Max Payne 3 is a pretty contentious game among Payne Fans. A large part of that is due to being developed by Rockstar, who wrested control from my beautiful boy Sam Lake's hands, and to be fair, that's certainly a valid knock against it. Rockstar don't really understand the Vibe of Payne, even though that still varied wildly between the first game's apocalyptic nightmare and the second game's depressing fatalism. --Note: My review of MP2 was eaten by this shit website, so I am currently writing this in notepad, as I will do for all future reviews. I am not going to re-write the long-ass review I wrote. It's the best in the series. Play it. With the widescreen fix you can see Mona's boobs.--

The other major problem people have with it is something that's very easily fixed. I'm usually not one to say people are "playing the game wrong," but in this case, I think playing the game on Hard (ideally with mouse and keyboard) is absolutely essential. MP3 added the ability to take cover, and this, combined with the copious amounts of bullet time you get on Normal, causes people to devolve into Cover Shooter Mode, the absolute most boring way to play. On Hard, the bullet time gained DRASTIC goes down, forcing you to shootdodge everywhere constantly, as you still get slow-mo doing that no matter if you have BT in the gauge or not.

This is important, as MP3 utilizes Rockstar's amazing and hilarious Euphoria physics engine, from the days before they toned it down to make it "more realistic," aka "boring as hell." Playing this properly, Max is constantly slamming his noggin into walls, tumbling over tables, and crumpling into a pretzel after jumping down stairs. You really should only be taking cover when reloading and/or contemplating where you want to dive to next. In another important innovation, now he doesn't automatically get up after diving, something that often got you killed in the previous games. Now you can just lay there and pump bullets into guys until the coast is clear. One weird change is that Painkillers fully heal you, but also allow you to revive by shooting an enemy if you would be killed when one's available. This also gives you most of your health back when you revive, so there's no real reason to use them normally, especially since most enemies will murder your ass real fast on Hard anyway.

Even with that strange choice, it's the best that a Rockstar game has ever played, and it's baffling how everything learned here apparently went out the window with subsequent titles.

So it plays great. How's the story? Eh, it's alright. It's an obvious departure from the tone of the first two, though I don't think it's as far removed as some people say. It's often said that the Max in this game is barely the same character as he was in the first two, though I disagree: In the first game, he was a psychotic dumbass, and in the second, he was a depressed, horny dumbass. Now he's essentially a combination of the two, drunk and rage-fuelled, continuing his tendency to make bad decisions and not know when to stop. If you really want a canon explanation for why he's this way in 3 (even though they repeatedly mention Max's AA sessions in 2), just imagine this moment late in 2 is responsible, like Homer's brain crayon.

The actual story itself is the bigger issue: I can understand wanting to do their own thing, which in this case means mostly just doing a pastiche of Man on Fire, but it's not as propulsive as the previous games. It goes on a bit too long, but it's adequate, and Max has plenty of good lines. McCaffrey's performance here is his career-best, which isn't a small feat. I especially appreciate that Max has unique dialogue for almost every painkiller stash you can find. It's also a game that understands that short people are inherently evil. This is something understood by many of the greatest pieces of art, made by those with true insight into the human soul: Twin Peaks. Leprechaun 4: In Space. Collateral.

Max Payne 3 is absolutely a worthy end for the trilogy. Would I prefer if Remedy had made it? Yeah, probably. But this is what we got. I'm okay with that.

9/10

The best example of "video games as art" from at least the past decade.

This game is pure outsider art, actively hostile to the player and wallowing in complete disregard for conventional gameplay mechanics. Will you hate it? Probably. Will it give you a headache? Almost certainly. That's all part of the Experience. Learn to enjoy it.

If not, I dunno, rate it a half star on here like a dumbass. Just know that everyone is laughing at you.

