Maximum Payne

The original Max Payne came out in 2001, and it was something special.  I remember getting the game in the store.  A hard copy of it, of course.  It came in a DVD case, and it was one of the first games that I'd ever seen ship that way.  It was poetic justice, I think, given how much the game made you feel like you were playing a movie.  That was 11 years ago.

The reason why I knew this game was special was because of how often I replayed it.  Obviously I didn't play it for as many hours as, say, Fallout or Skyrim.  But then, it's not that type of game, now is it?  Fallout and Skyrim are designed to give you a HUGE, STAGGERING amount of content.  I've only started from the beginning in Skyrim twice.  For Fallout, I've started a new character maybe three times.  I've played through all of the original Max Payne at least a dozen times.  For a game that is exactly the same every time you play it, that is really saying something.  I've probably only replayed one game more than that, and that's Half-Life 2.

So what made this game so special?  Aside from the first point I've already mentioned, for me it's a bit hard to explain.  It's personal.  I guess the easiest way to describe it is to just say that the game catered to a style that for me is better than anything you could do with an action game.  In simplest terms?  I fucking love noir.  

Let's leave the past, shall we?  Max Payne 3 is out, and before release I was left staring at it with the same cynical attitude towards it that made Max Payne what he is.  Remedy is out of the picture this time as the developer, and it's been 11 years since that first game came out.  My hopes for a game that captured the same style were not quite nil but certainly within the category of slim.  But how could I not be excited all the same?  This is my genre.  I live on this stuff.

So just how good is Max Payne 3?  Well, tell me something, all you Max Payne fans:  Does this look familiar to you?

 

I'm four hours into the game, and I'm prepared to tell you a little bit about what I think.

 

Let's start with things that are the same.  First of all, my biggest fear was that the angsty, cynical, dripping-with-noir story and dialogue would either be missing completely or watered down to near non-existence.  That isn't the case, thank Crom.  It's all there, and Max's voice is the same actor from the first two games.  It's like homecoming.

Next, bullet time is back.  If you would like to know just how ingrained the first two games are in my soul, it took me forever to teach myself the shoot-dodge was the SPACEBAR, and not the right-mouse button like it was in those first two games.  I actually still have trouble with it sometimes.

 

Most importantly, the FEEL is the same.  You know what I mean by that.  The FEEL.  Picking up this game and playing it has a familiarity to me, and a really GOOD one.  It is truly like playing an updated version of an old favorite.  It's newer, it's got some things different about it, but it's the same kind of glorious fun.  So just what is new?  Let's have a look at that, shall we?

 

Obviously, the graphics are new.  DUH.  New and fantastic.  The environments are gorgeous, from dreary New Jersey to sunny Sao Paulo and the dingy slums that reside within.  Everything about this game looks pretty, and the amount of detail is mind blowing.  You can see the sweat running down Max's face.  You can see each individual bullet that you fire and the trajectory it's taking, especially if you have bullet time on or are doing a shoot-dodge at that particular moment.  Blood flies, sprays, and spurts from gaping gunshot wounds.  Debris flies everywhere when a grenade detonates near you.

The game mechanics have changed a bit in 11 years, unsurprisingly.  First, let's review the bad.  Quick saving is gone and replaced by checkpoint saves.  Not surprising.  To sum up my feelings about it:  Fuck a yeti.  The other bad thing is making weapon inventory realistic to what a normal person can carry.  Yes, I get it, people like realism.  Me?  I like to play a video game.  Let me carry as many fucking weapons as I want, and thank you very fucking much.

I will segue this off into a positive discussion about the inventory, however.  At first, I was really confused about how Max was carrying his weapons around.  One thing that I didn't really pay much attention to was the fact that Max can be seen carrying his machine gun in one hand when I have my pistol equipped.  Then, when I wanted to dual wield pistols, he would drop the machine gun, and I was confused beyond anything as to why this was happening.  Then, naturally, it hit me.

Max can't carry a machine gun if he's got a pistol in each hand.

It's so ridiculously simple, and so ridiculously REAL, that it never occurred to me at first.  The unrealistic nature of carrying things in video games is so embedded into my brain that the overly realistic nature of something as simple as carrying weapons had me utterly baffled.  I give the game kudos for doing it this way.

 

The next thing that surprised me about Max Payne 3 was how visceral it is compared to its predecessors.  It's quite obvious that Rockstar took over the development -- they've never been ones to pull punches when it comes to violence.  I've actually been reminded of Soldier of Fortune 2 a little bit when it comes to how realistic the violence is.  Blood doesn't just spray when you shoot someone.  It GUSHES.  It SPURTS.  It pools on the floor; it runs into niches and cracks.  The people you shoot reach for the wound and try to cover it up.  Their bodies convulse when you shoot them multiple times.  There are gaping holes in them where the bullets exit.  It's a gruesome display of realism that will have conservatives everywhere up in arms and renewing their battle on the industry.  It's GLORIOUS.

