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| Don't Angry Him |
As the end credits of Max Payne 2 fade away to Poets of the
Fall’s “Late Goodbye”, Rockstar Games had promised us that Max Payne’s journey
into the night will continue. Max Payne – that angst ridden cop who in the
previous two editions was in search of the ones who had murdered his wife and
child, gunning down villains and their goons, mouthing off dialogues that word
by word took us deeper into his troubled soul, and took us closer to his world
whilst in Max’s body we searched for his vengeance – is back this time as an
alcoholic, fat, dumb cop (in his own words) on pills with a knack of being in
the wrong party at the wrong time, and also
much capable of spoiling it. The game moves eight years into the future from
where Part 2 had ended, Max works as a bodyguard for the rich Branco family in
Sao Paulo, Brazil, along with his friend Passos through whom he had gotten the job.
How they meet is explained in subsequent chapters as the story shuttles between
his troubled past in the snowy moonlit night of New Jersey and through the harrowing
present day in sunny Sao Paulo.
The story begins with a bald Max Payne holding a gun over
the head of one of the villains, as the flashback takes us to where it all
started. Max comes out all guns blazing but
in vain as another damsel in distress, Fabiana, of the wealthy Bronco family is
abducted on his watch by the street gang Comando Sobra. His search to get back
Fabiana and the other hostages leads him through the seedy underbelly of Sao
Paulo. Combating through the mean streets filled with meaner thugs, while berating
himself with snark-filled dialogues that have become a trademark of this
franchise as much as its edge-of-the seat gameplay, Max goes about solving the mystery
only to stumble upon a bigger conspiracy. And this is where the story gets complicated,
as you end up losing interest in the narrative hoping for the end to come soon.
At the point where the writing lets you down, Rockstar’s solid gameplay comes
to the fore and keeps you glued to the action.
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| He's back, he's bald and this time he's more pissed off. |
With every passing chapter comes a new environment with
tougher enemies, from the high-rising towers of the city to the poverty
stricken Favelas to the thrilling finale at an airport of which even Michael
Mann would be proud of, the environments are well-detailed and the action sequences
are slick and stylish. Max dives, swings and slides in slow motion during programmed
pivotal moments of action in the game,
only to leave you agape and wanting to play the sequence once again but with
more panache. With smarter and unrelenting enemies who keep coming at you, flanking
you when you are taking cover at the same place for a long time, Max Payne 3
not just tests your dexterity with the controller but also tests your strategy
on how to take down the bad guys. Back with their patented Shoot-dodge and
Bullet-time, the folks at Rockstar make sure that Max kills people with style. With
no auto-replenishment of health as seen with other games, it makes the gameplay at times frustrating yet more challenging, and seeking cover while counter
firing even more essential. The addition of a box of pills to restore your
health with every time you replay the failed scenario helps sustain your
interest in the game, giving you a hope of finishing the level even after you
are killed many times.
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| Bending time, one bullet at a time. |
With cut scenes galore and split screens with phrases of importance
in bold and large when narrated by our hero, Rockstar has tried out a new form of narration
moving on from that graphic novel feel we had when playing the previous two installments,
to throwing us right in the middle of a high-on-adrenaline Hollywood film. The
background score by HEALTH that ranges from fast-paced during mind numbing shootouts at the
discos and airports, to haunting and intense during stealth action sequences in
the docks and at a cemetery at night captures the mood of the sequence
brilliantly and keeps you hooked. James McCaffrey’s trademark voice for the titular
hero reflects Max’s self-deprecating humor as easily as that steely
never-say-die doggedness which comes out of him when push comes to shove. It lends
a personality of its own to the brooding Max Payne, a man on the edge who has
got nothing to lose.
As the game towards the end spirals into a mindless killing
spree with the storyline fading away into being almost non-existent, all that
keeps you going is the legend of the tortured Max Payne,who wherever he goes
keeps on fighting the demons of his past that come in various forms to haunt
him. Rockstar after a long wait of nine years have come back with a revamped
Max Payne 3, with larger-than-life action setpieces, a snazzy narrative, and a more
pissed of hero with a wide range of arsenal to combat an army of more than
dozen. It all seems to be worth the wait. Even so, when the story goes on to be
too heavier on the eye and longer to bear, all that keeps us pushing Max
forward is the core of the franchise that hinges on - Max Payne’s journey to
redeem himself whilst enduring Maximum Pain.
Image Credits : http://myvideogamenews.com/2012/05/23/max-payne-3-sales-update/
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