Max Payne 3: Pain as art

Rockstar Games has accomplished what few games in the industry have: they have made gaming an art form. After playing Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption, and now Max Payne 3, I can say with honesty and a straight face that these three games delivered in ways many Hollywood movies can't.

I am a gamer who enjoys a good plot. I want to be driven by more than the need to complete a game and brag about it on Facebook or Twitter. I want to be seduced by a game, I want the story to draw me in and the characters to have depth.  I know if I'm playing a great game when I am struggling to get through a chapter just to watch the cinematic following its completion.  Max Payne 3 was one of those games.

This was the first Max Payne game I had ever played so I was worried that it would be like jumping onto a speeding train, luckily that wasn't the case. The game picks up several years after the events of Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. You get a sense within the first few moments of the opening sequence as to why Max is a raging alcoholic and pain killer addict.

His dark and sad view of the world adds color to an already rich story laid out by Rockstar. He is the quintessential dark antihero that really just can't help but get neck deep into some twisted tale.  Max has no grace, style, or finesse. He's an analog player in a digital world, taking the hard way through, not out, of any situation he's in.

His life as a cop, father and husband didn't turn out so well and it cost him everything. No matter what vengeance he laid out, nor how much time he let pass, the void within him was apparent.  For reasons you find out in flashback gameplay sequences you find Max in Brazil guarding a wealthy family while still finding time to get utterly wasted. Then things, of course, go straight to shit.

I loved the film noir-esque storytelling of the game, using Max as the narrator during gameplay and cinematics. His dark and sad view of the world adds color to an already rich story laid out by Rockstar. He is the quintessential dark antihero that really just can't help but getting neck deep into some twisted tale.  Max has no grace, style or finesse, he's an analog player in a digital world, taking the hard way through, not out, of any situation he's in.

Using bottles of painkillers as a means to restore your health, I felt like the addict that I was, looking for rooms that I felt would house some more pills to load up on. Knowing to check bathrooms, locker rooms, aid stations, I felt like a porn addict knowing what sites to find the latest Skinamax flick to drool over. The game made YOU Max Payne without you realizing it. The people you were after became people you truly hated, which made their demise as satisfying to the player as it was for Max.

Jon's Thoughts
Max Payne 3 is game of the year material through and through. The presentation is better than anything you will ever see. Anything. Every single facet of film making technique is employed flawlessly in this game. You have never played a game this raw. You will never play a game that creates a character you hate, love, and pity in the first hour of gameplay.

Max Payne 3 has set a new standard in storytelling. It addresses the limitations of the medium by simply ignoring them. Rockstar says, "screw formulaic baby town frolics like Uncharted. You buy this game and you've given us an open invitation to f*ck your skull."

The game is disturbingly violent and tasteless, but in all the right ways. It's the coke-fueled affair that gives Oliver Stone and Tarrantino creative boners. It will make you take a step back, pause, and ask: "What the hell am I playing?"

It isn't a game and it isn't a movie. It's an experience -- one soaked in blood, agony, despair, and redemption. You will love it. You will find it impossible to hate because it's just that good. You'll be witnessing the evolution of the medium as you know it. If you want to be negative nancy and pinpoint the cumbersome cover system and "typical run and gun affair", go somewhere and shut up. No one cares. Max Payne 3 is beautifully disgusting, and even if you hate it, you still find a way to love it.

The story delves deep into the heart of depravity and corruption as only Max Payne and Rockstar can provide. Some dark holes you end up in even disgust Max at certain points, which made you feel the growing sense of repulsion for the people who did this.

What more could you ask for in a game? To play as some fictional character and get so entranced by the story and action that you forget that what you're playing is essentially a child's toy for twenty-somethings is impressive. You become a traveller and/or passenger in a story about a man desperate to escape a past full of misery, only to trudge through the depths of hell to find nothing but brand new scars.