Max Payne 3
Tags: neo noir, murder, violence, flashback, good versus evil, revenge

Plot synopsis:
=== Setting ===
According to Rockstar's president Sam Houser, it was their intention to start a new chapter of Max Payne's life with the game: "This is Max as we've never seen him before, a few years older, more world-weary and cynical than ever." The press release states that since the last game, Max has left New York City behind and "drifted from bad to worse." The press release goes on to say Max has been double-crossed in this new city and is searching for both the truth and a way out. The game is set in São Paulo, Brazil, several years after the events of ending of the second game. Max Payne now works in executive protection for the wealthy Rodrigo Branco and his family in the hopes of escaping the memories of his troubled past. When a street gang kidnaps Rodrigo's wife, Fabiana, Max is pulled into a conspiracy of shadowy, warring factions threading every aspect of São Paulo society in a deadly web that threatens to engulf everyone and everything around him.
=== Plot ===
Nine years after the events of the second game, Max Payne (James McCaffrey) has retired from the NYPD and spends his days at a bar in Hoboken, New Jersey, nursing his alcoholism and an addiction to painkillers. One evening, a man named Raul Passos (Julian Dean) approaches Max and offers him a new job, which Max turns down. But, during a drunk and violent argument, Max shoots the son of local mob boss Anthony DeMarco (Ray Iannicelli), who puts a price on his head and orders the entirety of New Jersey's crime underlings to kill Max. After killing most of his gang with Passos' help, Max decides to leave his old life behind, taking Passos' job offer as a private security contractor in South America.
Max and Passos work for the wealthy Branco family in São Paulo, consisting of three brothers: Rodrigo (Frank Rodriguez), a real-estate mogul; Victor (Robert Montano), a local politician who aspires to be the city's next mayor; and Marcelo (Dillon Porter), a hard-partying socialite. At a private party, Max saves Rodrigo and his trophy wife Fabiana (Benedita Pereira) from an attempted kidnapping by members of the Comando Sombra, a favela street gang. A few nights later, as Max escorts Fabiana and her friends to a nightclub, the gang attacks again, successfully kidnapping Fabiana and demanding a ransom of $3 million. Max and Passos deliver the ransom to a local football stadium to make the exchange, but the deal is disrupted by the Crachá Preto, an outlaw, right-wing paramilitary unit, who kill the Comando Sombra and steal the money. After escaping the stadium, Max and Passos raid a Comando Sombra base along the Tiete river to rescue Fabiana, but are unable to prevent the gang's leader, Serrano, from escaping with her. After they report their failure to the Brancos, Victor suggests they rely on Armando Becker (Ubirajara de Castro) and his special police unit Unidade de Forças Especiais (UFE) to oversee Fabiana's safe return. Victor, Passos, Marcelo and Becker leave via helicopter, moments before the Crachá Preto abruptly raid the Branco offices.
Max fights off the Crachá Preto and returns to Rodrigo's secured office to find him assassinated. Upon interrogating a wounded Crachá Preto soldier, Max learns that Fabiana is being held by Serrano in the Nova Esperança favela and that the Crachá Preto raid was meant for Max, as vengeance for the deaths of their operatives at the stadium. Blaming himself for what has transpired, Max swears off alcohol, shaves his head, and informs Victor and Marcelo that he is going undercover into Nova Esperança to save Fabiana. He gets lost in the sprawling favela, but is assisted by Detective Wilson Da Silva (Stephen Girasuolo), who reveals that the Crachá Preto have engaged in illicit deals with the Brancos, and suspects that Victor and UFE might also be involved. Max eventually finds Fabiana, only for her to be executed by Serrano. Marcelo and Fabiana's sister Giovanna (Shirley Rumierk) are kidnapped, as the UFE raid the favela. Max follows the raid and witnesses UFE collaborate with the Crachá Preto, selling them the people they arrested during the assault. Max then witnesses the Crachá Preto necklace Marcelo, and escapes with Giovanna. Fleeing from the militia, Giovanna is rescued by Passos, but Max is abandoned, later saved by Da Silva.
