What made Max Payne's success? This series has so much elements that make it unique: The story, the characters, the gameplay... All the ingredients to make a good game are still here. But in the case of Max Payne 3, it seems like it wasn't enough. So why even fans love this game?
The first thing to mention in this game is its main character, Max Payne, which is still as good as he was: He's well developped, has a complex psychology and is simply badass as hell. In this episode, developpers wanted to make it even more realistic by showing he's still human after all, and can be hurt, doubt about himself and be emotionally fragile. All this could be very effective and make of him a complex and credible character, but it is simply ruined by his actions. His personality is only developped in cutscenes, but when the action begins, we see him shoot everyone without thinking like the hero of a bad action movie. And here's Max Payne 3's main problem: Shooting is the only thing you'll do in the entire game. Of course situations may vary, and the game can be interresting anyway, but it's impossible to make a character complex and realistic when he kills the half of Rio's population alone. And it's really a shame because there are some situations that could be solved otherwise than with killing everyone around. For exemple, when there's this situation: he wants to escape with another character he must protect, but there's a room full of enemies that didn't see him yet, what could he do? Try to escape discreetly? No, infiltration is for pussies, just shut up and kill everyone. You see what I mean? The fact that the gameplay is only based on gunfights completely ruins the character's credibility, when add other types of phases like investigation phases or infiltration phases would completely fit to the story, and would make the game a lot more interresting. And what about the story itself, by the way? It's just a succession of missions based on the layout ''bad guy kidnapped good guy. Max must save him. Max kills everyone but fails in saving him, so bad guy takes good guy to another place. Max must go kill everyone again'' Concerning the secondary characters... Well, at least THEY are realistic, maybe not developped, but they are at least credible.
The second thing that most people love in this game is its production. Comics-styled effects, bullet times... These are all good ideas. But this game simply abuses of it. Bullet times every 5 minutes ruins the aim of bullet times itself, and make me feel like I'm watching a Z-series action movie. The comic-styled effects have the same problem: there's too much of them and it becomes just awful.
Concerning the graphics, I have not much to say, they are made to be realistic and they are good at it. On the technical side, there's also no problem, all works like it should, no special bugs to complain about.
So is there anything good left in this game? Yes, excepting some effects, cutscenes are well-produced and dialogues well-written. That's why best moments I had with this game, are moments when I didn't play, because when the action comes back, Max becomes a brainless killing machine and the other characters incredibilly stupid, so turn off your brain and shoot what you're told to shoot. Really, it's a shame that a game with so much good ideas can collapse like that.
In my opinion, for those that want to play a well-written character with a well-written story, this is not a game for you, but if you just want a shooting game without adding anything else, so it's made for you.
Ps. sorry if my english is approximate, I'm french