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A final shot at redemption.......

 
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11-15-14 08:47 PM
Boxia is Offline
| ID: 1104653 | 3006 Words

Boxia
Level: 95


POSTS: 2258/2714
POST EXP: 150548
LVL EXP: 8654535
CP: 7680.8
VIZ: 3546

Likes: 0  Dislikes: 0
In 2001, Rockstar launched the Max Payne series as something of a side-project from their main "product", Grand Theft Auto. The first installment was critically acclaimed, with its innovative mechanics and grittiness. A sequel was released in 2003 to equally warm reviews but commercial failure. Perhaps the latter is why the long-awaited wrap-up to the series, Max Payne 3, took so long to be released. After its release was postponed many times over a span of nine years and many changes announced each time, the final installment in the Max Payne trilogy was at least released in May-June 2012. Critical reception was largely positive, but fans were much more divisive. Some loved the new path the game took, while others utterly despised it for that reason, disowning it all together. Let's take a closer look.


An escape, or yet another re-run of past experiences?


It has been nine years since former NYPD cop Max Payne killed all of his enemies and avenged those who slayed his loved ones. Despite that, all he has to live for is brooding over past crimes in a bar and an apartment in the slums. During one night of drinking, Max is approached by Raul Passos, who he attended the police academy with. Passos offers Max a job as a bodyguard for a rich family, the Branco's in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Payne is hesitant at first, but accepts after he kills the son of a local mob boss and is faced with its entire army. During a party hosted by the Branco's several of those attending, including real-estate mogul Rodrigo and his wife Fabiana, are kidnapped by the Commando Sombra gang but are rescued by Max. However, the CS strikes several days later when they successfully kidnap Fabiana from a nightclub. A simple game of paying ransom for her return takes a turn when a local paramilitary group ambushes the meeting between Max and the CS, stealing the ransom. Payne's quest to rescue Fabiana soon becomes entangled between webs of deception and corruption as he soon realizes that there is much more to the city and the people he works with than he ever suspected.


Unlike the first two games, Max Payne 3 uses bright "TV" formatted cutscenes to convey the story instead of gritty and cold graphic novels. You may argue that it's betraying the spirit of the series, but I find the cutscenes to be captivating, especially with how some passages flash on screen as they're being read, allowing for a whole new experience that vastly outdoes the bland subtitles of the graphic novel format with how the situation is being portrayed.


The story as a whole is certainly refreshing. After two installments of the generic "redemption in the Big Apple" story, it's great to see a new location with new characters (in fact, Max is the only returning character) and new twists, and it's even better to see it pulled off well. Everything rolls out smoothly and you're always captivated by whatever direction it goes next, in large part thanks to the coolness of the cutscenes.


Mechanics: What's returned and what's new in store?



The most prominent mechanic to return is the series-defining Bullet Time system. Once you activate it, time slows down to the point where you can actually see bullets fly past. Because of that fact, it becomes much easier to dodge bullets and counter-attack, since enemies are also made slower. You may also enter Shoot-Dodge, which packs double ability - You fly through the air avoiding bullets while also shooting back at your foes. Both regular Bullet Time and Shoot-Dodge are implemented very well, largely due to fact that there's always a use for them (you'll always be face-to-face with baddies) and how satisfying they are. Ever wanted to feel like Neo from The Matrix, flying through the air and keeping out of villains’ shots while firing back all the more effectively? This is for you.


Also returning are Painkillers, which remain a critical part of the game despite Payne having developed an addiction to them. As in all Max Payne games, Painkillers act as health-restoring items - taking one will restore about a fifth of your health right away. They can be found just about anywhere, from bathrooms and offices to cabinets and patios. Take note, however, that you can carry only eight and that you need to be conservative with them, i.e. don't take one the second you take a shot to the hand, save it for when your pain meter (like a health meter, only it getting fuller is a bad thing, since it shows how close you are to death from excruciating pain) is fuller.  A new touch to the system is that if you keep dying in a certain part, you'll get a freebie Painkiller to help you out. That new aspect, as well as the Painkiller system in general, is done rather well. The game is always difficult enough to force you to watch how you use them; leading to a rewarding feeling you get whenever you pick one up and use it at just the right moment to prevent death.


