Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Max Payne 3 Review



Max Payne 3 is a third person shooter by Rockstar Games and was released in May 2012 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC and to OS X in June 2013. It was released nine years after Max Payne 2 came out in 2003.




PLOT

Max Payne 3 has Max working as a bodyguard after being fired from the NYPD. After an incident where Max killed the son of a powerful Mob boss he heads to Sao Paulo to work for a the family of three rich brothers. When the members of the family are attacked, held from ransom or outright killed Max finds himself in a mess with the local police, the mob and an organ theft organization.


GAMEPLAY

Max Payne 3 is a third person shooter in the same style as Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto games. As you make your why through the 14 different missions you use whatever guns you find in the game against the baddies. Your health doesn't heal itself like in Call Of Duty so you need to keep your eye out for bottles of pills that will heal your health.

The game also contains evidence scattered around in each level to find. You can also find golden parts scattered around the game, when you find all the parts for each gun it will make the gun golden when you use it within the game.

When you are shot buy a bullet that would otherwise kill you that game will give you a chance to survive called "Last Stand". To use Last Stand you need to have at least one bottle of painkillers on you. When you are shot you start to fall down in slow motion. If you can kill the guy that hit you before you hit the ground you will survive the hit and lose a bottle of pain killers. It's a great feature that really can save your butt in a big fire fight.

Max Payne 3 is the first in the series to incorporate cover. When the bullets start to fly you can have Max dive behind cover to stop the bullets from killing him. Just like in the real world ducking behind things that won't stop a bullet won't stop them in this game. It's another feature that Rockstar added to make the game even better than the last one.

There are also "Grinds" within the game. Each grind has different levels that are unlocked when a goal is reached. An example is so many kills with a hand gun. The grinds don't do anything to game play instead it's just a thing to keep players playing after they've beaten the game.

There are multi player games available to play online. I never played any of them so I do not know what they are like.

PRESENTATION

The look of this game is great. The characters are very detailed and are some of the best looking in this generation of games. The sound effects and music work well. The only thing I didn't like was during the cut scenes the game would put some of the words the characters were saying on the screen while the picture is constantly changing colors or the clarity of the game. I'm assuming this is an attempt to make the game look distinct and edgy but the truth of it is that to me it just looked like the makers were trying to make the game look extra cool.


This game also utilizes "bullet time" which was made famous by the original Max Payne. If you look closely you can see the bullets flying by and when you switch Bullet Time on you can really see them flying at you. It's is a really cool system and works great.

Actual game footage of bullets flying past Max
Another feature that looks great is when you hit someone with a kill shot. The game zooms in on the guy and in slow motion shows the bullet hitting him with blood flying everywhere. It is gratuitous but it is very cool and makes you fell like you're a great shot.

Max Payne 3 runs on the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) that was used in the making of Grand Theft Auto 4 and Red Dead Redemption among other games so if you've played those games you'll fell right at home with Max Payne 3.

Playing this game makes you feel like you're in the middle of an action movie. Jumping through windows, big explosions and the bullet time and Last Stand all combine to give you a great cinematic action game.

I ran into no glitches or bugs which is always good for a game. The only thing that I encountered was when I killed a guy and after he was dead on the ground his gun, which was near the corpse but not touching him, started to fire on it's own. It was very funny and I wished it would have happened more because it reminded me like something out of a Three Stooges short.

This game is definitely not for kids as it contains nudity, lots of swearing and the kill shots I mentioned above would be pretty graphic for a kid to see.



DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT

Rockstar Games released numerous online DLC packages after the game was released. All of it is for online multi player levels and is not recommended for purchase today. I didn't try to play any of the online modes so I don't know how many people are still playing it. If you are interested you should buy the Rockstar Pass which gives you call the DLC at a price that is lower than buying them all separately.

SUMMARY


Max Payne 3 is a great third person shooter from Rockstar Games. It takes everything from the first two games and keeps all their best parts while adding new parts that only enhance the game. The game to complete took around ten to twelve hours to finish which is pretty good for a game like this. With this being a Rockstar game there is a lot of things that you can go back to unlock giving you more value for your money if you like finding everything in a game. I give Max Payne 3 a 9 out of 10.


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