Da Silva reveals that Passos worked for Victor until he hired Max. Max remembers that when he and Passos worked as security for Marcelo's yacht party, which was attacked by military brigands in the Panama Canal, he escaped the yacht to find Marcelo and Passos trying to drive away with unknown cargo. Max realizes that he was recruited by Passos to be the fall guy for whatever illicit activity the Brancos were involved in. Da Silva deduces that Max was set up by Passos and Victor, so the latter would gain access to his brother's wealth and garner sympathy for the upcoming mayoral elections. He then informs Max about a rundown hotel where the Crachá Preto and UFE are seen delivering prisoners. After Max discovers it is the base for a black market organ theft ring and corrupt UFE officers are being paid to deliver the detainees for organ harvesting, he frees the remaining detainees, including Serrano, who subsequently kills the corrupt surgeon performing the organ removals.
Max sets explosives to destroy the entire complex, but is held at gunpoint by Crachá Preto's leader, Alvaro Neves. Passos reappears, kills Neves and flies Max out as the building implodes. Afterwards, Passos explains that Marcelo and Victor forced him to cooperate in getting Rodrigo to finance Victor. Passos apologizes to Max, who forgives him, before he flees the city with Giovanna, who is pregnant with his child. Da Silva suggests that Max stage his surrender to the police in order to find incriminating evidence linking the UFE and Victor to the crimes of the Crachá Preto and the Comando Sombra. After doing so, Max escapes into UFE headquarters as planned, finding evidence that a UFE lieutenant named Bachmayer killed Rodrigo. After Max kills Bachmayer, he confronts Becker, but is held at gunpoint by Victor, who explains that he ordered the Crachá Preto to ambush the stadium exchange; the organ harvesting ring was funded by the stolen ransom money.
Victor and Becker escape to the airport with Max in pursuit. After an intense shootout with the UFE, Max catches up with them as they are preparing to board a jet. Becker (toting a grenade launcher) and his men try to stop Max and allow Victor time to escape, but Max shoots and detonates one of Becker's grenades in mid-air, giving the player the option to either kill Becker, or allow him to die from his wounds. With Da Silva driving in pursuit, Max disables Victor's plane, and approaches an injured Victor with the intent to kill him, but he relents after Da Silva persuades him to spare Victor so that he will answer for the crimes he committed. Victor taunts Max that he will be set free, and Max responds by breaking his leg.
A week later in Bahia, Max finds out that the remains of Becker's UFE battalion has been dissolved due to their ties to the illegal organ harvesting ring, while Victor is found dead, hanged in his prison cell. Finally having attained some solace, Max walks into the sunset.

Review: The graphics, are great, good light affect, rain affect, the atmosphere is fantastic and the voice actors did an amazing job in this game, especially James Mccaffery (Mx Payne voice actor).
This got to be one of the best games that you could get today, it has superb multi-player, a fantastic story and some of the greatest voice acting that you could get in a video game ever, this has been one hell of a ride that you shouldn't miss.
The writer of the story show off a great skill at displaying Max's deep and depressed life that he drinks away to an inevitable hangover, and constantly pops pills to try and fill his sad and disheartened hole that won't go away.
Sounds somewhat cliché, but his intense bad-ass-ery makes up for it.When Max gets roughed up, it looks so painful and gritty, you can almost feel it yourself.
They do deserve it though.The story makes this game so damn awesome, Max is a valiant hero by no means, but he does have a sense of good that he tries to make out...
Even the sound track is perfectly picked for this game.-Gameplay-Max Payne is a third person shooter, mostly over the shoulder.
Every gunfight seems like an epic movie scene *untill* you fudge up and smack your head on a wall.Most often, Max will engage a battle guns blazing, leaping through a window or down a roof, hoping to shoot as many bad-guys as possible before hitting the ground.