A new mechanics mixes both of the aforementioned systems. Last Man Standing combines both Bullet Time and Painkillers to create a unique kind of scheme. If your pain meter fills to fatal amounts but you still have at least one Painkiller on you and at least one bullet in your clip, Last Man Standing will activate. When this is activated, the game goes into Bullet Time, and you have an opportunity to kill the goon who put that final, almost-fatal shot into your body. Should you manage to kill him, Payne will consume the Painkiller and rise with the pain meter reduced a tad. If you don't kill him, Payne will die and you'll have to try again. I must say that this new system is implemented rather well, and it always feels highly satisfying to get up from such a close encounter (especially when you avoid such an incident again for the rest of the section). However, I feel there's a tiny flaw in that sometimes you can't strike back at your killer because he's around a corner or something like that, preventing you from hitting him, and thus surviving. It's a minor issue, but it can kill the fun sometimes whenever it's encountered.


Another new mechanic is the cover system. Now, I’ve always appreciated the cover system, especially when it comes to how many times it saved my rear. When it comes to how it was installed here......my feelings are somewhat mixed. For one thing, I love how it can (and MUST) be used just about anywhere. For any encounter be it with one enemy or twenty, there's always some cover to keep you, well, covered! The continued presence of cover helps you get a tactical advantage and makes it all the more fun to hold your own against the swarm of mooks. However, some items that can be used as cover are pointless or useless altogether. For example, hiding behind an explosive barrel. I'm not even kidding, that's an option during some levels. I'm pretty sure anyone with the brains (or muscle) to hold a gun would know not to hide behind a barrel that explodes when it gets shot, the main thing cover is supposed to protect against. Besides that bit of stupidness, though, the cover system as a whole is rather fun and useful, especially in later levels when you're practically drowning in lead.


Finally we have the main feature of any shooter, guns! There are all kinds of firearms scattered around the game. There are ordinary pistols, machine pistols, assault rifles, sniper rifles, SMG's, even grenade launchers can be picked up along your quest. They all do what any good gun would do - fire man-killing round of death. Of course. But what's new, you might be asking? Firstly, you can dual-wield single-hand weapons of all kinds. This feature was in the first two titles, but only with certain weapons. Here, you can put a Magnum with a machine pistol just fine, so long as you're fine with the delay between the two firing rates. Something that was altered was the melee system. Melee has been transformed from a flimsy last-resort has now become a potent tool as Payne has decided to stop whacking foes and instead pound them to the ground and shoot them in the head. It's certainly more satisfying than it was before, and also more useful, since you can actually do some real damage now. Finally, Molotov’s and Grenades were removed. Enemies can use them, but you can't. I dislike that, since those two weapons were quite potent and useful, especially when faced with a room full of foes. Now you have to clear them out manually, which can be grinding sometimes. As for the weaponry as a whole, it's vast, it's innovative, and there's always a time to shine for all of them (pistols for a few weak enemies, assault rifles for a room of tougher goons, etc.).


New levels and maps, new modes, and more stuff to find.......



Of course with a new game, we need new levels. And new levels we got, with fourteen new maps for each of the game's fourteen chapters. Stuffed into these maps are just about everything you can think of. There are enemies, there are weapons, there's hidden collectibles, there's even a few platforming obstacles for novelty's sake. What helps get so much stuff into a level is their size; fourteen chapters isn't long by modern standards, so the maps needed to be real long to fill the "gap". Although I must give credit to the fact that each level has enough challenges (whether they come as goons, obstacles like high platforms, or hazards like explosive barrels) to appease one, I feel they're a little.....stretched at times. For example, during one mission in the slums, you enter a warehouse. In this warehouse are a plethora of gangsters itching to kill you. So you'd think it would be pretty engaging, right? Not really. Most of the experience is sitting behind cover and waiting for a rare opportunity to off a gangster. That can go on for up to 10 minutes. Try to deviate from that course? Hope you like lead soup of the human variety. For the bulk of levels, however, the engagement level is high, so extra points for that.


