Video Game Review: Max Payne 3

Max Payne 3 is a game hailing from a long time series of Max Payne games. The name itself is enough to make people raise eyebrows, but the original title was made in 2001, a time in which snapshots made up the faces of characters and their heads were always hilariously blocky.
Here's the protagonist of Max Payne. Mr Facey-Constipatey.

Ever played a PS1 games? Very straightforward, linear shooter with basic puzzle elements. Max Payne 2, released on PS2 and Xbox in 2003.

Fast forward to 2012, and we get Max Payne 3.

It is important to remember that this is incredibly close to the revival of Duke Nukem  in Duke Nukem Forever.

What sets Max Payne 3 apart is the fact that it has taken a concept, moved it from PS1 to PS2 to PS3 and added story, concepts, more intricate plot details, more harrowing imagery of Max's painkiller and alcohol abuse which, in the PS1 era, would simple have been plot distraction to explain away why he was shooting everyone and/or running as if he had Parkinson's disease.

The story of Max Payne 3 is that Max is a disgraced cop who nurses his sorrows at a bar after his wife and daughter were murdered. 

He gets a job offer from a man named Passos which he then turns out. After a drunken argument, Max accidentally kills the douchey son of a local mob boss who then puts a bounty on Max's head. After killing most of the mob boss's men with Passos, he finally takes up his job offer.

After that, Max and Passos work for the Branco family, working as the families security before he's double crossed multiple times in events that would involve far too many spoilers.

If you're unfamiliar with Max Payne, then you may not recall "bullet time", 

That thing from The Matrix? Max Payne did it first. 2001. Before the film came out.

In Max Payne 3, bullet time can be activated at any point and uses "adrenaline" which drains as bullet time continues and ticks up as you kill enemies. During bullet time everything slows down but you can also leap back, forward, left and right whilst firing for evasion purposes. Obviously, it is most fun to do this over ledges, but the cover system also allows you to bullet time down the side of long desks and use the environment to throw yourself around with great, deadly, success. However, if you are me, it is also possible to bullet time yourself in a non-heroic fashion into walls and furniture and then get shot to bits when time speeds back up.

I still like having free reign of jumping though. It makes the worthwhile bullet time activations feel all the more cooler.

You know, unlike some games which insist that you do things in a certain way to progress.

There are also events every level where you'll be near a conveniently breakable window, on a moving fork lift, on a high ledge underneath something soft and in various places whereby the game says "You don't have to, but the opportunities are all there."

Also, the last enemy alive, outside of bullet time or not, is killed in super slow motion.

You then see the enemy fall down, getting a lovely glimpse of where you've punctured Mr Unfortunate.

This gameplay element is so popular it has been seen in Skyrim, Sniper Elite 1,2 and 3 and multiple other popular games in its own unique combat system.

Max Payne 3 is £3.50 to £4 in CEX and in GAME, £3.99.

Until next time, namaste.