It's been awhile since I've posted anything on this blog but as you can probably guess, I tend to get busy and right after my post in April college bogged me down for a month. And so I didn't feel like writing for awhile, either, because of how much writing I had to do for college that month.
That being said, I'm going to TRY and keep this consistent but I almost always fail at this stuff because of my other obligations so bear with me.
Anyway, on the subject at hand: I have a backlog of games and I recently finished one of them which as you can tell by the title was a shooter.
I bought it for the PS3 for $10 from a GameFly used games sale back in April. I started playing it at the beginning of May and that was when I realized: ...is this just a shooting gallery game? I played through the first three chapters of the game and immediately became bored and stopped playing it; instead I started to play other games again like Metal Gear Rising (which is a *fantastic* game you should pick up immediately).
Before going forward, yes, this post is more of a "review" or "opinion piece" on Max Payne 3. So if you're not interested in knowing my thoughts on it feel free to dip out of this post.
The first three chapters... I can't even remember them they were so bad and uninteresting. In fact, the whole game felt that way. Obviously I set the game to Normal difficulty like any other person would when trying a new game in a series you've never played before (even though, yes, it's a shooter) or want to just have a "relaxing" entertainment kind of game.
So I won't talk much about the beginning of the single player other than: it's very forgettable. In fact, I would argue the game doesn't really "pick up" until at least Chapter 7. And even then, it's not really that enthralling of a game in general.
Anyway, so, I stopped playing it after those first chapters for two months. I just returned to this game the other day with my intention of finishing it despite how much I really didn't like it. I figured I spent the $10 might as well make it worth it. And to be honest? It wasn't worth it.
Why wasn't it worth it? For four main reasons: it's bland, it's a shoot bang game (meaning, it's a game full of constant shooting), the story is unbelievably terrible, and it's got very bad level design.
How is it bland? Well, it's a game that is chasing after the crowd that absolutely loves cinematic action/adventure games. It doesn't try to do anything new in the genre and it also doesn't even try to *top* any of the games it's competing with in this genre.
The cutscenes are nothing to write home about... and while yes, they tried to be "artsy" with the cutscenes, it really just seems like someone wanted to spam filters and words everywhere. I appreciate the "comic book" style scenes but they are nothing too special either.
Then you have a lack of any actual great set pieces. In order for a cinematic action game to be successful these days, you have to have *something* that hasn't already been done before and is also really impressive and "wows" people when they see it. Max Payne 3 has nothing like that at all, it's very safe with its set pieces and does nothing special that couldn't be done without scripting. And about the only fun set piece is right at the end of the game, which lasts a total of 2 to 3 minutes at most.
The monologues Max does throughout the game add little to the actual storyline. They are just there to check off a box because in the previous two titles that's what Max did. These monologues don't serve to really develop the character; instead they serve to try and explain some things. About the only positive aspect I can say about them is that they are well acted.
How is it a shoot bang game? Well, this kind of falls under blandness but basically: every chapter just has you walk from corridor to corridor shooting people. You walk from point A to point B, a cutscene puts you behind cover, and you start shooting people like a typical third person shooter. The game doesn't even really encourage you to leave cover because... it's safer 99% of the time to stay behind it; especially because there's no regenerating health in this game.
As far as the story goes, it's your typical washed up cop story. He meets some guy named Passos in a bar, who he suddenly is willing to trust because of the simple statement "we used to be in the academy together" and winds up being used by him in the end. And that's not even the full story, there's quite a bit that goes on but it's all around just... bad. Nothing keeps you hooked to the story, there's no one you can really care about.
Passos is an especially contrived character. He doesn't have a history at all with Max (the game reveals as much) and the player has no reason to care about the character either. He was just made to... have a companion for Max in the levels and used as a means to try and generate some kind of twist in the story *anyone* can see from a mile away. He doesn't just appear naturally like Max has known him, they make it seem that way but it really shows through he wasn't in the previous games and he was a poorly written character.