So what are collectibles in this game? Golden Guns and evidence pieces, that's what.  Every weapon has a golden counterpart, which deals more damage and has a bigger clip size. How do you find them? Each level has golden gun parts scattered throughout, with three parts for each gun and 1-3 guns for each level. The parts can be found anywhere from counter tops to inside cabinets, though they're usually off the main course. Evidence pieces are more common, and help clarify some more ambiguous bits of the story. They can be anything from incriminating memos to innocent photos left at a crime scene. How much they factor into the story depends on the location and the circumstances (for example, a memo left behind by a strange detective who randomly walked up to you will reveal a bit more info than a magazine on a tabletop in a normal condo. I have a beef with how evidence is pretty much useless besides giving you some closure for undetermined parts of the story. The golden guns have a practical use in combat, but evidence could have been cool in giving you a niche powerup or something. Hey, it's just a suggestion!


So you're tired of the normal campaign formula, eh? Enter Arcade Mode. Here you have three different modes that you can play both to test your skill and rack up points for multiplayer (see below):


-Score Attack: The objective is to accumulate as high a score as possible on levels from the campaign. The higher your score, the better your medal (bronze is worst, platinum is best) and the more points you get towards improving your level. The score is improved by killing enemies (headshots get more points), racking up combos, and causing mayhem. You will be penalized for taking painkillers, entering Last Man Stands, and dying. Other methods for increasing the points you get later are earning achievements.


-New York minute: You start off with a minute to beat a level. You can increase the amount of time you have by killing enemies. You lose time for taking painkillers. The more time you have by the end of the level, the more points you earn.


-New York minute Hard-core: Like New York minute, only time goes twice as fast. You need to be REALLY good to survive here.


In general, I must applaud the inclusion of all these modes, as they're presence adds a whole new layer of depth to the game and enhances the experience greatly. However, I take fault with New York minute Hard-core. Even its new epithet can't describe what you'll experience - sheer brutality and utter pain that's WAY, WAY too unfair. If you have mere milliseconds remaining by the end of a level, that's actually pretty good. Think about that for a bit.


A whole new addition to the Max Payne series is multiplayer. You can get together in pools of up to sixteen to compete in different modes. Or you can get your crew that you might have assembled in the Rockstar Games Social Club (you may know it better from GTA V) and fight with another crew to see who's better. Here is also where the point system mainly comes into play. You can raise your level up to 50 in combat and then further up to Legend 5 (or as I like to call it, level 250). The only real rewards you get for advancing through the levels are new weapons and skins. To be honest, I haven't had much experience in multiplayer, since most of those who bought the game I feel got bored of it within a few months. From what I have played, though, glitches are few and the battle types available (though I only played a few) are rather engaging.  However, I feel there could have been way more unlockable features when you rise through the ranks, as skins and a few weapons aren't going to satisfy any true shooter fan for long periods of time.


Finally, achievements are here to tie together your records in both single-player and multiplayer. There are two kinds - RGSC achievements, which take account of feats in the campaign (like finishing a set of levels) as well as multiplayer (preforming well in a certain map), and "standard" achievements, which are mostly for records like getting 1000 headshots. Getting an achievement in Score Attack will increase the amount of points you get, which gives it something of a practical purpose. All in all, however, I feel the achievements are pretty under-exploited. There could have been achievements for more unique tasks, such as using all of the weapons and getting a super-high score on Score Attack instead of trivializing matters like how many leg shots you got (yeah, there's an achievement for that!).


The darkness is gone, but the atmosphere is here to stay.



The sunny realm of Brazil is a far cry from the seedy grit of New York at night. There are only a handful of levels that take place at night, and even then they're usually in well-lit areas. Despite that, Max Payne 3 manages to retain that noir charm that made its predecessors so popular and still dish out some of the best graphics of any game to date. Textures especially that of backgrounds and buildings, are not overwhelmingly flashy, but are still rather attractive and appealing, with great attention paid to detail, like bricks and even cracks between them. Even doors stand out with how realistic their material is, be it clean-looking metal or beat-up wood. I haven't found any glitches with the graphics so far - everything is just so good-looking. Even tricky moving graphics, like enemies and moveable objects move fluidly and without any unsightly defects. The best part is how nothing is too flashy, with just about every texture and graphics showing "restraint", if I may call it that. This helps add to the noir feel and makes the game even better at getting you into the "zone".


