So I guess I’d become what they wanted me to be. A killer. Some rent-a-clown with a gun who puts holes in other bad guys. Well, that’s what they had paid for, so in the end that’s what they got. Say what you want about Americans, but we understand capitalism. You buy yourself a product and you get what you paid for, and these chumps had paid for some angry gringo without the sensibilities to know right from wrong… Here I was, about to execute this poor bastard like some dime store angel of death and I realized they were correct. I wouldn’t know right from wrong if one of them was helping the poor and the other was banging my sister.

And that’s how the story of Max Payne 3 starts. Max Payne has had a lot of shit going on in his life. He did wrong things, a lot of them, but now, he’s working for the private sector. He’s for hire as a private security guard. One day, he gets hired by a rich man in Sao Paolo, Brazil, to protect him and his family. But when one day things go wrong, Max is supposed to “save the day”. But for a drunk, that’s quite hard…

Max Payne 3 is all about Max’s past. He’s done a lot of things in his life, a lot of bad, stupid things. But now, he has this one chance to make everything right… When his employer gets killed and the guy’s wife and her sister get kidnapped, Max takes this chance to prove to himself that he is better than he used to be…

During the single player, the story really gives you an idea of the life Max used to have. The flashbacks are a really good assimilation of what happened in Max’s past. When this guy, Passos, saves him from the New Jersey mob, he decides to follow Passos to Sao Paolo to go work for a rich family. During the story in Sao Paolo, Max has flashbacks that go back to what happened in New Jersey. That way, the player knows why Max is doing what he does now.

Not knowing who his friends or enemies are, Max goes after a gang called ‘Comando Sombra’. He suspects them from kidnapping Fabiana and Giovanna, and decides to go straight into Comando Sombra territory to find them. When he finds out that the police special forces (called UFE) are involved in illegal things with the Comando Sombra, he tries to find out what he can.

Because of the use of ‘bullettime’, one of Max’s classic tricks, the game is a real masterpiece. You can do a lot with this function. It lets you survive the hardest situations, because you can do a lot in those 3 seconds that you’re flying through the air…

The multiplayer is a special thing as well. The normal game modes, like ‘capture the flag’ or ‘team deathmatch’ are there, but there are elements that make those games even more fun. When you are playing in a crew, and there is another crew in the game, you are likely to have a crew feud. This will place the two crews against each other, and you have to kill as many of the others as possible. You can even use bullettime in multiplayer, which causes you and everyone in your line of sight to slow down and go into bullettime.

If you look back at Max Payne 2, and you compare it to Max Payne 3, I’d say that the game has improved even more story wise. You can’t compare graphics, because MP2 was a PlayStation 2 game, and MP3 released on the last generation of consoles, which have the best graphics so far. If you look at gameplay, Max Payne 3 is one of the most exciting games I’ve played in the last few months.

+/ Pros

• Perfect graphics
• Beautiful story
• Good use of the bullettime in singleplayer

-/ Cons

• Even on easy, you die too fast
• Multiplayer: excessive use of bullettime

With Max Payne 3, Rockstar has developed the best game of the Max Payne series so far. If there will be a Max Payne 4, is unknown, but if there is, I’ll definitely buy it. The game has a really intriguing story, and it makes you ‘live’ the life of Max.

8.5/10

Tested on Xbox 360