Review Round-Up: Max Payne 3


If you're craving a bullet dodging, pain killer good time then you should be happy with the return of Max Payne. Is Max playing with a full clip or is he running on empty. Lets take a look at what the critics have to say:


MetaCritic:   87/100


GamesRadar:   10/10
Max Payne 3 marks an exceptional comeback for the series. The plot wraps the neo-noir storytelling around a bright and exotic locale while peppering the action with enough backstory to stave off boredom. While prior games were certainly dark tales, the stories of addiction, double and triple crosses, as well as some grim surprises ripped straight from urban legends. It maintains the mechanics that made the prior games great while modernizing them to excellent effect. Between the arcade mode and multiplayer, there’s enough substantive content to keep you hooked for some time. While there are some mechanically wonky moments, they’re too miniscule to tank a stellar sequel that was worth the wait. Between its pacing, its presentation, and its excellent gunplay, Max Payne 3 has raised the bar for other action games to follow. Welcome back.
GameInformer:   9.3/10
No matter what gameplay mode I chose, I had a great time playing Max Payne 3. The gameplay doesn’t explore new territory, but delivers a retro charm that fans of the series should appreciate. It’s a new day for Max Payne, and at the same time, a return to his glorious past.
GameSpot:   9.0/10
While the multiplayer is enjoyable, the single-player campaign is a knockout. There's incentive to return to the campaign and conquer it on higher difficulty levels, or to tackle the leaderboards in Arcade mode and in New York Minute mode, in which you race through levels, earning time for each kill. Times change and people change, too; Max Payne isn't the same man by the end of this game that he is at the beginning. It's fitting, then, that the gameplay has also evolved, that Max needs to proceed with a bit more caution than he did in his younger days. They say the more things change, the more they stay the same, and one thing remains true: you can still count on the Max Payne name to deliver some of the most stylish, distinctive, pulse-pounding shooting around.
Destructoid:   9.0/10
It's damn good fun, creating an environment of chaos and thrilling combat. The new Rockstar Social Club features allow players to team up easily in Crews, pairing them up with players on teams who are members of the same Crew, and it makes it easy to get into a game with people you might actually want to play with. Crew members will engage in the game on a whole new level, becoming embroiled in bitter feuds through a mechanic which adds another objective layer to playing online by giving players specific enemies to target based on their associations and prior conflicts between Crews.

Max Payne 3 is a fantastic package, with a top-notch presentation and plenty of content to keep players busy and happy. It may have been a long time in coming, but there's no arguing with results, and Max is the kind of guy who gets them. Fans and newcomers alike are going to find plenty to enjoy in this exceptional title.
GameTrailers:   7.6/10
The famed Max Payne is still capable of getting the job done, but he has a bit of a hard time fitting into the framework he’s been given here. Attempting a character study of a deeply flawed action hero is an interesting gamble that just doesn’t pay off, and the single-player experience continually struggles with leveraging the character’s identity or unique skills. So it’s got some issues. That said, the surprisingly entertaining multiplayer modes and a virtuoso treatment of extreme violence stand out as legitimate highpoints. It all basically comes down to your tolerance for pain.

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