Now, the first two installments had some awesome soundtracks. Epic, in fact. But they have nothing on the sheer masterpiece that is the Max Payne 3 soundtrack. You have elements from electronic, rock, and a multitude of other genres mix into the medley of compositions here. The band HEALTH contributed a few songs, including the climactic piece "Tears" which I urge you to listen to right now, even if you've heard it a million times over, you need to hear it again. In fact, you should tour the whole soundtrack, and listen to every masterpiece billed. You have a tune that fits every situation, be it happy and triumphant or depressed and defeated. They fit those situations perfectly, each note contorting your emotions with great finesse and elegance unrivalled by most other titles. And there's never any glitch that will ruin the moment, and you can always be left in the heat of the moment with you, the situation, and the music to guide you like a specter. All in all, this game's track managed to do something that's dang near impossible for most developers, and for which it deserves a great deal of credit.


Final Verdict:



Max Payne 3 is arguably the best game in its trilogy, with amazing graphics, music, mechanics and an awesome story. If it wasn't for its shortcomings in terms of its multiplayer elements, this game would have easily pulled off a 10/10. Despite that, it's certainly a game any gamer should try, even if you're not into shooters.


Final Score: 9.5/10
In 2001, Rockstar launched the Max Payne series as something of a side-project from their main "product", Grand Theft Auto. The first installment was critically acclaimed, with its innovative mechanics and grittiness. A sequel was released in 2003 to equally warm reviews but commercial failure. Perhaps the latter is why the long-awaited wrap-up to the series, Max Payne 3, took so long to be released. After its release was postponed many times over a span of nine years and many changes announced each time, the final installment in the Max Payne trilogy was at least released in May-June 2012. Critical reception was largely positive, but fans were much more divisive. Some loved the new path the game took, while others utterly despised it for that reason, disowning it all together. Let's take a closer look.


An escape, or yet another re-run of past experiences?


It has been nine years since former NYPD cop Max Payne killed all of his enemies and avenged those who slayed his loved ones. Despite that, all he has to live for is brooding over past crimes in a bar and an apartment in the slums. During one night of drinking, Max is approached by Raul Passos, who he attended the police academy with. Passos offers Max a job as a bodyguard for a rich family, the Branco's in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Payne is hesitant at first, but accepts after he kills the son of a local mob boss and is faced with its entire army. During a party hosted by the Branco's several of those attending, including real-estate mogul Rodrigo and his wife Fabiana, are kidnapped by the Commando Sombra gang but are rescued by Max. However, the CS strikes several days later when they successfully kidnap Fabiana from a nightclub. A simple game of paying ransom for her return takes a turn when a local paramilitary group ambushes the meeting between Max and the CS, stealing the ransom. Payne's quest to rescue Fabiana soon becomes entangled between webs of deception and corruption as he soon realizes that there is much more to the city and the people he works with than he ever suspected.


Unlike the first two games, Max Payne 3 uses bright "TV" formatted cutscenes to convey the story instead of gritty and cold graphic novels. You may argue that it's betraying the spirit of the series, but I find the cutscenes to be captivating, especially with how some passages flash on screen as they're being read, allowing for a whole new experience that vastly outdoes the bland subtitles of the graphic novel format with how the situation is being portrayed.


The story as a whole is certainly refreshing. After two installments of the generic "redemption in the Big Apple" story, it's great to see a new location with new characters (in fact, Max is the only returning character) and new twists, and it's even better to see it pulled off well. Everything rolls out smoothly and you're always captivated by whatever direction it goes next, in large part thanks to the coolness of the cutscenes.


Mechanics: What's returned and what's new in store?



The most prominent mechanic to return is the series-defining Bullet Time system. Once you activate it, time slows down to the point where you can actually see bullets fly past. Because of that fact, it becomes much easier to dodge bullets and counter-attack, since enemies are also made slower. You may also enter Shoot-Dodge, which packs double ability - You fly through the air avoiding bullets while also shooting back at your foes. Both regular Bullet Time and Shoot-Dodge are implemented very well, largely due to fact that there's always a use for them (you'll always be face-to-face with baddies) and how satisfying they are. Ever wanted to feel like Neo from The Matrix, flying through the air and keeping out of villains’ shots while firing back all the more effectively? This is for you.