It's a story that tries to work with a character that doesn't fit the genre they're putting him in. I haven't played the previous two Max Payne games, but from what I know, this game shares nothing with them other than the Bullet Time mechanics, Max's monologues, and the pain killers as your medkit.
The story also doesn't end on a note that leaves you thinking, "wow that was amazing". Without spoiling anything, it's anti-climatic and leaves the player dissatisfied.
And now for the level design... oh my god this is like the worst third person shooter level design I've ever seen. There are parts of the game where there's zero cover and they expect you to maneuver in such a way that you don't take much damage. It's corridors masked with pretty locales and very little cover. It's often best to stay in the cover they put you in via a cutscene. You never want to leave cover because if you do, you take 3-4 shots and you're basically dead.
Pain killers are not quite as abundant and you can easily find yourself with zero of them in some combat sequences. I must have died an upwards of 60 times at least, maybe even 100. I even turned down the difficulty (and no I wasn't playing bad) and I still died quite a lot. It was definitely more manageable but man, if you're dying a lot on Normal and you know how to play video games, it's definitely a sign of bad level design or even bad game design in general.
The enemies don't die when they should and the aiming is abysmal. The reticle is small so you can easily miss your shots if you so much as move your analogue stick an inch. And then to top it all off, the enemies almost never miss their shots. So if you poke your head out for even a second, you're likely to have half of your health gone.
And then the movement has your trademark Rockstar awfulness. Rolling is beyond slow, aiming while moving is awkwardly slow (you can't strafe very well), sprinting isn't really sprinting, and finally to perform a melee attack you have to tap the fire button while near an enemy... What the hell were they thinking with that??? The controls are so backwards.
Basically, you can easily get cornered with no way to move out of cover for any amount of time before dying seconds later. It doesn't seem like you take less damage on the Easy difficulty at all (like it would do in the Uncharted games). It seems more like the enemies might take less damage to kill but I don't know, they still took a full freaking clip to kill for me!
A lot of the levels are just designed in such a way that you can't move around without being shot at from all sides. Unless, of course, you sit behind the half wall they set you in from the cutscene. And there are many, MANY unfair deaths that can happen in this game. It's really, really, really bad.
There's a chapter... I don't remember which one precisely but you're on some docks and they're really freaking narrow docks. There's water surrounding you, so you think you can swim in it, right? Nope! If you jump into it, the game plays a cutscene of an enemy shooting you with a pistol; it's an instant death. But that's not all, as you're walking through these narrow docks, there are enemies on boats shooting you AND on the docks themselves. And there's no cover on the docks at all until you get to a certain point where there's one tiny half wall in front of a boat...
Enemies spawn based on triggers rather than naturally existing in the game world. You can turn a corner and suddenly enemies will appear without you being able to react in time and... thus you die. This level I'm describing has that and when I saw it, I went into the bullet time dodge and... fell into the water thinking I'd be able to swim: nope, I died from the above cutscene that plays. There's no warning given to the player that you can die from going into the water. I mean, it's a Rockstar game so I should have expected as much but then... WHY MAKE A LEVEL WITH WATER IF IT'S JUST GOING TO BASICALLY ACT AS A DEATH PLANE???
All in all? I am glad to have finished the game but I didn't really have that much of a great time. I can now totally see why the game didn't sell like Rockstar expected it to. I mean... 3-4 million isn't bad but they projected much higher than that... I don't know why; especially since people were likely getting very selective of their games last year. I am happy I did not spend $60 but I will say right now: do not play this game for the single player and you should probably even avoid buying it at all unless you can get it on Steam for $5. (Which I doubt you will for a few more months). Even then, I wouldn't recommend it. It's a poor game all around and not worth wasting your time playing it.
I am astonished this game has an 86-87 metacritic score but I guess I shouldn't be? It's exactly the kind of game "journalists" like, I'm surprised it wasn't higher because it was Rockstar... Well, maybe it got that 86-87 because it was Rockstar and if it was another development team it would have scored lower......
Either way, those were my thoughts on Max Payne 3. Sorry if they might have sounded a little scrambled, it's late at night right now but I felt like writing something. Let me know in the comments if you agree or what you thought of what I said!
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