Max Payne 3 Review

The review copy of Max Payne 3 was provided by NVIDIA. This allowed me to do the Detail Report on the display support, and write this article. Thanks guys.vvI completed the basic storyline set of chapters in about 16 hours, playing on easy. I got 10/46 Steam Achievements, and put together four golden guns (with help from the IGN Guide).

Truth be told I’m not a big fan of shooters, first or third person. When titles such as Doom and Quake first gained popularity, I was in college and playing RPGs and the first RTS games like Dune II. I wasn’t into the “run and gun” idea, and didn’t see the fun in running around just shooting stuff.

I have always enjoyed the stories found in RPGs, and the ability to explore the world created. Half-Life was billed as an FPS built around a great story. Back in the days of 3dfx cards I decided to give HL a whirl, and found that I really wasn’t very good at shooters.

Some of this is possibly due to my lack of experience and practice over the years, but I found them more frustrating than fun. I was horribly slaughtered by my friends in multi-player, and ended up motion sick most of the time in either single or multi-player.

In recent years the “third person shooter” or “action” genre has become quite popular, particularly those with an emphasis on a cover-based game mechanic. Figuring I’d suck just as bad at 3PS as FPS, I’ve given the genre a pass over the years.

The pre-release press on Max Payne 3 placed a lot of focus on Max’s story, and the narrative nature of the game. I figured that this would be a great opportunity to try my hand at third person shooters and see if the genre held any enjoyment for me.

I went through this longish introduction for a couple of reasons. First, this isn't a genre I have a lot of experience with, so I don’t have much in the way for comparison. Some of the points I bring up (either good or bad), may simply be something endemic to the genre and not a particular issue with MP3. I didn’t go into playing MP3 thinking it would be an RPG shooter. I wanted to see if a shooter/action title with a strong story could bring me into the genre. Also, since I’m not very good at shooters, it will have an impact on my enjoyment and also explain why I play on easy…

Presentation

So, first things out of the way – the Eyefinity and Surround support is excellent. The 16:10 is a vertically stretched 16:9 (which is odd), but the multi-monitor support is great. The cut-scenes letterbox to 16:9, and this ends up blacking out the side monitors. I’d rather they let it Hor+, but some of the multi-panel layouts would be hard to manage on multiple layouts.

The game offers a seamless presentation between the gameplay and the cut-scenes. The cut-scenes are done with the in-game engine, and are set apart with their letterboxing. They are also presented with a number of filters applied (scan line, interlacing, old news feed, coloration, etc.), to give them a distinct look and feel.

One thing that can be said about the cut-scenes is that they are long, sometimes extremely long. Additionally, many of the cut-scenes serve as cover for level loading, and thus they are unskippable. Within a “chapter” in the game, they also serve as the checkpoint markers (often a dozen or more in a level). So, if you’ve been struggling with one particular engagement in a level, you will be glad to see a cut-scene appear.

The scenes are fairly well written, and do a good job of moving the story along. I do like how the entire game ends up being a framework story, and sometimes you even get flashbacks within the main story. The main story arc does end up taking some twists and turns, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it not end up with a generic and clichéd “he was in love with his brother’s wife” ending.

While the scenes drive the story along, their presentation can be a little stilted. The voice acting is overall above average, but it feels like Max is trying too hard to come across as tragic and often crosses fully into melodramatic. The models used for the characters are often a bit stiff, and lack the fluidity of natural motion. Max’s face is well animated, but many of the supporting characters (the women in particular) end up with vacant expressions and eyes that would indicate recent drug usage.

Normally this type of character stiffness wouldn’t bother me as much, but the cut-scenes make up an exceptionally large part of the gameplay experience. A lot of it comes down to issues with the uncanny valley – the programmers and artists have done such a good job at building the characters, the actions and emotions that are lacking become jarring to watch.

Gameplay

Once you get past the cut-scenes, the action kicks in. The game does a good job of walking you through the mechanics for bullet time, the diving shot and cover. Since I don’t have as much experience with this genre and the mechanics, it took me a few levels to get the hang of each and remember the proper key assignments.