The fact of the matter is that the only way to really appreciate and avoid some valid criticisms of Max Payne 3, one must see this game as more of a new envisioning of the franchise.What made the original game stand out aside from the bullet time gameplay was minute details; the fact that groups of enemies had hilarious conversations between each other, or the ingenious narrative with catchy phrases that practically defines the noir genre, and the entire dark shades and tones that overtook the graphics- Max Payne 3 does not so much do away with these things as update and modernize the series to meet the standards of today.For some players, immersion may be instantaneous from the hook, and for others, it may take longer, and there may be those who essentially give up because they find it mundane, however; the game is best seen like a playable movie that, by the second disc, truly shines: The narrative becomes more astute, the character of Max Payne becomes polished, and the story begins to pick up with quite some twists and turns.The gameplay is so refined that this game is the pinnacle of its genre and with the graphics and attention to detail being by far the best for action shooters thus far, Max Payne 3 truly shines as the must have and must play for anyone who wants an experience beyond anything out in the market.Another important note is the surprising amount of replay value and goodies, such as collectible "clues" and "golden guns" placed throughout levels that encourage exploration of detailed environments.
However, the fact that there are absolutely no traditional load times throughout any of the levels again strongly contribute to making this game one of the best of its genre, and between this and the 360 degree gameplay, polished and refined bullet time, a duck, cover and blind-fire system that is effective and at times necessary, and a script with clever dialogue that eventually does pick up throughout the second disc, Max Payne 3 is an authoritative must have for absolutely any fan even remotely interested in the genre.Pros Gameplay, production values, graphics, sound, audio , script, replay valueCons Long cut scenes cannot be skippedScore 9.8/10.
I played Max Payne 2 about five times in all difficulties, just to see the alternate ending, that I don't want to spoiler to you.
The game starts pretty well: Max addicted to drugs is a great idea (how many painkillers did we make him take in the previous games?), but there ends the character Max Payne.
I'm not criticizing graphics and gameplay, they're certainly great; but this game could have been named differently, the character could have had blonde hair and here you have a very nice game with a poor story that has nothing to do with Max Payne.
Remedy's not involved but I'm sure they'll give out something worthwhile" and even the location change, I thought it was an odd location but I thought a good story would pull through even with Max looking like the lovechild of Agent 47 and Obidiah Stane...
So Max rescues all but one and the rest of the game is pretty much you running around trying to save this person.Okay, so my biggest problems with this is the story.
Anyone else think we missed a much better Max Payne game in-between the ending of the second one and when he got his job offer in the flashback levels?
That to some people was one of the best things in those games, it showed what Max is really going through.
I am literally suggesting to turn over a new leaf with this series because the story of the first game has a lot of potential (although if the Mark Whalberg movie taught us anything, that can also backfire) and if they did that, while it wouldn't be as good - They wouldn't be screwing the continuity sideways and it would be good to actually see these memorable characters again.Okay, I've gotten angry for three paragraphs (and the worst part is I've only played half of this game...
The added cover system really works and the whole "Last Man Standing" thing when Max enters bullet-time to shoot the guy who would have fired the shot that killed him is a nice touch, I mean it's essentially making it easier but then again you die in this game quite a bit as well.
I might complain about the segments where you shoot enemies in bullet-time while doing something ridiculous like leaping over a car, holding onto a falling water tower or on a boat catapulting through the air but then again this is the same video game series where a guy single handedly shoots up hundreds of mobsters, takes hundreds painkillers without once over-dosing and leaps through corridors while doing it all in a matter of four days (I say four because, three days for Max Payne 1, 1 night for Max Payne 2) so I really didn't mind it.If you want to play this game with the intention of maybe connecting to a video game series you know and love, this isn't it.
Everything about them was awesome, like the never seen before bullet time, the cool looking comic-page cutscenes, and the amazing story and gameplay.
Skip to 2012 and Rockstar release Max Payne 3, this time more different in many ways to its predecessors.