(Beaten with Danielle, will go back with Joseph later but not right now)

A neat effect of going through the Turok games is seeing where Acclaim thought the state of the FPS genre was going. They clearly made a safe bet on Half-Life being the way of the future, this game shifts hard towards linear storytelling and level design. The level design isn't nearly as frustrating as either game could be, but also the worlds don't feel anywhere near as distinct as they used to. Shockingly brief.

As always, Nightdive delivered with the remaster. Might be one of their more impressive remasters simply by how much work they had to do reverse engineering it. Shadow of Oblivion is probably the most impressive use of the N64's technology, even if it barely runs, so it's nice to see that hard work shine.

Some cool tech & snappy gameplay trapped in Free-to-play hell. We talk a lot about games being tied to & shaped by their technology but little about how they’re shaped, and hollowed out, by their revenue model: GaaS “living games” are released (and shut down) before there is any life in them.

The Finals contains the movement & sugary energy of nu-battlefield (post-Battlefield 1) wrapped in the most horrid vibes: Forza Horizon-esque npcs at their infinite party, Siege/Valorant/Hyperscape-adjacent esports mush. Embark has managed to make Unreal resemble Frostbite, including impressive physics & destruction that echoes the chaos of bad company 2, but it’s all wasted here.

Even for a tight competitive shooter, this needs a more fleshed out setting, either leaning further into the surreal elements (bodies exploding into coins) or situating it in a world that is more than a watered down squid-game/mirror's edge/DICE's entire catalog. Feels like a very polished tech-demo and I refuse to play 100 hours to unlock interesting mechanics or outfits, which has led to every character running around in the default tracksuit/pyjamas. And don't get me started on the AI voices.

I am cautiously optimistic about embark’s other beautiful but empty sci-fi project, ARC raiders, which has seemingly transformed into yet another extraction shooter.

Struggled to put together my thoughts on this. Escalates from mediocre to engaging somewhere about ten hours in, followed immediately by an overwhelming sense of emptiness. All of Bethesda's quirks are here in the worst ways: dead mannequin npcs, clumsy systems that don’t quite cohere, a terrible main quest that drifts across the flimsy surface of alien artifact sci-fi stories.

But something worse about this one is the lack of texture. There are very few freaks, minor discoveries off the beaten path, companions that make you feel something (Nick <3). Everyone is so nice, the politics completely empty. Cities are so strange and dead, with sound design attempting to evoke the density of Night City but lacking any real scale - the abstraction of a fantasy setting no longer here to distract you from asking: why is this just one square block?

This must’ve been a monumental effort to produce, but why dedicate seven years to creating a pale echo of The Expanse, Mass Effect & Firefly? There are hints of another game in here - one with meaningful travel and fewer, more fleshed out worlds - that was abandoned prior to shifting to this smooth, soulless, bloated final form.

They made the best game ever made AGAIN.

Quickly my reservations about a remake were silenced when I was back in the shoes of Leon S. Kennedy, roundhouse kicking and shotgunning to my heart’s content. They took the best action movie in gaming and gave it a new burst of adrenaline. The knife, a Resident Evil staple, becomes your best friend when you parry a fucking chainsaw. You have more mobility and more tools, but enemies are more unrelenting and the action even more sweaty and frantic. It offers moment after moment of heart pumping, addictive gunplay and I just stood amazed that Capcom has done it again. It shouldn’t feel so good but it just does.

It hasn’t even changed that much! The presentation is absolutely gorgeous and it’s one of the best looking games to come out so far. Everything is mad detailed and the gun porn has been pushed to the max. I paused and used photo mode when reloading a rifle and each round is rendered as it’s being loaded in. That’s impeccable detail. All the characters have had a glow up and everyone is super hot. The story is better and characters that were lacking in the original like Ashley and Luis are better! They gave Luis a backstory! Is this better than the original!??

The only reason I won’t put it higher on my best of 2023 list is because it is after all a remake. Resident Evil 4 is vital, and pure gameplay bliss, and a necessary remake or not, it’s explosively fun.