played max payne 3 a year ago and had mixed feelings about it , give it a second chance yesterday on hard difficultyand well here are my thoughts
PROS
- impressive voice acting and dialogue : the voice cast are very impressive across the board especially max .Brazilian voice cast even from the smallest of roles are also well executed and very convincing
- very good graphics : the graphical are particularly good for the most part. bullet shatters the environment and human bodies realistically.
- good & gritty story : rock-star has done an amazing job at creating a good story centered around the Brazil criminal under-wood
- stunning visual & sound: rock-star has also done an impeccable job in re-creating the essence of Brazil from the slum to its high society . combined with the Brazilian soundtrack makes the trip to Brazil an immersive one. cut-scenes are played out in comic-panel style which I though made the game fell unique.
CONS
- repetitive game-play : Max Payne game-play is pretty one dimensional, shoot 100 guys, cut-scene, shoot another 100 guys, cut-scene. where games like uncharted offer traversal, stealth, puzzles, platforming or mass effect that has powers and co-op that help mixes up the game-play max Payne only has bullet time (a feature that has been used tirelessly since its inception). this and a defective checkpoint system to boot the game tends to cross the line between fun & tedious.
- broken game-play mechanics: through my course of the game I couldn't help question if the game was going through an identity crisis between been Max Payne successor and 3rd person shooter. the first 10-20 mins are well designed, bigger environments with considerable amount of cover which perfectly fits the bill of its two identities. however later section in the game tend to get cramped which greatly hinders the very effective dive mechanic. in such situation one may decide to use cover but the cover system is almost second thought and not very effective especially against a hoard of enemies (which is mostly the case in this game). another problem with shooting from cover is the wonky aiming or though this can be partly resolved by activating auto-aim and using bullet time. sometimes the game has a bad habit leaving out in the open after a cut-scene
- Max Payne : outside game-play max is a bad-ass but in game-play max is a very sluggish. for instances max doesn't run he jogs which I think is a stupid design choice for a fast paced action game. another instance is after executing a dive, once max hits the floor he takes forever to getup, as if this wasn't bad enough already enemies shot at you with pin-point accuracy. this combined with questionable level design,poor checkpoints and Max's fragility leads to some very very very.........annoying moments in the game.
so is it a bad game? hell no. yes it has its flaws but everything outside game-play is executed extremely well.
My score = 7.8