Also returning are Painkillers, which remain a critical part of the game despite Payne having developed an addiction to them. As in all Max Payne games, Painkillers act as health-restoring items - taking one will restore about a fifth of your health right away. They can be found just about anywhere, from bathrooms and offices to cabinets and patios. Take note, however, that you can carry only eight and that you need to be conservative with them, i.e. don't take one the second you take a shot to the hand, save it for when your pain meter (like a health meter, only it getting fuller is a bad thing, since it shows how close you are to death from excruciating pain) is fuller.  A new touch to the system is that if you keep dying in a certain part, you'll get a freebie Painkiller to help you out. That new aspect, as well as the Painkiller system in general, is done rather well. The game is always difficult enough to force you to watch how you use them; leading to a rewarding feeling you get whenever you pick one up and use it at just the right moment to prevent death.


A new mechanics mixes both of the aforementioned systems. Last Man Standing combines both Bullet Time and Painkillers to create a unique kind of scheme. If your pain meter fills to fatal amounts but you still have at least one Painkiller on you and at least one bullet in your clip, Last Man Standing will activate. When this is activated, the game goes into Bullet Time, and you have an opportunity to kill the goon who put that final, almost-fatal shot into your body. Should you manage to kill him, Payne will consume the Painkiller and rise with the pain meter reduced a tad. If you don't kill him, Payne will die and you'll have to try again. I must say that this new system is implemented rather well, and it always feels highly satisfying to get up from such a close encounter (especially when you avoid such an incident again for the rest of the section). However, I feel there's a tiny flaw in that sometimes you can't strike back at your killer because he's around a corner or something like that, preventing you from hitting him, and thus surviving. It's a minor issue, but it can kill the fun sometimes whenever it's encountered.


Another new mechanic is the cover system. Now, I’ve always appreciated the cover system, especially when it comes to how many times it saved my rear. When it comes to how it was installed here......my feelings are somewhat mixed. For one thing, I love how it can (and MUST) be used just about anywhere. For any encounter be it with one enemy or twenty, there's always some cover to keep you, well, covered! The continued presence of cover helps you get a tactical advantage and makes it all the more fun to hold your own against the swarm of mooks. However, some items that can be used as cover are pointless or useless altogether. For example, hiding behind an explosive barrel. I'm not even kidding, that's an option during some levels. I'm pretty sure anyone with the brains (or muscle) to hold a gun would know not to hide behind a barrel that explodes when it gets shot, the main thing cover is supposed to protect against. Besides that bit of stupidness, though, the cover system as a whole is rather fun and useful, especially in later levels when you're practically drowning in lead.


Finally we have the main feature of any shooter, guns! There are all kinds of firearms scattered around the game. There are ordinary pistols, machine pistols, assault rifles, sniper rifles, SMG's, even grenade launchers can be picked up along your quest. They all do what any good gun would do - fire man-killing round of death. Of course. But what's new, you might be asking? Firstly, you can dual-wield single-hand weapons of all kinds. This feature was in the first two titles, but only with certain weapons. Here, you can put a Magnum with a machine pistol just fine, so long as you're fine with the delay between the two firing rates. Something that was altered was the melee system. Melee has been transformed from a flimsy last-resort has now become a potent tool as Payne has decided to stop whacking foes and instead pound them to the ground and shoot them in the head. It's certainly more satisfying than it was before, and also more useful, since you can actually do some real damage now. Finally, Molotov’s and Grenades were removed. Enemies can use them, but you can't. I dislike that, since those two weapons were quite potent and useful, especially when faced with a room full of foes. Now you have to clear them out manually, which can be grinding sometimes. As for the weaponry as a whole, it's vast, it's innovative, and there's always a time to shine for all of them (pistols for a few weak enemies, assault rifles for a room of tougher goons, etc.).


New levels and maps, new modes, and more stuff to find.......



Of course with a new game, we need new levels. And new levels we got, with fourteen new maps for each of the game's fourteen chapters. Stuffed into these maps are just about everything you can think of. There are enemies, there are weapons, there's hidden collectibles, there's even a few platforming obstacles for novelty's sake. What helps get so much stuff into a level is their size; fourteen chapters isn't long by modern standards, so the maps needed to be real long to fill the "gap". Although I must give credit to the fact that each level has enough challenges (whether they come as goons, obstacles like high platforms, or hazards like explosive barrels) to appease one, I feel they're a little.....stretched at times. For example, during one mission in the slums, you enter a warehouse. In this warehouse are a plethora of gangsters itching to kill you. So you'd think it would be pretty engaging, right? Not really. Most of the experience is sitting behind cover and waiting for a rare opportunity to off a gangster. That can go on for up to 10 minutes. Try to deviate from that course? Hope you like lead soup of the human variety. For the bulk of levels, however, the engagement level is high, so extra points for that.


