"Max himself is little more than a Man Child awash in his own Wangst who lacks any of the self-awareness or morals he had in the last two games, nor does he look or sound anything like how he did before"
In addition to being completely inept and seeming to do nothing but fuck up for about 3/4 of the story. I mean compared to other Rockstar protagonists he's completely awful.
I think they did the right thing by moving to Brazil as there is only so many times you can reuse snowy night time New York. They did screw up the story and writing terribly though. Max is such a judgemental, self-pitying, moapy git who really needed to shut up and stop fucking complaining all the time. We are given a story we can barely engage in, full of characters we are instructed not give a shit about, carried by the world's most incompetent body guard. I was hoping that once Max quited the booze and buzz cuts his hair, we'd at least see a new side to him, and the end to that god awful filter on the camera that kept happening during every cut scene. But no!
My biggest frustration though is the lack of ammo. In the previous Max Payne games, I practically pissed bullets towards my enemies. It didn't matter that I was wasting ammo, because the game wanted me to take part in this Matrix style bullet hell. But in 3, I was perpetually running out of ammo, even when I was being stingy and precise.
Book me today! I also review weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs.
Eh, I disagree. The game certainly had problems, but a tonal shift wasn't really one of them. I replayed MP 2 for about the sixth time after finishing MP3, and he's a brooding, unpleasant git of a man there too. He still lives in a slum, he still berates himself constantly for his various failures, he still alternatively bitches at and is betrayed by his allies. I get that a lot of people were disappointed that MP 2's Happy Ending Max reverted back into Brooding Max by the start of MP3, but the exact same thing happened between the first and second games. He'll surely be a wreck again if someone makes an MP 4, despite MP3 ending on a happy note.
As for the actual gameplay, I suppose YMMV. I found the gunplay very satisfying, if surprisingly brutal- both in terms of visuals and difficulty. I've done a couple run-throughs of MP 2 on the highest difficulty without ever using Bullet Time; trying to do something similar in MP3 got me murdered messily. I'm glad that Max lacked regenerating health, but Rockstar really needed to be more liberal in handing out painkillers.
I completely agree with the interface criticism though. I understand that it's supposed to symbolize his killer hangover or whatever, but it grows wearisome very quickly. The game also ought to have unlocked full subs for second playthroughs, there isn't much point in having enemy chatter and in-game television programs if the vast majority of the audience can't understand them.
Max was not at all portrayed by Sam Lake the same way as the worthless thug that Dan Houser wrote him in Max Payne 3 and frankly its insulting to see Lake's writing suffer the indignity of being compared to Houser's "writing". If Remedy did 3, I'm sure Lake would have a tasteful, artistic way of resetting Max's state for it.
And the gameplay in Max Payne 3 is nothing like the sheer beauty of the gameplay in Max Payne 2. Max never had weapon limits, or needing to aim weapons, or weapon recoil, up until Houser and his fellow hacks at Rockstar decided to take a dump upon everything Sam Lake and Remedy made. Gotta rope in them Grand Theft Auto fans!
I'm willing to guess that most of the people who somehow liked Max Payne 3 are people who buy and enjoy anything Rockstar puts their name on no matter how much of a turd it is, or have never played the original games and live in ignorance to how much of a disgrace 3 makes out of the two before it.
Erm, as someone who hasn't played any of those games, can you just get me up to speed on these two things?
or remain true to the laughably outdated gunfighting styled after The Matrix
Max never had weapon limits, or needing to aim weapons, or weapon recoil
So you're essentially saying that Max Payne's gunfighting was laughably outdated, yet you are also saying that the first two games were good because you didn't need to aim, could stuff any number of guns into your pants and had all guns feel like flashlights - i.e. all the things (with the possible exception of weapon limits) that are now considered laughably outdated?
Calm down, Baron. For the record, MP3 was the first and only Rockstar game I've ever played. "You're just a fanboy!" is an awfully lame argument.
There's hardly any difference between Max's character in 2 & 3. The second game is just a little less in-your-face about how terrible he is at managing his own life. In MP 2 he lives in a disgusting, garbage-strewn apartment in what appears to be a housing project. His boss leaves him messages telling him to join Alcoholics Anonymous. Max constantly ignores Winterson and Mona's advice and gets at *least* a couple people killed by playing cowboy. He's terrible at everything except killing people and doesn't manage to save anyone except in the secret ending (which MP3 doesn't take as canon). He narrates constantly on his regular failures.
I love the heck out of MP 2, the narrative is one my all-time favorites, but Max has never been anything but an unpleasant, bull-headed man who is wracked with self-loathing and terrible at everything except killing massive numbers of criminals quickly. MP3 was still a much darker game than MP 2, but largely because the villains were so much worse and Max's severe personal and psychological issues were portrayed more realistically.
If you really can't stand MP3, just accept that the Max Payne timeline splits depending on whether you got the secret ending in MP 2 or not. If you didn't, MP3 occurs. If you did, Max and Mona somehow avoid multiple life sentences & live happily ever after.
Eh. I dunno. Whether or not Mona Sax lives or dies, the ending of Max Payne 2 strongly indicates that things are gonna be okay with him. It's a really great ending, either way, and Max Payne 3 kinda just goes "thbbbt" on it. So that kinda just leaves a sour taste in my mouth from the get-go.
Complaints about the changes in mechanics, however, are less reasonable. The only reason Max Payne 2 didn't have cover-based shooting was because cover-based shooting wasn't a thing at the time.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks, the review.
Seriously, grow up.
^ The "change only works in one direction and is always good" comment.
Now that we're done with quotes and potholes, I would like to clarify that while I'm not a fan of the original review, the comment above is hilariously close-minded to the point of self-parody.
Oh I'm sorry, forgive me for taking offense to this guy insulting me and other simply because we liked what he disliked.
\"They Changed It, Now It Sucks, the review.
Seriously, grow up. \"
Literally the only half-decent comment here.
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3 = So Bad, It's Horrible
When Rockstar first announced Max Payne 3, fans were outraged and fearful. A bald, bearded, fat Max Payne in the slums of Brazil? Serving as a bodyguard for the rich? What nonsense is this?
Those fears were completely justified.
Max Payne 3 is Max Payne In Name Only. At best, it's Rockstar's attempt at a video game version of Man on Fire. The cast is completely made up of petty, vain, Grand Theft Auto style caricatures who die horribly. Max himself is little more than a Man Child awash in his own Wangst who lacks any of the self-awareness or morals he had in the last two games, nor does he look or sound anything like how he did before. That's bad enough coming off of Max Payne 2's story, which was close to True Art as video games go, but unskippable cutscenes make it utterly insufferable. The gameplay also suffers from not knowing if it wants to be a cover shooter or remain true to the laughably outdated gunfighting styled after The Matrix, and ends up unfocused and overly difficult. The soundtrack dumps the Awesome Music of the second game for grating electronic stuff and the graphics and animation are just okay, but don't hold a candle to the groundbreaking graphics of the second game. I'd probably hold them in slightly better regard if it wasn't for the constant Interface Screw the game throws at you.
Rockstar claims that Max Payne 3 was developed with input by Remedy, but there's no sign of Remedy's Signature Style to be found here so I'm convinced they were lying. Max Payne 3 is easily among the worst games made in the past 5 years and an insult to Sam Lake's nigh-peerless writing. Rockstar didn't even have the guts to give Max the tragic death in the snow he deserved! Fans of 3 should be ashamed for defending this garbage and its appalling to see most of the tropes on the page be for 3 instead of 2 or even 1.
If you want the real Max Payne 3, play Remedy's Alan Wake. It even contains the true ending of Max Payne as an Easter Egg!