Published by: Rockstar Games
Developed by: Rockstar Studios
Genre: Shooter
Release Date: US: May 15, 2012
MSRP: $59.99
ESRB: Mature
Also Available On: PlayStation 3, PC
Sorry for posting this review so late, I was ill for days.
So here is an exclusive preview of max Payne 3!
Max Payne has suffered beyond reasonable limits. (It's all
in the name.) Nine years have passed since the last game in the series, yet
little has changed for its long-suffering protagonist, who remains deeply
traumatised by the death of his wife and child. ‘Trauma’ is the key word – in
Greek, it means ‘wound’, and Max is someone who has never let his fully heal.
To move on would be to forget – a betrayal of those he loved – and so instead
he chooses to wallow in the past and the pain, with the help of brown liquor
and white pills.
But thankfully, Max Payne 3 isn’t
content to simply relive the past, and makes bold stylistic and narrative
decisions to avoid stagnation. And though these choices have significant
consequences on the game’s pacing that may prove divisive, Max Payne 3 is
overall a brilliant, darkly-engrossing third outing for one of video games'
most troubled characters.
Ostensibly, Max Payne 3 looks very different from its
predecessors. The rundown tenements and shadowy sidewalks of New York have been
replaced by the hedonistic nightclubs and baking heat of São Paulo, where Max
has taken a job working private security for wealthy businessman Rodrigo
Branco. Unsurprisingly, things don’t work out for Max: Rodrigo’s trophy wife,
Fabiana, is kidnapped on Max’s watch, which sets in motion a chain of events
that draws Max into a much larger, more sinister story.
The change of location is underscored by a raft of cinematic
effects: scan lines, chromatic aberration, shifting film stock. Initially, it
all seems a bit much, too noisy and distracting, but after a while you
acclimatise and it becomes part of the game’s distinctive texture. But it’s not
just stylish gloss – like everything in the game, it feeds into the
characterisation of Max, emphasising his jaded disconnection from the world
around him.
Despite swapping the shadows for the sun, the series hasn’t
lost its hardboiled heritage. The non-linear narrative, the cast of suspicious
characters, a plot twisted by deception and corruption – it’s all present and
correct. If you’re not a fan of genre fiction, you might find the supporting
cast risibly generic, the plot a bit flimsy, but there’s a marked difference
between using archetypal characters because you’re creatively spent and
deliberately tapping into a rich tradition. Max Payne 3 does the latter – it’s
a game that is fully literate in the genre of which it strives to be a part,
and judged on those terms it’s one of the finest executions of game noir to
date. And nowhere is this better exemplified than in James McCaffrey’s standout
performance as Max Payne. It’s gnarled and bitter, as you would expect – he
effortlessly delivers the script’s many Chandlerlisms with calloused cynicism –
but it’s also a surprisingly nuanced turn. Throughout the game, you're never
sure if Payne's searching for absolution, trying to save another man's wife, or
if he's really on a protracted suicide mission, trying to embrace his own
destruction.
Almost half-way through this review, and I’ve yet to mention
gameplay. Maybe that’s a tacit criticism in itself. It’s not that Max Payne 3’s
gameplay is substandard – far from it – but it’s always firmly in the service
of its overarching narrative. Consequently, the game is heavily punctuated by
cut scenes – some brief, some quite long. And it’s easy to see how their
frequency may prove too intrusive; some players might feel that control is
being taken away from them too soon or given back a little too late.
Ultimately, it’s a trade-off, and if you buy into Max’s plight, cut scenes
become engrossing, and it’s joy to see them bleed seamlessly into the furious
action.
The core gameplay is simple yet refined. Although there are
a range of distinctive weapons in the game, you can only carry two side-arms
and one two-handed weapon at any given time. And if you choose to dual-wield,
you’re forced into dropping the larger, potentially more powerful weapon. It
keeps things straightforward and uncluttered. Max’s signature time-bending
moves – Bullet Time and Shoot Dodge – return, and are easy to pick up and
master. The game’s fully-destructible environments really intensify firefights
– seeing the air around you slowly woven with spiralling bullets, fractured
glass, and plumes of shredded paper is genuinely thrilling. They’re simple
mechanics, but once you’ve mastered combining them, the action and destruction
you can orchestrate is breathtaking. It’s a little disappointing for a game
that invests so heavily in the development of its protagonist not to reflect
this at the level of gameplay: Max has no new abilities available to him that
aren’t there from the start. But the inclusion of a non-regenerating health
system does a great job of forcing you to play like a desperate man on the
edge. You can’t cowardly hide behind a pillar waiting for you health to return
– it won’t, and the pillar will crumble.