Firstly, while the previous games were set in the cold, dark, snowy nights of L.A., this game is set mostly in the blaring heat of Sao Paulo, Brazil and I didn't really appreciate it because it didn't feel like Max Payne anymore.
Secondly, the comic-page cutscenes are gone as well to be replaced with motion scenes and I was a bit bothered as well by this because it was starting to feel less and less like the Max Payne we knew and loved.
I could keep comparing the game to its predecessors but I think you get my point.Max Payne has a strong storyline supported by great animations and brilliant voice acting.
Picking up the franchise from game developers Remedy, A Rockstar studios collaboration puts out just what old fans have expected from a Max Payne game.
A good story line that is not bad at all.The game- Graphically great tagged with great game play that does not get old and fantastic sound shows the overflowing quality of this product in the single player campaign.
The almost cut scenes which cant be skipped mostly can be an irritation for the player as you just want to get into the game ASAP at least on second and third play through.
When I heard about Max Payne 3, I naturally was interested, I loved the first 2 games and even though Remedy were not the ones working on 3, I still love Rockstar, they are able to tell great stories like in GTA San Andreas or Red Dead Redemption, so I was still very optimistic.
Now, Max Payne 3 is not a bad game, not even close, but I can't deny it did felt like a step down compared to the previous games, the story is interesting at parts but after a while, you start to loose interest, while is a good story, is not as intriguing and engaging as the stories of the first two games and at times it gets pretty boring, the change of location was an interesting choice and they do take advantage of it, but it makes the game feel a bit distant from it's own franchise, thankfully there are some breve flashback scenes that take you to New Jersey and they feel more similar to the Max Payne games, now gameplay is something that has been improved considerably, the shooting mechanics are more polished than ever and the bullet time was perfected here, the graphics look gorgeous and the musical score by Health is great, in regard of technical aspects, Max Payne 3 is a near perfect game, but in regards of story and characters, this game is a bit of a let down, other than Pasos, there aren't many memorable new characters, none of the antagonists feel as unique as Nichole Horne or the Gognitti family or Lupino, none of the secondary characters are as memorable as Vladimir or Mona Sax, and that's a shame since this have always been a strong point in the franchise.
Something I did liked about this game is the kind of story they were aiming, the first game was a neo-noir revenge story, the second game was a neo-noir romance story and this game is a neo-noir redemption story, that is actually a brilliant idea, making the Max Payne trilogy feel like one long story with 3 different acts, the execution though is the problem.
Like I said, Max Payne 3 is by no means a bad game, in fact is pretty good, the graphics, gameplay and attention to detail are amazing, but the story and characters are unfortunately weaker and while the game is a fitting conclusion to Max's story, is not quite as strong as it should have been..
The game is awesome as an action piece, but a lot of the elements from the previous 2 games by Remedy that I fell in love with were lost, like the comic book passages, the gritty noir environments, Max's sense of humor, clever irony and poetic narration, the dream sequences and some other awesome things that made me fell in love with the two Remedy games.
For the first game I give a 9/10, great game, for the second game, a straight and glorified 10/10, flawless in every sense, and even if times had changed, playing these two games today didn't reduce my devotion and admiration for them, but for the third game, sorry guys, it gets a 5.5/10, not that good, it lost many of the identity acquired in the first two, it seemed like a different game to me.
All the voice acting is greatly performed (James McCaffrey steals the show)and it feels realistic, the soundtrack is brilliant(probably one of the best around), the graphics are great(One of the best for a third person shooter) and the attention to detail is amazing like all Rockstar games, the style and direction of the game is very good and keeps it interesting along with the story.Although this is all ruined by the repetitive nature of the game it basically consists of: cut-seen kill people cut-seen kill people.
There are some other issues like: bad frame-rate, lack of exploration, terrible placing of checkpoints(or lack of them) but none of them add up to my overall major negative of this game...........................The difficulty.Personally i like games that challenge me, it makes it feel like I've accomplished something and it gives me a sense of reward but Max Payne is just ridiculously hard.
but max payne 3 is like a modded gta 5 game with extremely poor story..
