I like the stories of Max Payne 2 and 3 better than the original game's. I find their tones more consistent. Max Payne 1 does have an interesting enough story, but it's pretty out there, with a government conspiracy, a secret underground base you'd expect in James Bond, super soldiers and a lot of other stuff that isn't quite noir. I'm not gonna gonna go into a lot of detail about the story, since it's pretty subjective and the fans will never agree with me anyway. I also know the original doesn't want to be taken too seriously. It's almost satirical at times. The writing of Max Payne 3 is... alright. Dan Houser doesn't write very good dialogue. James McCaffrey delivers his lines well overall. His acting has improved and he sounds less monotone than in the original. Although, maybe that was intentional.
Max Payne's cities always had strong atmosphere with an impressive attention to detail, and Max Payne 3's are no exception. But I preferred the cities of the previous games because there weren't so many interruptions and the encounters weren't so segmented. Not just enemy encounters, but friendlies too. You could go near them without a cutscene and listen to some amusing dialogues. This is almost entirely gone in Max Payne 3. You can still interact with objects (clues), but you only hear Max's monologues the first time you discover them. Doesn't matter if you're replaying a level. The only solutions are deleting your save file or watching them on YouTube. It's been so long since I interacted with them that I can't possibly remember what he says.
The soundtrack is more varied and the presentation is impressive. I like the comic book panels from the first two games, but I see them as a limitation of the time. I have no problem with the cutscenes, aside from them not being skippable and being videos instead of in-engine footage. Max Payne 3 tries to pay homage to the comic book cutscenes by sometimes placing scenes over each other with tiles.
Bullet time was improved in the two sequels. Shoot dodge didn't let you jump far enough in the original, and when you landed, there weren't the satisfying body on environmental reactions from Max Payne 3. Can you slide down slanted surfaces in Max Payne 1? I don't remember. The physics and weighty animations are a huge part of Max Payne 3. Enemies react to every bullet before and after they're dead.
I like the temporary carry system from Max Payne 3 better. You see, it takes longer to switch weapons with the permanent carry system. You need to press the number key once to select the weapon type and then a few more times to select the specific weapon within that category. Switching weapons in Max Payne 3 is instantaneous. Max Payne 3 has a lot more guns and on average I use more of them by picking up and dropping them. The attachments button is a missed opportunity. It would have been nice if instead of just being able to turn laser sights off and on, you could also fire grenades with mounted launchers.
The optional zoom and the shoulder swapping are great additions, and although I don't use the cover system very much, it has been very useful to me in both single player and multiplayer.
The biggest problem of Max Payne 3's gameplay is that you don't get enough opportunities to experiment, as the action is separated by too many cutscenes and the levels are less open. My New York Minute Hardcore run had only 84 minutes of gameplay. My individual level speedruns combined are much shorter than that. You barely get any opportunities to try out the sniper rifles. In Max Payne 1, you had a few open areas for them. Max is a beast in this game. It's almost disappointing how quickly the gunfights end. As I was playing Dead Men Walking (which pits you against endless enemies in a big map) for two and a half hours yesterday, I noticed that the enemies don't know your position unless they see you. I was able to get up behind them and shoot them in the back. You never see this kind of AI in the game because the levels are so linear and the gunfights are over so quickly.
Thankfully, Max Payne 3 finally has the multiplayer that Remedy said they wanted to implement since the first game. Most people will not have the skill and PATIENCE for it. Until a few months ago, I didn't want to play the multiplayer, because I was getting killed far too quickly and often, and I hated the items other players were using. I still very much dislike the bomb suit and sawn off and I take issue with rocket launchers killing me through objects, but they're not used so often that I'm gonna quit. As I find the rocket launcher and grenade launcher cheap, I only use the ones I find on bodies. After firing the explosive, I pick up my gun again. Something I also dislike is how easily visible the name tags and health bars over enemy players are. They don't show through objects, but it still gives your position away too easily at a distance. I think the Hardcore modes remove this, but nobody plays them. I also don't like the radar, how it shows enemy positions when they make noise.
I still have a kill-death ratio of 0.9, meaning I've died more than killed. But I'm having fun. Most of the time... The multiplayer is where the mechanics really shine. It gave me a better appreciation of the different guns' recoil, accuracy, range, power and the reduced accuracy of dual wielding, among other minute details. The levels are big and open enough that you actually have an opportunity to use the sniper rifles. And they're kind of awesome, since the hip fire accuracy is high, even with the dot in the middle of the screen gone. I mean, in what but the Max Payne games can you do
this with a sniper rifle? In a match with a kill ratio of 21:6, I was able to kill 11 of them without my scope, using that bolt-action rifle. Didn't matter if I was shoot dodging or running around. Didn't matter if the enemies were fifteen meters away. Most players don't realize that the sniper rifles are that accurate, since the hip fire accuracy is usually so poor in other games. I love that stuff. In fact, I wish every shooter kept the dot there when not using the scope (unless there's no dot to begin with).
The levels are also big enough that two-handed weapons have a bigger advantage over pistols, which don't have far enough range in a lot of situations.
The dodge roll is now
essential, the sprint is faster, the crouch is more useful and you can actually throw grenades! Two grenades. The body armor that can be worn in one single player level (the police station) is now a useful item. You have three types of ballistic vests you can wear, whose weight affects health regeneration and stamina regeneration.
You can loot bodies for adrenaline, cash, ammo and painkillers. You can carry up to one bottle of painkillers (unless you equip "Pill Bottle" as part of your loadout), and if you have a bottle on you when you die, you go into last stand, like in single player. The difference is that last stand doesn't put you in slow motion and it doesn't just take one bullet to kill your attacker, so most of the time you will still die.
Adrenaline allows you to use slow motion. You can aim faster than other players while in slow mo. You get adrenaline for killing and, as I said before, you sometimes find it on bodies. There are a bunch of different "perks," abilities that you can use as you rack up kills, but I just use "Bullet Time," because it allows me to go into slow mo with the slow mo button instead of just while shoot dodging.
I also much prefer the manual melee in the multiplayer over the automatic, cinematic one in the single player. It's quicker and it feels powerful. But your character doesn't take the enemy's weapon out of their hands during the melee.
Segmenting the multiplayer into so many different menus was a dumb idea, however. If they had just made one menu from which you can view all the active games of all game types, like in every other decently thought out multiplayer game, people would be more inclined to play. No one wants to wait, not knowing if anyone will join. Making different lobbies for free aim and soft lock only segments the community further. Just remove lock on already. GTA IV didn't need it, Red Dead Redemption didn't need it, GTA V didn't need it and Max Payne 3 doesn't need it. I never used it in any of those games, and I'm not even that great a player.
The game also doesn't inform you of kick votes, so if you're too good and your opponents are sore losers, you can be kicked before you even know that a vote was cast against you. You need to go into the (Esc) menu and select "Vote Kick" to know if any votes are being cast.
like when Max is on the ground after a shootdodge time slows down slightly so you can waste some dudes from the ground and not be a sitting duck. Beautiful. Its like Brutal Doom, but for Max Payne. You just have to turn off post processing effects because well, modders gonna mod! Thats like a goddamn rule of nature isnt it. You cant see shit with it turned on. But it doesnt matter. Why would you waste your time with MP3 next to this thing?
