Max Payne 3 – Review

 The nine year wait is finally over. Max Payne 3 is finally here, and it’s amazing. Everyone who played the previous installments will know about Max’s life. Max is a type of person who has nothing to lose, death of his wife and daughter has traumatized him, and to fight this shock he gets help from liquor. But here’s the surprising element, Max Payne 3 isn’t anything like its previous installments. Obviously, the dark story and extremely satisfying gameplay is there. But there are many other elements that are not present in the game. And it’s a fresh start. Max Payne 3 isn’t subjected to simply live over the past. The game makes the bold rhetorical choices and avoid stagnancy. And while these choices have substantial upshots on the game’s tempo and may prove dissentious. Max Payne 3 is overall a magnificent, highly fascinating sequel to one of the most dark video game.

Seemingly, Max Payne 3 highly varies from its predecessor. The creaky apartments and umbrageous sidewalks of New York have been superseded by epicurean nightclubs and intense heat of São Paulo. A place where Max has taken on a job.  His job is to provide security to a wealthy businessman Rodrigo Branco. But sadly, things go wrong for Max. Branco’s wife gets abducted under Max’s observance. This takes the game to a whole new level, pushing Max in a more darker and deeper storyline.

The change of localization is emphasized by a good deal of cinematic effects: scan lines, amethyst deviance and changing film stock. In the beginning, everything will feel a bit too much, but as soon as you get a hold of the game. All of it will become the part of visuals. And you’ll get comfortable with them. But this does not represent just the world around you. These details fill up Max’s delineation, underlining his fagged disjuncture from the world around him.

Apart from the daylight instead of darkness, the game hasn’t lost its traditional elements. The elements known for making the previous two installments a huge successes.  Max Payne 3 has all the elements from the original 2 installments. Shady characters, non-linear narration, and an extremely twisted and dark storyline. Everything’s in the game, and in its complete glory. People who are not followers of genre excogitation might find the supporting characters bit comically generic, and the story line bit tenuous. But to be honest, there’s a noted difference between prototypal characters, that’s because you’re creatively exhausted, and intentionally intercepting into an ample custom. Max Payne 3 does that too, but latter. It’s a game which fully fits the genre it belongs to, and it’s one of the finest creations in the gaming history to date. And then there’s a kick-ass performance by James McCaffrey as Max Payne. James portray Max exactly as he is, croaked and vitriolic. He delivers the whole script brilliantly, and without any flaw. And it’s kind of surprising how Max started seeking absolution. Saving someone else’s wife. This raises a question. Is Max really seeking absolution, or he’s all set for a suicide mission, which will lead to his own destruction.

The gameplay is simple, yet highly refined and satisfying. The game offers a wide range of weapons, but you can carry only 2 of them at the same time. Which includes 2 sidearms and 1 two handed weapon. And as soon as you choose dual wield, you’ll be forced to drop the more powerful weapon. This keeps the whole gunplay mechanics simple and unlittered. Max’s signature abilities, Bullet Time and Shoot Dodge are back. And the good thing is that they’re easy to master. This means you won’t have to spend long time trying to execute these abilities perfectly. The game also offers amply destructible environments resulting in intense and highly gratifying firefights. Though the core gameplay still remains simple, watching the environment around you in slow motion with broken glass, shredded paper, dead bodies and whirling bullets is insanely satisfying. Sometimes it makes you feel that you’re in the game. And you only need to master the game mechanics, and the rest is a walk in the park. Now here’s a little thing I disliked. Max has no extra abilities apart from the one he had already, but here’s a fun thing. The regenerating health system is not present in the game anymore. This makes the game more fun and tense, because your health won’t regenerate, and you’ll have to play like a dire man. You can’t hide behind cover and wait for your health to regenerate, because it won’t happen and the cover will be in pieces.

Max Payne 3 is unapologetically violent. To be honest, the game lurks on violence. But not in a flashy or stunning manner. The game highlights one of the most splanchnic expressions. The tormented bullet wounds, scorched flesh, discerped limbs. Everything is present, but the game also manages to show all the reasons behind such violence. Max Payne 3 shows the inequality between the rich and the poor, and how acrimoniousness  and desperation can maturate slums and penthouses at the same time. All of this is not only in the main story line, it’s also present in the nine disputes of accidental narratives recovered in the clues constellated about the meticulously-forged environments. Game offers a kill-camera also, and it’s one of the game’s visual milestones. It follows Max’s last bullet to the unfortunate one, but it never subtilizes the violence.

Considering that it’s a Rockstar game. Max Payne 3 lacks freedom. It’s quite easy to realize how Sao Paolo’s shantytowns could have been used as impoverished maze, with confused Max bewildered in bedraggled alleys. But instead of all that, the game provides you with simple pathways. This leaves the doubt of where to go or who to shoot, since everything is placed in front of your eyes. The singleplayer story lasts 10-12 hours. And apart from the singleplayer, the game offers several Arcade modes too that includes score challenges and speed runs. This will keep you busy once you are done with the singleplayer campaign. There’s a mode called New York Minute, in this mode you’re task with playing through the campaign, only this time with a 5 minute clock on your head. The rules are simple, kill the bad guys, and earn time. It’s fun, but that’s highly unlikely anyone will go through the entire campaign again just to play in this mode. But it still provides a lot of intense action.

The real surprise in the game is its multiplayer. Yes, Max Payne 3 comes with multiplayer. And it provides a lot of fun. It’s simply a elated bedlam. Specially the Gang Wars, in this mode you will play 4 rounds, each with different objectives that will keep on changing according to what happened in the last round, the objectives range from taking control of territory, planting bomb and assassinating a randomly chosen team leader of the enemy team. All of this helps in going to the fifth and the final round which becomes an overall deathmatch. You’ll get access to Bursts, which acts like perks. These will give advantage to you and your team members.

There are several games out there that are illustrious for their gameplay but miss anything in the way of story or the protagonist. Max Payne 3 is a different kind of suggestion. The gameplay is simple and straight, yet highly satisfying. The best thing about the game is its powerfully-penned narrative. The game doesn’t give us the ability to just walk around, and do anything we want. And some gamers might find this too dominating. But in return the game gives you an amazing story line, gritty and violent action, shady characters, and a highly satisfying gameplay that will leave you wanting for more.

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