Damn Max looks amazing in MP3...
Ok, been having internet problems these weekend, so I couldn't post more impressions but it's given me time to beat it again on hard. I'm very pleased with Steam's offline mode, I was expecting nothing would work but I could run this and Hard Reset no problems, so kudos to Valve.
So. Impressions. My overall rating of the game as a whole is unfortunately a "disliked" or at best a "meh".
Max Payne was always about plot and character and Max Payne 3 fails at both. Whatever character study Dan Houser had in his head, he must've written it in a different notebook. More frustrating than that, the plot is predictable and underwhelming, and the script itself is weak and soul-less. Max's poetic and witty sardonic nature seems to be cut off along with his hair. After Red Dead (and to some degree, GTA IV), I was expecting something more or less compelling, and I kept saying to myself "there's gonna be some twist, some smart hook or commentary down the line", but all the interesting topics -and there were plenty to choose from: alcoholism, paramilitaries brutally raiding the favelas, the contrast between the poor and the rich in Sao Paulo, the lost foreigner in a strange land, american invasionism on Latin America- are all casually hinted on, but never explored in any sort of meaningful way. Instead of copying the plot of Man on Fire and using all those elements as backdrops to the plot, Rockstar could've put any of that as forefront of the story and he might've been going somewhere.
It's not a mess at all, the plot is, after all, enjoyable to watch, in the same way a Die Hard movie is enjoyable to watch, but it's also devoid of all the ambition and the charm of the previous games, and that's criminal with such a lovable series as Max Payne.
The good is pretty obvious: the game never ceases to amaze visually, the soundtrack and sound design is excellent (I can't seem to get tired of listening to that 'Tears' theme) and the actually shooting and jumping around is a lot of fun, if you ignore the shooting galleries and turret sections. You'd think someone in Rockstar would've figured out that a game in which you can dodge bullets isn't so interesting after you block the player's movement, but, really, without the mild platforming and nightmare chapters from the previous titles, something had to break the pace, even if it's just more shooting in a different manner. I felt the checkpoints were fine, the last stand mechanic wasn't all that bad, really, and I can kinda tolerate cutscenes doing what they want with my "inventory". Having recently done a bit of catch-up in MP1 and MP2, though, I simply can't say this was my favorite Max Payne to play, so sadly I can't even give MP3 that.
Overall, it's a weak title that's not entirely disappointing, since I never expected Rockstar to understand the sensibilities of the Max Payne series, and not terrible at all, but it's the worst Max Payne to date. If multiplayer doesn't kick me out 99% of the times I try to log-in to a match, I'll probably play some of that, since the little I tried seemed fun enough, and I still have a few golden guns and clues to pick up, so I might try to beat the game one more time. Unskippable cutscenes (specially the intro scene) really kill replayability, so I hope that gets patched or something.
