Which do you prefer?
Uncharted 3 vs Max Payne 3
I actually wrote a review for Max Payne 3 after it came out, I used to write reviews for a friends website quite frequently, fantastic game.
News of Max Payne 3 being developed sent a shock wave through the gaming community, a fantastic series like this getting an update after nearly 10 years was something the players had been asking for and were about to receive. As more news surfaced about the game everyone came to realize that Remedy, the developer of both Max Payne and Max Payne 2 would not be creating it, but rather Rockstar Games who was one of the publishers for both prior games. As if that was not a big enough shock, Sam Lake the writer of the series was no longer on board for the journey into a trilogy.
All of this was very concerning, it is something that has happened to so many games before and became the direct result of their inevitable failure. It gave the immediate feeling of a movie that should have ended with a sequel but was turned into a trilogy with an entirely new cast of actors or something made simply because they could. As time rolled on myself and others continually got more nervous about the project, the direction of it, location, story and the main question on our minds. If this game is a flop could us playing it directly result in tarnishing all the wonderful experiences that were had in the first two games, and ultimately destroy what Max Payne meant to us, we were about to find out.
Old and retired from the NYPD living in New Jersey, addicted to pain medication and suffering from alcoholism of the worst kind is the fate that has befallen Max over the last 9 years. A loser, a poor excuse for a human being trying to drown his guilt and sorrow with any alcohol he can get his hands on. Not being a cop anymore and the depression of losing every person who ever meant a damn to him has pushed him further down the rabbit hole than he has ever been before. A sad sob on the brink of total self destruction with an itchy trigger finger and nothing to lose just looking for a way out.
Due to an unforeseen series of events Max finds an exit from his shallow existence and a fresh start in South America, São Paulo, Brazil to be exact. Raul, an old acquaintance of Max intervenes in his life in New Jersey and offers him a job doing private security contracting for a wealthy family known as the Branco's, to which he has no choice but to accept given the bleak circumstances at the time. The thing about starting a new life is cutting the ties and behavior to your past life, Max is not so good about this. He falls back into his old drinking habits escorting around an eccentric, club hopping member of the Branco family, Marcelo.
There are three brothers in the Branco family, Rodrigo, Victor and Marcelo, all of which are very different individuals who master in business, politics and of course Marcelo, clubbing and getting laid. Not keeping his eye on the ball due to his habitual and constantly festering inebriated state, Max, Raul and the Branco family are caught off guard in a massive raid by the Comando Sombra (guerrilla military force) which results in Rodrigo and his wife Fabiana being kidnapped. After an alcohol fueled shoot out from the penthouse of the building all the way down to the parking garage Max manages to save both Rodrigo and his wife.
This is all very short lived as later on Marcelo takes Max, Raul, Fabiana and her sister Giovanna to a club for a typical Brazilian night on the town. Techno music blaring, girls dancing in skimpy clothing and of course Max huddled up at the bar drinking himself into a coma, again he's drunk and not paying attention which results in disaster. The Comando Sombra raid the nightclub targeting the family again which leads to Fabiana being successfully kidnapped and taken away by them. Max does everything in his power to get her back while littering the club with bullet shells but to no avail, they escape.
Max's story truly begins here, what goes from being just another job gradually turns into a personal vendetta filled with death, destruction, deceit and revenge. Max Payne 3 should have coined the name from the second game "The Fall of Max Payne", as in this title he sinks lower than any previous level he has before.
Max Payne 3 is an emotional roller coaster, love, hate, anger and happiness all rolled into one constant feeling throughout the whole game. It's the most confused I have ever been when playing a game, not because the game itself or story is confusing but rather because I didn't know how I actually felt about it until it was over. It ties in nearly everything that made the original games so good but was also different at the same time. I wanted to hate the game, I told myself I hate the game because it was different but at the end of my experience with it all I could feel was love for it, it's a surreal feeling.
Rockstar somehow managed to change Max, they took what Remedy did and made it their own without sacrificing too much of what made the games so iconic. They removed the film-noir feel and aspects of the game in place for a more Hollywood style in your face vendetta approach. Even though he would basically kill everyone in both Max Payne and Max Payne 2, he comes off much more at the end of his rope, more brutal, vengeful, violent and Human in this game. Remedy had their way of making their Max into more of a drama, it was still very action filled but there was always a strong emphasis on comedy and over dramatizing a situation, their approach was very light in comparison. If you want a good example of what I mean compare Micheal Keaton's Batman & Batman Returns (Max Payne 1 & 2) to Christian Bale's Batman Begins & The Dark Knight (Max Payne 3).
It paid off, it paid off very big and was at first an unwelcome bit of change but as the game progressed you could not help but find yourself more engaged in what is happening with Max than ever before. Change does come with its drawbacks though, this is mainly in relation to how the story telling works this time around. The graphic novel comics of the past are gone and replaced with cut scenes that directly change from scripted scene into live gameplay, it's very seamless. However, there is an abundance of these scenes throughout the game which take a sense of control away from you as a player as you cannot skip them. They happen so often it does borderline on annoying at times but if you look beyond it into the story being told it's somewhat easy to overlook it.
The overall gameplay mechanics, shoot dodging and bullet time have been improved upon ten fold, they took Remedy's original design and expanded on it. Motion and changing direction is fluid, bullet time has been refined, you can now make use of the new cover system as well as a new feature which allows you to land on the ground after a jump, rotate 360 degrees and shoot to retain full control of Max at all times. Everything about the actual gameplay is improved, they took it to the next level and did it with the player and functionality in mind.
There are a lot of things to do in the game aside from the general story and multiple difficulties which can be unlocked upon game completion when playing on Hard. During the game you will find gold gun parts scattered around the maps, I am not sure what their actual functionality is but gold gun are amazing and it's fun to find the parts when navigating the game. There is now an Arcade mode which allows you to play through your favorite parts of the game with a point system for kills you rack up and in which way you kill them. It's fun and light entertainment after you play through the story and increases the overall replay value beyond the 8-12 hour campaign depending on difficulty.
Along with the Arcade mode, multiplayer has been added to the ranks of the game. The multiplayer doesn't add anything amazing to the series but it's nice that it was included for those who want to take their gameplay experience to the next level. It has tons of different modes and unlockables which will keep you busy as you crawl your way up the leader boards and improve your rank, it functions very similarly to Call of Duty in terms of multiplayer progression.
The gameplay features are not the only thing this game offers, performance and setting customizability are second to none. This is not a simple console port with horrible performance or lack of visual settings, it's a cross platform game which was specifically designed for the PC and boasts every setting you could ever need for refining the visuals to suit your PC performance level. With this new development strategy Rockstar actually managed to create a game which runs as good as it looks, no more repeats of the performance issues of GTA IV or L.A. Noire, this game is fully optimized and will use every bit of your hardware as it should be used.
In conclusion Max Payne 3 is a phenomenal game and a beautiful piece of story telling, you get everything that the first two games offered and even more with a twist. There are a few things that are somewhat annoying like the cut scenes and a few of the visual effects but if you really let that get in the way of what this product is offering, it's your loss. This game reminds you of the plight of man, doing the right thing no matter the cost, standing up for what you believe in and no matter how bad things get you can turn your life around and better yourself. These things may not be told in a traditional sense but the message is still there and it was heard loud and clear, fight through the pain because there is always hope.
9/10
@Gamerno6666 said:
Your thread are crap. Stop doing the VS thing everywhere.
Don't read them. It's pretty simple.
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