As much as this game contrasts with Remedy's fantastic previous 2 entries, I think Rockstar was a great studio to give the series to and they pulled this one off spectacularly. Their high budget and heavy bias towards movies when looking for inspiration is exactly what makes this game great, with incredible atmosphere and presentation throughout, except maybe for the ending sequence.
The sheer cinematic expertise of this game is absolutely crazy, be it in cutscenes, gameplay or even in how these blend into each other. Not only is the gameplay on its own extremely fun with its mechanics and feel, but it's accentuated by great bullet time with dynamic angles that give you a wider view of each battle. Enemies are also a lot more interesting, as they react to your bullets with the use of the Euphoria middleware which makes defeating each one far more satisfying than in the other 2 games. It's honestly my favorite iteration of Max Payne gameplay in the series.
On top of all this the game also still holds up great visually most of the time, delivering a very gritty rendition of São Paulo within a wide variety of environments, from shiny modern buildings to the famous Brazilian slums. That said the PC version is not quite polished, as there's a fair amount of bugs one could experience like invisible geometry, softlocks and some collision issues. Nothing too intrusive/persistent though.
All in all it's just a fantastic and moody action game that doesn't stretch for too long and is fun above everything else. I'm left surprised it isn't regarded with more reverence in the medium, as I think the gameplay merits a lot of praise on it's own. A benchmark title, in my opinion.
The sheer cinematic expertise of this game is absolutely crazy, be it in cutscenes, gameplay or even in how these blend into each other. Not only is the gameplay on its own extremely fun with its mechanics and feel, but it's accentuated by great bullet time with dynamic angles that give you a wider view of each battle. Enemies are also a lot more interesting, as they react to your bullets with the use of the Euphoria middleware which makes defeating each one far more satisfying than in the other 2 games. It's honestly my favorite iteration of Max Payne gameplay in the series.
On top of all this the game also still holds up great visually most of the time, delivering a very gritty rendition of São Paulo within a wide variety of environments, from shiny modern buildings to the famous Brazilian slums. That said the PC version is not quite polished, as there's a fair amount of bugs one could experience like invisible geometry, softlocks and some collision issues. Nothing too intrusive/persistent though.
All in all it's just a fantastic and moody action game that doesn't stretch for too long and is fun above everything else. I'm left surprised it isn't regarded with more reverence in the medium, as I think the gameplay merits a lot of praise on it's own. A benchmark title, in my opinion.