at least 5 times issues where I get stuck on cover. I can't move, I can't shoot or aim, I can't select a different weapon, or do anything. The game is still going on around me but I'm just stuck there doing nothing. Then, inexplicably, I'll exit cover and get shot to pieces.

I just can't bring myself to complete the game after logging maybe 5-6 agonizing hours. I would be willing to put more time and effort in if the story was more rewarding or the game play more exciting, but it is just so incredibly frustrating that I have a really hard time dragging myself to play it. If you take a game like Uncharted 3 or Batman Arkham City as the best 3rd person cover-based action game for PS3 and rate either a 10/10 on the game play aspect, then I would easily rate MP3 as a 4/10. That's right, it's below average. It's just so cumbersome, clumsy, and down right frustrating that it takes away from the entire game play experience. I would rent this game or get it in a bargain bin but paying $40+ for this game is completely not worth it in my opinion.

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Well I just ordered this game brand new and got it in the mail a few days ago. The graphics are pretty good not bad at all not top of the line but good enough to enjoy the game! I'm on chapter 5 right now and I have to say it's like playing a role as a actor in a movie. It's like you playing the role of a hired security and you lost who you supposed to protect and you have to go find them. Just like a great movie this is the same fashion. I like this game alot in the single player I think if you like movie ''Heat'' or ''Taken 2'' You will like this game because it's has that same roll to it. So, story line 5stars

graphics 4 stars

multiplayer mode 3 1/2 stars--was ok.. better version of Socom 3 in my op but still fun but not 5 star rating as if it was black ops 2 or something but fun.

Overall This game is worth the investment, I just got mine brand new and I'm about to sell it today lol.. so come and get it close to brand new game... cheap price great game!

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This game was pretty good, I definitely recommend it to someone looking for something new to play. While I didn't really buy the game, I did rent it for a week and finish it. It was a good time, character design is so so, the graphics are pretty good, the shootingis good...now The multi-player experience... It's like a whole different game and it's better than the GTA IV one, I felt like mentioning that since it's from the same company.

Overall I give it a 8.5 out of 10 . Can't wait for GTA V, it looks good.

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What Max Payne 3 does it does well. Unfortunately it doesn't do a whole lot.

PROS:

Presentation -

This is a must for any Max Payne as the first two entries in the series are loaded with great presentation. Gone is the comic book style of story telling. Instead the game will take a freeze frame of the current cut scene and move it off to one side of the screen while keeping the rolling cut scene going in the other half of the screen. Choice words from the narrative are also displayed on screen in big block letters. This provides a stylized manner of display not seen in any other game and it really works well while keeping something of a modern day comic book feel to it.

Style -

The majority of the game will take place in warm weather locations though there are some levels in the snowy city streets that previous Max Payne games are known for. But each locale brings a noir style feel to it familiar to MP and MP2. Max Payne himself is a likeable and deeply fleshed out character that is anything but cliche. He's very vulnerable, long in the tooth, has put on a few pounds and just seems tired and in need of a drink all the time. This lends to the believability considering the hell that he has gone through. Though you will mow down countless hundreds of enemies, you never feel like some cliche unstoppable warrior that's 10 feet tall and bulletproof. He doesn't make corny and cheesy one liners and instead says the kinds of things that you could really expect someone to say in a given situation. If anything some of the things he says are kind of nerdy or old fashioned which actually makes him more likeable.

Incredible animations -

Enemies walk, run and die in realistic looking ways. Some enemies will fall right over, others will clutch a spurting artery and writhe on the ground for several seconds before finally succumbing to their injuries. Max Payne is also animated well. When you kill the final enemy in a group of enemies the game will go into a slow motion mini cut scene of the kill shot which you can slow down further by holding the X button. It's very satisfying to watch your bullet travel from the barrel of your gun through the air and then explode through an enemy's face. The gore is also very realistic looking, especially on head shots, as the exit wound will actually mushroom the enemy's head outwards.

Detailed Levels -

Each level has an excellent amount of detail, whether it be a shanty town of tin roof shacks, a soccer stadium or a snowy graveyard, all of the levels look great and have a great amount of things to look at.

Music/Sound -

The sounds are great and if you have a good system the explosions and such feel right at home. The music, especially towards the end of the game, is really awesome and sets up the perfect atmosphere.

CONS:

Lack of variety -

There's nothing here that hasn't been done in other games before. In a nutshell you will be taking cover and popping out to shoot enemies until they're all gone, move forward to the next room, rinse, repeat. There are a few scenes where an NPC will drive a vehicle and you'll shoot from a moving vehicle, but that's really the only break from the standard cover-and-shoot gameplay.

Controls -

Don't get me wrong, the controls aren't horrible, but for a game where all you really do is shoot, it seems like the control scheme would have been flawless. Successfully getting behind cover can be hit or miss when you press the square button. The L2 button locks your crosshair onto an enemy but at times it will choose an enemy in the back or an enemy behind cover rather than the one that's close to you and shooting you, which allows that enemy to get some easy shots on you. And my biggest complaint of all is if an enemy bum rushes your position. This where Max Payne is supposed to enter a melee mode where he'll hit the enemy with his gun and then finish them with a point blank shot. Unfortunately I found that he would only enter the melee mode about 25% of the time, and the other 75% of the time the enemy would walk right up on me and destroy me with point blank shots while I tried to move a clunky crosshair to his position in close quarters.

Glitches -

These were few and far between but were definitely noticeable. In one particular scene, Max Payne plays a piano. In my game his arms glitched out and turned around backwards and wrapped around his body which looked ridiculous. There are also some areas where Max Payne will be talking to himself and if you run too far forward before he's finished talking, he'll start another area where he's talking to himself, and the two dialogues will overlap simultaneously.