Max Payne 3 is unapologetically violent. In fact,
it lingers on violence, but not in a tawdry or sensational way. Yes, it focuses
on some of its most visceral manifestations – ragged bullet wounds, charred
flesh, dismembered limbs – but it also peers into the unseen causes that lie
behind such acts of violence. It touches on the disparity between rich and
poor, and how resentment and desperation can fester in the slums and the
penthouses alike. This isn’t only tackled in the main story, but also in nice
scraps of incidental narrative recovered in clues dotted about the meticulously-crafted
environments.
The game’s kill camera -- another one of the game’s many
visual flourishes -- tracks the final bullet from Max’s gun to its intended
target, but it never sublimates the violence. Although you’ll kill hundreds of
people in Max Payne 3, it remains a grisly business throughout.
However, the action set-pieces seem a little muted,
especially when compared to, say, the spectacular recent capers of Nathan
Drake. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The difference in execution is
perhaps best explained through a comparison. In Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception,
there’s a well-known scene in which Sully and Drake must escape from a French
château before it burns to the ground. It’s exciting and adrenaline-inducing,
but it doesn’t really serve much purpose in terms of the game’s narrative. It’s
just another one of Uncharted’s many impressive set-pieces. A similar scene
occurs in Max Payne 3; a building is set on fire and Max must escape before he
is incinerated. But this isn’t just eye-candy or glitzy spectacle. Admittedly,
it’s less exhilarating than Uncharted’s equivalent scene but it’s also has
greater significance. Max has found himself at his lowest ebb inhabiting an
environment quickly resembling hell – the metaphorical significance of which
isn’t lost on Max. This is when the game is at its strongest – when gameplay,
character and narrative all wonderfully fuse and interplay. For adrenaline
junkies -- those who lust after bigger and fierier explosions, more extravagant
death-defying scenarios -- the set-pieces in Max Payne 3 might seem a tad
sedate. (Saying that, you still get to shoot missiles out of the air in
slow-motion while dangling from a helicopter.) But it’s a game that is more
concerned with making its spectacles mean something within the confines of its
story.
For a Rockstar game there’s also conspicuous lack of freedom
in Max Payne 3. It’s easy to imagine how Sao Paolo’s favelas could have been
realised as kind of destitute labyrinth, with a disorientated Max lost amidst
its ramshackle alleys, but instead the game always provides you with a
well-defined pathway. There’s never any doubt where to go or who to shoot,
since you can always feel the spectral touch of an authorial hand pushing you
forwards, towards the next checkpoint, the next cutscene. Occasionally the
promise of liberty is dangled in front of the player – when Max is equipped
with a silenced weapon, you wonder if sections can be tackled with a more
stealthy approach – but it’s never long before the excrement collides with the
industrial turbine.
The single-player story lasts around 10-12 hours. Max Payne
3 has a variety of Arcade modes – from score challenges to speed runs to keep
you busy once you finish the main story. In New York Minute, you're tasked with
playing through the campaign with a clock counting down from five minutes above
your head. The premise is simple: kill guys to earn time. It's like Time
Crisis, and a lot of fun, but it's unlikely that you'll play through the entire
again exclusively in this mode. Still, it's nice way to sample key parts of the
narrative again, especially if you're partial to a state of constant anxiety.
It’s the multiplayer that is the real surprise, however.
It’s gleeful pandemonium. Gang Wars, in particular, attempts something rather
ambitious, trying to weave narrative into what is usually a player-determined
mode. You'll play four rounds, with different objectives that alter depending
on what happens in each of them: from claiming territory to defusing bombs to
assassinating a randomly selected leader of the opposing gang. This accumulates
a point advantage going into the fifth and final round, which always takes the
form of an all-out death match. Bursts, which function like perks, are central
to this mode, and confer advantages to the members of your crew, from raising
the calibre of your weapons to inducing paranoia in the opposing team, making
friendlies appear as enemies. Gang Wars has lofty aspirations, and it's not
entirely successful - you're not left with enduring memories of these
vignettes, nor does it feel as if they're really filling in gaps in the game's
narrative once Max has exited stage left pursued by hooded thug. But it doesn't
really matter since the gameplay itself is relentless fun, giving players a
sense of freedom absent from the single-player campaign. It's also laudable to
see a developer trying to innovate in the multiplayer space, rather than simply
rehashing the mainstays. Max Payne’s multiplayer is definitely not an
afterthought, and will certainly reward players with months of enjoyment.
CLOSING COMMENTS
There are plenty of games which are celebrated for their
gameplay but lack anything in way of story or character. Max Payne 3 is a
different type of proposition. The gameplay is simple yet satisfying, but it’s
entirely in the service of a strongly-authored narrative. Players aren’t at the
liberty to roam, to explore, or to shake things up. Some might find this too
controlling, but in return for your freedom, you’re rewarded with a mature
genre piece which is also a finely-realised character study. Action games
continue to inch the dial towards 11, sometimes at the expense of their
narrative integrity. Max Payne 3, however, has the conviction to reign in the
action, imbue it with purpose - the spectacle still sparkles but it also makes
sense.
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