fun, janky FPS combat paired with some of the most embarrassing writing ever seen in a video game. two women follow you around who are both SO desperate for your boring actionman fantasyguy dick and never shut up about how cool and sexy you are the entire time. like they're not even characters outside of how badly they want to fuck, it's so overbearing that it's funny. it's on that anime mobile phone horny gacha advertisement shit. i don't think i've ever cared less about the story in a video game, it's the lamest kind of tabletop nerd fantasy, but i don't think anyone who's played this cares about it either. the game's encounter design and the way you, inevitably, end up using the arena's to score environmental kick kills is the core appeal. and it's fun!!!! i like kicking nerds into: pits, oceans, spikes, fire, and more! most of it feels pretty rough, though. movement and regular combat are very clunky and awkward, stairs are a nightmare, and it has some questionable collision at times - but the time you'll spend with your foot up a dude's rear end is good.

This is perhaps the most mixed I’ve ever been on a play-through experience. On the one hand, it’s an awesome self-contained storytelling experience with some well polished gameplay and fantastic level design. The cutscenes still look great, the story is solid albeit not quite on par with the other two games, but the bullet time is just as good as ever.

Where Max Payne 3 really tests me, is its story and stylistic direction as it’s such a huge departure from what I’ve come to associate the series with. While I think the bright over saturated colors and dilapidated Brazilian atmosphere breathes some necessary new life into the franchise… I don’t know how well it works.

If it were a series like Grand Theft Auto or what have you, I think it’d work perfect. And at times it wasn’t so distracting. The new choices just feel like such a hard left turn that it almost doesn’t feel like this game is apart of the already established franchise. At times, it was hitting the right notes. It felt like I was back in one of my favorite franchises again. Other times, it just felt more like a typical rockstar game, and became easy to forget that I was playing a Max Payne entry.

Aside from this, there’s a ton of little nitpicks I have with some of the mechanics. While I think the core gameplay is clean as hell… I can’t help but be frustrated by some major oversights and lack of variety in other areas. You can hold less weapons than the first two games… which feels like a major step backwards.

I also don’t like the fact that you can’t hold a large weapon if you want to use dual wielding pistols. It was such an odd design choice that didn’t feel as though it held much purpose other than to disadvantage me. Another thing missing was projectiles. You can no longer throw grenades or molotov’s. You can’t throw anything. And that’s really frustrating. The enemies also take an ungodly amount of bullets, which is irritating when you have an underwhelming arsenal.

Whenever there’s a major difficulty spike and you keep dying, the devs answer was to throw random pill bottles in your inventory to help you get through it. While this should’ve been something I could’ve appreciated, it almost felt like a slap in the face because the levels where I struggled instead had many enemies that were bullet sponges. Thus taking away a lot of my ammo. So it wasn’t really the fact that I kept dying… it was the fact that I kept running out of ammunition, and there was no way to get more.

It’s easy to pick elements apart because there’s actually a lot I love about the game. I love a lot of the dialogue. I love almost all of the set pieces. Sometimes gameplay elements come together so well that you can’t help but feel giddy. The flashback sequences are so fun, and feel like classic Payne. James McCaffrey is legendary at slipping right back into the role, and he fucking carries A LOT. I nitpick because it’s so close to being one of my favorites, but it’s held back by so many little inconveniences that can turn it frustrating really fast.

I can overlook the stylistic deviations, but some of the games smaller problems get in its own way. Either way, It’s hard to deny that Max Payne 3 is a slick, badass, entertaining shoot ‘em up with some really cool storytelling. And hell… that last act is the closest I’ll ever get to an awesome “Die Hard” game.