Max Payne 1 and 2 was one of those (rare) action games with good a la Mickey Spillane stories told very neatly in comic novella style packed in noir surrounding .So what has changed and is Max still filled with pain?9 year after NY events Max is still drowning his sadness in alcohol and painkillers when his old colleague Raul pays him a visit and proposes a new job.
It took me approximately 14 hours to finish the game campaign taking my time which is decent for shooter.If this Max appeared first it would have been great shooter which lacks story, like this we will ad minus for implementing nothing significantly new and plus for upgrading good shooting.Good shooting with disappointing story when taking in mind its origins 8/10..
Greetings from Lithuania."Max Payne 3" (2012) (2012) was one of the best looking games in it's release year.
Gameplay itself is outstanding - shooting, bullet time effects and gorgeous graphics as well as intriguing (but not highly involving) story makes this a must play experience + add a great (and surprisingly very deep) multiplayer.Max Payne itself is the star of the game.
Dialogs and screenplay are excellent.Overall, "Max Payne 3" is different then two previous excellent games.
Cut-scenes go on for way too long and the "faulty video" aesthetic is just annoying.I wouldn't recommend this game.There are 68 trophies featured in Max Payne 3 (21 of them being from multiplayer DLC) though the trophies from the main game are very hard to achieve.
and this happens within minutes of each other, there may be as much time just watching as playing; it will leave you in a bad position, with the worst weapon ready, no reloading and you not having time to do so yourself - and the foes typically already know where you are) and lead you to the next shooting gallery, rinse and repeat(rather than the more varied game-play, particularly in the '07 original where you assault somewhere, complete something vital, and then exfiltrate, trying and failing to do so without causing damage and hurting those you don't mean to).You simply can't choose the approach(it even chooses to spawn more opponents, early on it may even do so in your blind spot, preventing you from getting your bearings - and then expects you to gather ammo, as well as painkillers, that thankfully mean you have to work for health), for the first time in these, and exploration is all but gone.
I play either console games or PC games, and I got this to try out on my newly built puter, and I was disappointed with the overall look and feel of this game, way to many cut scenes, and most times you have to endure them, if you like it or not!
Sure I don't mind a few cut or story scenes, but they drag on way to long, I want more play!
It's very different, but still a Max Payne game.
More killing, more pervasive language, better graphics, and introduces cover system to the series, allowing yourself to peak out to make sure all the bad guys are dead.It's been 9 years since Max Payne and Mona Sax took on the Inner Circle.
i bought this game last month and it is easily the best game of the year until now i really enjoyed every single minute of it ,everytime i sat in front of it i never wanted it to end and keep in mind that this game has a very long campaign and also really brutal ,just ignore the haters this game is as good as the first two ,even the graphics were awesome and The story is phenomenal just like the other Max Payne games.
It's a fine game as long as you don't call it a Max Payne game.
I love the first two Max Payne games.
The game play was innovative and still a blast to play and when it comes to story and characters they're right up there with the likes of Metal Gear Solid and The Last of Us. That's how good they are and are some of the best that Neo Noir has to offer in any medium.
and then I played the gameA lot of fans hate this game and say it doesn't even feel like a Max Payne game and yeah it's hard for me to argue with them.
First of, who the hell thought it was a good idea to put a cover system in a Max Payne game?!
Max Payne is suppose to play like a John Woo movie, think of any heroic bloodshed film and anything inspired by that genre, do the characters ever duck and cover while conserve ammo throughout most of the shootout?
No but it's not suppose to be and that the first strike with this game is trying to make Max Payne more realistic which makes no sense at all.
What made the stories in the first two games worked as well as Red Dead Redemption was that it was personal for both Max Payne and John Marston.
Here it feels more like homework to get to the end of the story Are you starting to see why I think this game was only made for marketing reasons?
Ugh So if R* was going to change so much to the point that it doesn't even feel like a Noir comic book John Woo film hybrid then why call it Max Payne at all?