Who needs flak jackets when you have short sleeve shirts and body warmers? |
The implementation of the story telling is similarly superb, if at times feeling a little too cut off from the earlier entries in the series in terms of both its continuity and style. There are moments when Max's self-loathing feels a little overdone and forced, but regardless of the odd piece of hammy scripting, the actors deliver strong performances, particularly impressive in the case of Max where his near constant narration carries the game through some of the more mediocre sections when the gameplay cannot. If there's one issue here it's that the plot isn't terribly adventurous, it's a rather basic tried and tested criminal story that lacks the emotional investment and intrigue that earlier games in the series contained. Nevertheless, it gives Max the excuse to get into a lot of exotic, dangerous places and shout a lot while firing a boatload of bullets, which is the most important thing at the end of the day.
The character models really do look fantastic. |
Regardless of whether it is to show the sudden appearance of more enemies, a brief snippet of dialogue or the aforementioned bridging segments between two rooms, not only do these videos break the pacing of moments which could be equally well handled without such artificial separation, but they also mess with the player's setup. In Max Payne 3 you can equip your character with one handed pistols or more substantial two handed weapons such as shotguns and assault rifles, which offer a substantial boost in firepower. To save having to develop the vast number of cutscenes twice depending on which firearm type the player has selected at that moment in time, the designers have coded them specifically for Max holding one handed weaponry only. The end result is that at the end of each and every single cinematic the game forcibly switches you back to your most basic weapon.
Sure he may have just shot you in the face, but you can't say Max didn't dress up for the occassion. |
While its nice to have stylish cutscenes it often feels like too much of the cool stuff is delivered in this manner as opposed to letting the player get involved. Dramatic sequences will often play out with you entirely in the spectator seat only for it to jump back to the player at the very last moment, allowing them to take that one, final shot which it has also so conveniently usually lined up for you already. It's the same with the odd campaign moment too, such as where the player has to walk along the burning remnants of a building's floorboards without falling off. Max waxes eloquently about how risky this is, but the thing is you can't fall off, you can try but it's impossible. Simply having the main character narrate danger is not sufficient to install fear in the player, regardless of how good their delivery is.
Seriously... Again... Either hire more animators Rockstar or just don't put two handed weapons in the game next time. |
Combat-wise things do feel a little stale, the designers haven't really used the extra grunt of this generation's hardware to open up the level design in any way, they've just made the corridors prettier. There are a couple of areas in the campaign that stand out from this with the New York graveyard sequence and airport shootouts in particular offering some more choices in how to handle the bad guys, but for the most part everything is extremely hemmed in. When coupled with the enemies' slow reaction time the end result of these design choices means that by far the most effective strategy is in fact not to engage in Payne's trademark slow-motion bullet dives at all, but to slowly walk and/or use cover, manually engaging bullet time for each shot. The cover system sits at odds with the slow motion orientated gameplay because both are a means for avoiding damage and by combining the two there's really no need to engage in any kind of flamboyant acrobatics, as you will kill fewer targets per second of bullet time by doing so than if you had just remained standing or in cover.
The atmosphere though is undeniable. |
While Rockstar are great at making open world experiences and fleshing those environments out with lots to do, their games have never stood strong based purely on their shooting mechanics and Max Payne 3 isn't any different in this. The big problem is that while in a free roaming title this isn't such a huge deal, when it comes to a linear, combat focused affair they really needed to up their game a lot more than they have. The campaign is lengthy and features a wide variety of locations and the story, while not the most original in the world, is very well handled, it's just not a great action shooter. Max Payne 3 makes for an enjoyable enough experience on a single playthrough in the form of mindless, somewhat repetitive fun but it doesn't have the legs to last long beyond the end credits. A decent enough game, but the legacy deserved more than what's on offer here.
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Score: 6/10