The story posits that Payne is working in private security for a wealthy and obnoxious Brazilian family вЂ“ hired by a friend called Raul Passos after a reunion gunfight in a deadbeat New York bar. If the first Max Payne games were a hymn to John Woo, weвЂ™re now very much in the territory of Michael Mann. Max suddenly feels like less of a self-knowing clichГ©, and more like the desperate, forgetful and pill-popping alcoholic he truly is. TheyвЂ™ve made Max Payne a person, rather than an action-cipher. You only realise it halfway through the game, but when realisation dawns itвЂ™s stirring. Replacing that very European streak of nonsense, however, is RockstarвЂ™s increasingly familiar super-earnest approach to cut-scenes, character and cinematic chicanery. In the last game dream moments and that remarkable non-combat sequence in MonaвЂ™s funhouse provided natural and fascinating breaks from the action, but the Rockstar blend prefers to concentrate on all-action, all-the-time. Something else excised from the record, meanwhile, is the eccentricity that Remedy once laced throughout former Max Paynes. Why do something that makes you look and feel like an action hero, when holding back behind cover means youвЂ™re more likely to survive? The shame, then, is that the difficulty encourages over-cautious play.

In Max Payne 3 the risk of death and restart is often too great. In former Max Payne games your pleasure often came from choreographing your own action: you would do a death-defying leap and shotgun takedown simply because you knew it would look good. The real issue with this isnвЂ™t so much the frustration, however вЂ“ itвЂ™s the impact it has on the way you play. If youвЂ™re getting killed a little too often the game will drip-feed you extra painkillers, but theyвЂ™ll rarely numb this particular sore spot. Sometimes youвЂ™ll have to get through an area where youвЂ™re not so much living on your wits as your Groundhog Day-style recollection of exactly where each enemy will pop out of the scenery. Even when playing on the normal difficulty level with a soft-lock aim system, there are bottlenecks and moments of extreme frustration as Max dies again and again. Max Payne 3 is a long and punishing game, and is often poorly checkpointed. There is, however, occasional bullet malaise. When those kills finish off with bullet-cam and a face wound, or neatly slink into FMV action thatвЂ™s framed with tropes from all the best action movies (a helicopter tumbling overhead from The Rock, Max swimming beneath a burning curtain of oil as Arnie does in True Lies) that satisfaction is doubled down.

YouвЂ™ll dive down the steep steps of a football stadium peppering oncoming armoured goons with Uzi fire, and youвЂ™ll snipe them as they dash around the roof of a skyscraper nightclub вЂ“ and itвЂ™ll all feel rather marvellous. The essential fabric of Max Payne 3 combat is meaty and engaging, and seeing as the game entire relies on aiming and shooting, thatвЂ™s something of a win. Max begins and ends the game with the self-same powers of slo-mo and shoot-dodge, relying on your headshot hunger and a somewhat slow-burning plot to urge you on. ItвЂ™s a relentless and punishing bullet-chewer with an old school health pack system, and is entirely bereft of todayвЂ™s newfangled rolling XP bonuses and streams of unlocks. Besides, you really canвЂ™t help but have respect for a man who can reload in mid-air.Д«eneath the cinematic Rockstar gravitas, however, Max Payne 3 is a somewhat old-fashioned beast. The animation, the detail of the gun-fight locations and the oil slick of visual and aural swank poured into Max Payne 3 is quite phenomenal. Whether IвЂ™d hurled him left, right or backwards down a flight of stairs вЂ“ when he takes out bad guys Payne cuts a shape that can take your breath away. The unifying factor of all these untimely demises was Max Payne looking fundamentally awesome.

Oh, and these two other guys? I dropped a bus on them, and then blew it up. I even nipped a few in the arm again and again with a rifle вЂ“ until they snuffed it from sheer arm abuse. I killed them in a flashback New York graveyard. I killed them in the favelas of Sao Paulo. In the past few days IвЂ™ve killed a lot of people.

Max payne 3 reviews