 

The gunfights are orchestrated to cinematic perfection, demanding split second decisions from the player and punishing them with a bullet to the head if they hesitate for too long.  You're diving around a setpiece of bullet hell to a driving soundtrack that has you leaning forward and bobbing your head to the beat.  They are also freaking exhausting!  The gunfights in this game are the longest I have ever played through.  My wrist is killing me from gripping my mouse in a mixture of exhilaration and utter terror of catching a bullet in the side of the head.

As for difficulty, I wouldn't say that I'm a great player of video games.  Not even a great player of shooters, which is my genre.  But this game is fucking hard!  I'm playing on medium difficulty, and I'm having to resist the temptation of wussing out and turning it down to easy.  Depending on where I get hit or, I suppose, just dumb luck, I get owned in one shot at random.  Sometimes I don't even see where the shot came from.  This makes the checkpoint save system all the more INFURIATING.  There have been a few times where I'd get my ass shot to death, and literally yell "I'M WAY THE FUCK BACK HERE?!" at my screen.

Just in case no one heard me yet:  QUICK SAVES.  INCLUDE THEM.

 

So what's the story all about anyway?

Well, it seems that Max has headed for the sunny and tropical Sao Paulo to sort of escape his dreary and depressing reality in America.  As usual, he ends up in over his head and sets out to figure out just what in batshit is going on. Story has always been a strong point in the Max Payne games.  They were good enough to warrant a movie being made out of the series, after all.  Please, let's not talk about the movie.

I wouldn't necessary call the story in Max Payne 3 brilliant, but it's good.  To me, it started out very slow.  It wasn't until the first flashback that really got me into it, because after that I understood things better.  I understood why Max was where he was, and I understood the people around him better.  This made me enjoy things more.  This added WEIGHT to the story.

What I find more interesting is the actual storytelling itself.  The graphic novel intermissions are gone, which I'm sort of sad about.  Instead, we're presented with real cut-scenes with a very unique style to them.  A sample, below.



What you get is one scene freezing into a still frame with the other half of your screen picking up the cut scene itself.  It's a really interesting way of presenting the story, and I really like it.  I'm a sucker for graphic novels, of course, so I do miss the original presentation that was in the first two games.  But this is very good stuff.

I have a few gripes, aside from what I've already mentioned.

There seems to be a bit of a bug with cut scenes.  They seem to make me switch weapons.  I'll go into a room wielding my machine gun, and I'll trigger a cut scene.  When the cut scene is over, I'm now wielding a pistol.  That's a bit rubbish.  I also had a sound glitch once -- I think I moved forward too quickly and Max talked over himself.  It was a one time thing and hasn't happened again yet.

Lastly...and this isn't really a bona-fide complaint...medium difficulty is HAAAAAARD!

 

One last thing for the gripe box, and this is a tip for all game developers everywhere:  If you are going to add hidden collectibles into your game, do NOT also make the levels contain any of the following:  1) NPCs who continuously tell you to hurry up.  2) Time limits on the level.  3) No breaks in the action for the entire level.

For the love of Sweet Zombie Jesus, please stop fucking that up!

 

That's all the gripes that I have.  I can think of some things that other people would complain about.  The biggest one will probably be the sheer amount of cut scenes, and the overall length of them.  You do spend a good amount of time just watching things.  One good thing, though, is that any time there's action in a cut scene, you get control of Max to perform the stunt yourself.  I found that to be really good.

Also, I just need to say again how impressive this game looks.  There are certain times in the cut scenes where I needed to blink because it looked so DAMNED close to being live action.  But maybe that's just my eyes starting to implode from going through so many slow motion gunfights.  Who's to say?

So what should you expect?

Fans of Max Payne will find a worthy addition to the series.  Max is a little older now, but he's still the Max we want.  And the Max we deserve.

Yeah.  Sorry about that.  Sometimes those cliched lines just sort of force their way into my posts.

Fans of action games will find an incredibly high octane experience.  You'll be treated to amazing stunts, like Max holding onto a chain and being lifted up into the air while slow-motion-shooting everyone in a room, or Max shooting four boats full of terrorists while his boat is crashing through the wall of a shack.  All the while, Max makes cynical, dry-humored wisecracks.  It's certainly ridiculous, occasionally over-the-top, and always, ALWAYS brilliant fun.