Max Payne 3 for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

The bullet time innovation of the first Max Payne was done very well. It was a fun mechanic that gave you different ways to attack. That same mechanic still works today. The cover mechanic combined with the bullet time gameplay is another good combination of tactics. As new as the game is, it still feels like Payne! Complete with painkillers. Its a dark, gritty game that has great and tight controls. Graphics and presentation are beautiful. Only problem I actually have with this game is the unreal amount of deaths I continue to run into. After I died a lot I took an inventory of how many times I died. I got to the (spoiler alert) abandoned hotel and I died 134 times. Way too many. However, Rockstar may have wanted that because I continued playing! The game is that good. I can't wait to check out the multi-player and see where it goes!

Game has Fallout 3 syndrome, you can tell a different developer was involved with it, and the lack of comic book monologues kind of threw me off in the beginning, but it's still solid, although the rainbow-spaz effects were unnecessary and didn't really add anything to the overall experience.

Story is kind of fragmented and nonsensical, which made it hard for me to get attached to any of the characters - it ends up being something like "Max Payne you're drunk and you take so many pain pills, why?" - the game then goes out of it's way to nod to Max Payne 1 and 2 twice in the whole 10-15 hour experience, and then doesn't really bring it up after that. Ultimately the answer ends up being bald, fat, American slow-motion justice - some guy you don't even know or remember comes in and ruins Max's life, so Max leaves the USA so he can avoid dying there and almost get killed in Brazil. A bunch of people die, and then you get even more drunk, pop even more pain pills, slip into more bullet-time and then it's over in a big explosion.

Gameplay insists of clearing corridors and rooms to unlock doors a-la Legend of Zelda, except instead of Link you're Max Payne and instead of the typical Zelda fare, you're shooting Brazilians. Cover is important, if you don't hide behind it, you'll die. You can use two one-handed weapons and one two-handed weapon, but Max Payne constantly forgets he has a two-handed weapon between cutsecenes which really defeats the purpose of even having a two-handed weapon. Bullet-time is manipulated to create some really cool scenes, but after they happen you just shrug and move on.

The game has lots of unlockables like any Rockstar game, but just like any Rockstar game, I beat it and I'm certain I'll never play it again.

Max Payne 3 is good, but if you're looking for a continuation in the series, it's really not much more than a rental. Buy it if you like unlocking stuff though.