Max Payne 3 (Xbox 360) (From Daily Echo)
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Max Payne 3 (Xbox 360)
10:23am Friday 8th June 2012 in Game Reviews
By Ian Crump
Max Payne 3 (Xbox 360)
Reviewed On: Xbox 360
Available For: PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360
Publisher: Rockstar
Developer: Rockstar
Genre: Action
Age: 18 (BBFC)
Click here for more screenshots
THE intro is what’s expected from a Max Payne game. Comic book aesthetics lay the foundation for the gritty storyline, glazed with the gravelly narration of James McCaffrey.
Max Payne quickly establishes itself as being tightly wound with its narrative, brought to the screen superbly with plentiful and beautiful cinematic sequence. The action is also thick and fast with Max getting into the usual tight squeezes he’s become famous for.
The action now uses a cover and shoot system, and in doing so, makes the play feel a lot like Kane and Lynch: Dead Men – and that’s not anything to feel particularly proud of.
Bullet time is of course back and is delivered in the manner it should be, playing a key role to survival and integrating itself with limb-breaking leaps. The added inclusion of being able to follow the bullet to its well-placed destination is great at first, but can get tiresome after just a short while.
The dark and sinister feel of the series is still partly alive, but has made a transformation from noir to grit. It’s a different type of dark, one that works well, although traditionalists of the series will no doubt feel that the jump from smooth detective to unkempt bodyguard is too much of a shift.
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Multiplayer has reached the series for the first time, and although it copes intuitively to get round the problem of bullet time, it’s still the basic action play of the single-player mode, and as we already established – I’m not a huge fan.
Despite all its bells and whistles, Max Payne 3 has little to grab a player.Bullet time has been done to death and the execution sequences become disjointed. Allin- all it’s another average shooter with a big storyline and an even bigger budget.
SCORE: 6 / 10
PROS: Nice to see Max again - with or without hair. Interesting multiplayer mode.
CONS: Action feels a little old. Fancy flourishes look good but grow tiresome quickly.