So what are collectibles in this game? Golden Guns and evidence pieces, that's what.  Every weapon has a golden counterpart, which deals more damage and has a bigger clip size. How do you find them? Each level has golden gun parts scattered throughout, with three parts for each gun and 1-3 guns for each level. The parts can be found anywhere from counter tops to inside cabinets, though they're usually off the main course. Evidence pieces are more common, and help clarify some more ambiguous bits of the story. They can be anything from incriminating memos to innocent photos left at a crime scene. How much they factor into the story depends on the location and the circumstances (for example, a memo left behind by a strange detective who randomly walked up to you will reveal a bit more info than a magazine on a tabletop in a normal condo. I have a beef with how evidence is pretty much useless besides giving you some closure for undetermined parts of the story. The golden guns have a practical use in combat, but evidence could have been cool in giving you a niche powerup or something. Hey, it's just a suggestion!


So you're tired of the normal campaign formula, eh? Enter Arcade Mode. Here you have three different modes that you can play both to test your skill and rack up points for multiplayer (see below):


-Score Attack: The objective is to accumulate as high a score as possible on levels from the campaign. The higher your score, the better your medal (bronze is worst, platinum is best) and the more points you get towards improving your level. The score is improved by killing enemies (headshots get more points), racking up combos, and causing mayhem. You will be penalized for taking painkillers, entering Last Man Stands, and dying. Other methods for increasing the points you get later are earning achievements.


-New York minute: You start off with a minute to beat a level. You can increase the amount of time you have by killing enemies. You lose time for taking painkillers. The more time you have by the end of the level, the more points you earn.


-New York minute Hard-core: Like New York minute, only time goes twice as fast. You need to be REALLY good to survive here.


In general, I must applaud the inclusion of all these modes, as they're presence adds a whole new layer of depth to the game and enhances the experience greatly. However, I take fault with New York minute Hard-core. Even its new epithet can't describe what you'll experience - sheer brutality and utter pain that's WAY, WAY too unfair. If you have mere milliseconds remaining by the end of a level, that's actually pretty good. Think about that for a bit.


A whole new addition to the Max Payne series is multiplayer. You can get together in pools of up to sixteen to compete in different modes. Or you can get your crew that you might have assembled in the Rockstar Games Social Club (you may know it better from GTA V) and fight with another crew to see who's better. Here is also where the point system mainly comes into play. You can raise your level up to 50 in combat and then further up to Legend 5 (or as I like to call it, level 250). The only real rewards you get for advancing through the levels are new weapons and skins. To be honest, I haven't had much experience in multiplayer, since most of those who bought the game I feel got bored of it within a few months. From what I have played, though, glitches are few and the battle types available (though I only played a few) are rather engaging.  However, I feel there could have been way more unlockable features when you rise through the ranks, as skins and a few weapons aren't going to satisfy any true shooter fan for long periods of time.


Finally, achievements are here to tie together your records in both single-player and multiplayer. There are two kinds - RGSC achievements, which take account of feats in the campaign (like finishing a set of levels) as well as multiplayer (preforming well in a certain map), and "standard" achievements, which are mostly for records like getting 1000 headshots. Getting an achievement in Score Attack will increase the amount of points you get, which gives it something of a practical purpose. All in all, however, I feel the achievements are pretty under-exploited. There could have been achievements for more unique tasks, such as using all of the weapons and getting a super-high score on Score Attack instead of trivializing matters like how many leg shots you got (yeah, there's an achievement for that!).


The darkness is gone, but the atmosphere is here to stay.



The sunny realm of Brazil is a far cry from the seedy grit of New York at night. There are only a handful of levels that take place at night, and even then they're usually in well-lit areas. Despite that, Max Payne 3 manages to retain that noir charm that made its predecessors so popular and still dish out some of the best graphics of any game to date. Textures especially that of backgrounds and buildings, are not overwhelmingly flashy, but are still rather attractive and appealing, with great attention paid to detail, like bricks and even cracks between them. Even doors stand out with how realistic their material is, be it clean-looking metal or beat-up wood. I haven't found any glitches with the graphics so far - everything is just so good-looking. Even tricky moving graphics, like enemies and moveable objects move fluidly and without any unsightly defects. The best part is how nothing is too flashy, with just about every texture and graphics showing "restraint", if I may call it that. This helps add to the noir feel and makes the game even better at getting you into the "zone".