Story -

This was a bummer, as MP and MP2 had great story lines. Don't get this confused with presentation or style, as both of those are great, but the actual story just isn't all that interesting and at times you wonder what reason Max Payne really even has to pursue the villains other than a paycheck from his employer. This pales in comparison to the reasons he had to fight in the first two games.

CONCLUSION:

Not a bad game and definitely fun to play, but started to get a little boring towards the end mostly because of the lack of variety in the things you will do. You can only take cover and pop out to kill enemies for so long before it starts to become tedious and better guns and tougher enemies do little to change that. If you were a fan of the first two games you'll probably like this one as well, just don't expect anything to blow you away about it.

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Every review must start off with a "first off," so here is mine: First off, the story behind Max Payne 3, or the reason why you're supposed to care about the main character enough to bother wading through all the bloodletting of enemies, is just plain bad. Thin in places, needlessly convoluted in others, it seems like what it is: poorly written filler material. And yes, this is a big deal, because in this game, you're kindof "playing" the movie. The action goes from scene to scene, plot point to plot point, with Max narrating: every now and again, you pop up to shoot the baddies yourself as Max. It's not like other Rockstar games, like the GTAs or Red Deads. Here there is no overarching world where you travel about encountering missions; these are just levels, each progressively harder than the last. Your typical shooter, I guess, but with more detailed scenes between the action.

Problem is? That detail? It sucks, to the discerning player. Sorry. You just sit through it waiting, wanting it to be over so you can resume the shooting. The sole exception is where Max rescues a girl and has to fight his way out of enemy territory with her; I found that a lot of fun. Her dialogue was great, she wasn't frustratingly weak, and the music and enemy action really made it feel like you were the star of an action movie.

Playing through the rest of the story, however, was sheer boredom. Who cares who did what to whom and why? Max had no idea, and was never really invested in the action because of that. He didn't care about anything he was doing other than to just be doing it, to survive, there were no clear underlying issues (or at least, no plausible ones).

At one point, for example, Max's friend and sometimes partner sets him up, but we don't really care how or why, and neither does Max, apparently, getting over it over the next few cutscenes. That could have been a major development, but was just glossed over.

Also, there isn't a lot of satisfaction is killing the big bad guys only because they're especially tough, in my opinion. That's just your typical arcade shoot-em-up stuff.

The A.I. improvements here are another issue. Often you will be shot with no ability to see where it came from; by the time you spin the camera around to orient yourself? You're dead. And this is by design, not accident. Blind corners, risings you don't know are there, previously secure doors bursting in, vomiting enemies. It becomes C.O.D. like, where you're often shot dead from where? You have no idea, your field of vision is too limited.

The weapon system is another problem. Rockstar had it perfected in Red Dead -why'd they change? Here you will often be frustrated by lack of ammo; and not because there's no ammo around, but because Max can't pick up what you want him to pick up. He can have only one or two types of a class of gun -try to pick up another, and he will drop one of the others. Very frustrating. Nothing is worse in this game than having plenty of guns, plenty of health, 4 or five "painkillers," but then being unable to shoot due to lack of ammo. What is Max supposed to use? His harsh language? This is particularly aggravating in the last man standing mode, where Max, at the end of his rope, has a chance to shoot an enemy and take a "painkiller" at the same time. Run out of ammo then, or just need to reload? Too bad. You're dead.

Of course it's good to be challenged. That's all in fun. Tough enemies are fun. But when the toughness includes stacking the deck against Max? Uh, no, not fun. And all the weapons are wonderful, I loved shooting them all. But when they are limited? When you must leave half of them on the ground? No, not fun at all. Or at least let me unlock the abilty to hold them all, and carry large amounts of ammo.

Bullettime is good, another wonderful development, giving Max at least the chance to wipe out multiple enemies at once. Precision shooting is great entertainment. It's also nice to be able to see where you're hitting enemies, instead of just killing them. And the shooting (contrary to some reviews) is smooth, almost flawless, as good or better than in Red Dead. And cover is more real-world, and so more interesting -hide behind wood, and you may find it slowly being shot to pieces by your adversary, for example. A welcome addition.

The music is good, better than in previous Max Payne incarnations.

The cinematic style of the play is interesting, another leap forward. The cut scenes become the action scenes; there are no clear divisions. That was exciting. One moment Max is (boringly) hobnobbing at a bar, the next he is playing shoot-em-up in the same window; very well done.

The flashbacks to Max's flight from the U.S. are fun, and more intelligently designed than other scenes.

The Golden Guns! They should be earned, not found. Again, Red Dead has it right. Why is Rockstar trying to fix what ain't broke? For example, get 1000 headshots, earn a piece of golden gun. That's so much better than, oh, well let me wander over here for a second before the next enemy wave commences, you know, behind this bar. There might be some painkillers or a piece of a golden gun back here. Bah. Such gimmicks should be reserved for other in-game collectables like (again!) more ammo.

Max narrating the action as you play it is another interesting development. Again, adds more to the cinematic aspect of the gameplay. I hope we see more of it.

The customizable aspect of the game is good, but not particularly worthwhile. There should be bigger rewards for completing the game on the harder difficulty settings, for example. Unlock new weapons, heck, even new outfits, something.

Overall (which is where all reviews should end up) this was an okay experience, worth the money, but definitely disappointing in the wake of Red Dead Redemption.

My final word is, please Rockstar, stop trying to fix what ain't broke. Don't let us down.