Pretty soon I was stringing together nice combos of running, diving, covering and bullet timing the bad guys to death. By accident I stumbled across how to select different weapons from your arsenal. Until then I thought you put down your currently equipped weapon when you picked up a new one. Figuring that out, along with digging into tweaks for the targeting reticule made the game a bit easier.

The action is fun, and pretty straight forward. There is plenty of traditional run-cover-shoot, but there were also interspersed bits of sniping, “rails” style vehicle-based sections, quicktime-like events (QTE), and instances of shooting items out of the air. This is certainly not a game of “running and gunning” as you are significantly outgunned and without headshots your enemies are bullet sponges (though Max is as well).

While I liked the action, and the sense of immediate accomplishment of developing and executing a winning strategy, there were things that I felt detracted from the experience. I was quite surprised at the linearity of the game design. Coming from an RPG background, I am used to free environments and my actions having consequences.

Unfortunately, there really are no choices in this game - none. There is no choice of route through each level. While not strictly “on rails” like a “light gun” game, there is obviously one corridored path to follow through the game. There is no deviating from this path, and no way to pursue alternate objectives or solutions. You walk from location to location in a carefully scripted series of firefights. Additionally, there is no impact of success or failure in a mission – other than having to start over. I found no instance where saving someone gave me a benefit in game, or having someone die trigger an alternate storyline or path.

There was one point in the middle of the game where I was having a tough time making it through a particular fight. I finally got through, killing all the requisite bad guys, and in the very next cut-scene the girl I was trying to save got killed anyway. I was SO pissed that I had to step away from the game for the night. Was this some meta-game that Rockstar had built in? Were they trying to make me the player feel as angry and helpless as Max?

I was also puzzled by the clues in each level. These are things like pictures, newspaper clippings, pieces of jewelry, and other minor items. Picking up the items will give a small voiceover and possibly cut-scene of Max looking at the item, but they don’t steer gameplay in any meaningful direction. You don’t need them to make any story-based decisions, or steer the game in any particular direction.

I found a few of the clues during my normal play through the game, but I can’t see the point in hunting for them. All you need to do, to advance the story is: shoot all the bad guys, survive and push forward. Rather than a completionist looking for all the clues to unlock achievements, I don’t see the point.

The golden guns on the other hand, I do see the point of. The guns give you a tangible benefit in the game, which would be particularly helpful in multi-player. It was even fun to see a shining gold gun in Max’s hand as I went through the later story chapters – a tangible reminder of my achievements earlier in the game.

Final Thoughts

I finished the game and felt a solid sense of satisfaction. The game was challenging in places, so there was a sense of accomplishment in getting to the end. The game was also well written, and the story had a satisfying conclusion that you won’t see coming. I left the game thinking I would come back and pick up the other golden guns, and maybe look at some of the grinds. But, I haven’t…

Since then I’ve been working on things around the WSGF, I installed The Witcher 2, and both Guild Wars 2 and Torchlight II have recently come out. Being a gamer that’s in it for the story, I’ve really seen all I can in Max Payne 3. If I want another action experience, I’d rather fire up a new game with a new story – Transformers maybe?

In the end, I’m glad I played Max Payne 3 but it’s not worth the 30GB of HDD space it’s taking up now (especially since I want to move to an SSD soon). If you’re into multi-player, then you’ll probably get a lot more mileage out of Max Payne 3, and have reason to go back through the single player story in search of the golden gun parts.

If you haven’t picked up Max Payne 3 yet, I would suggest you give it a look. If you were going into it for the story and the single-player experience, I’d wait for a good sale - maybe it will go half off during the Steam Christmas Sale. If you’re into multi-player, then hopefully the well done single-player half will give you an enjoyable experience of about a dozen hours, give you a chance to hone the unique controls in Max Payne 3, and pick up the golden guns.

Story-based players may balk at only getting to really enjoy half the game, and action-oriented players may balk at the intrusion of the story into their firefights. Since the game has a high chance of alienating most anyone with its core design choices, I can’t see giving it a “Highly Recommended”. So, I will give it our silver medal of “Recommended” and leave you wondering how heavily Sega and the House of the Dead series influenced the team at Rockstar…