Now, the first two installments had some awesome soundtracks. Epic, in fact. But they have nothing on the sheer masterpiece that is the Max Payne 3 soundtrack. You have elements from electronic, rock, and a multitude of other genres mix into the medley of compositions here. The band HEALTH contributed a few songs, including the climactic piece "Tears" which I urge you to listen to right now, even if you've heard it a million times over, you need to hear it again. In fact, you should tour the whole soundtrack, and listen to every masterpiece billed. You have a tune that fits every situation, be it happy and triumphant or depressed and defeated. They fit those situations perfectly, each note contorting your emotions with great finesse and elegance unrivalled by most other titles. And there's never any glitch that will ruin the moment, and you can always be left in the heat of the moment with you, the situation, and the music to guide you like a specter. All in all, this game's track managed to do something that's dang near impossible for most developers, and for which it deserves a great deal of credit.


Final Verdict:



Max Payne 3 is arguably the best game in its trilogy, with amazing graphics, music, mechanics and an awesome story. If it wasn't for its shortcomings in terms of its multiplayer elements, this game would have easily pulled off a 10/10. Despite that, it's certainly a game any gamer should try, even if you're not into shooters.


Final Score: 9.5/10
Perma Banned
Wait, so IS mayonnaise an instrument?


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11-15-14 08:50 PM
Boxia is Offline
| ID: 1104654 | 30 Words

Boxia
Level: 95


POSTS: 2259/2714
POST EXP: 150548
LVL EXP: 8654535
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Oh boy......this is by far my largest review ever. It's also the first one I've put up in about three weeks. Sorry for the delay. All feedback is MUCH appreciated!
Oh boy......this is by far my largest review ever. It's also the first one I've put up in about three weeks. Sorry for the delay. All feedback is MUCH appreciated!
Perma Banned
Wait, so IS mayonnaise an instrument?


Affected by 'Laziness Syndrome'

Registered: 12-24-13
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11-15-14 08:50 PM
Boxia is Offline
| ID: 1104655 | 3 Words

Boxia
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Double posts, man......
Double posts, man......
Perma Banned
Wait, so IS mayonnaise an instrument?


Affected by 'Laziness Syndrome'

Registered: 12-24-13
Location: Stalkerville
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(edited by Boxia on 11-15-14 08:54 PM)    

11-18-14 11:26 AM
sonicthehedgehog57 is Offline
| ID: 1105591 | 70 Words

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Boxia : Better and Better and Better AND BETTER!!! Each review you seem to keep climbing up that scale of greatness in writing, even if it may have been long, it's worth it in the end. Even if it never reaches this long again (which isn't really important) as long you keep reaching these same levels each time with description and wording, I just think it won't ever stop getting better. 
Boxia : Better and Better and Better AND BETTER!!! Each review you seem to keep climbing up that scale of greatness in writing, even if it may have been long, it's worth it in the end. Even if it never reaches this long again (which isn't really important) as long you keep reaching these same levels each time with description and wording, I just think it won't ever stop getting better. 
Vizzed Elite

Affected by 'Laziness Syndrome'

Registered: 12-02-10
Location: Springfield, MO
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11-19-14 02:32 AM
endings is Offline
| ID: 1105814 | 33 Words

endings
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Boxia : Its always nice when someone who really enjoys a game takes the time to really break it down in their review. You did a good job and covered your bases in this.
Boxia : Its always nice when someone who really enjoys a game takes the time to really break it down in their review. You did a good job and covered your bases in this.
Trusted Member
A reviewer prone to flashbacks


Affected by 'Laziness Syndrome'

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11-19-14 02:33 PM
rebelyell is Offline
| ID: 1105934 | 39 Words

rebelyell
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Wow it's nice to see that you enjoyed the game, and it shows in your review.  I enjoyed the first Max Payne but never played any after. But reading your review I will give the rest a chance thanks.
Wow it's nice to see that you enjoyed the game, and it shows in your review.  I enjoyed the first Max Payne but never played any after. But reading your review I will give the rest a chance thanks.
Member

Affected by 'Laziness Syndrome'

Registered: 05-03-14
Last Post: 1351 days
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