I've been seeing a lot of recent sentiment that Max Payne 3 is a big piece of shit game because of the setting and what it does to Max's character. I agree that Max should be in Jersey killing every Italian man that lives there, but Rockstar took over the franchise from Remedy and decided the game needed not only MORE blackjack and hookers, but the MOST blackjack and hookers on the planet. Enter Brazil.

Max goes there because he's in hiding from the Italian mob. Being hunted down by the mob never stopped him before, but like whatever shut up he's here doing shady security work for a rich, shady guy whose rich, shady family is definitely not going to betray him for rich, shady reasons.

Um, a good deal of the plot's major players have barely anything to do with Max. He's cleaning up someone else's mess for a big bag of money and is able to literally walk off into a sunset.

The music he walks off to is actually really cool, but it's not very Max Payne at all. In Max Payne 1 & 2, it was obvious Max couldn't shouldn't shoot his way to happy ending because there's always another motherfucker trying to take it away from him. This discount version of Max is just not that same dude anyway. It's the writing and voice acting that made Max who he was in the first two games, a tortured dude who is as extremely unlucky as he is supernaturally good at taking pills and killing gangsters like the Punisher.

The Max in Max Payne 3 is a dude forced to mostly do mercanary contract fulfillment violence while doing Marvel style quips. It makes me want to die hearing Max talk when he isn't miserable. I don't necessarily enjoy this dude being in a state of misery, but there's no nuance of character here. Max Payne 3 is dramatic, but sees the drama as something to compensate for with humor. This Max is a cardboard cutout of an older Max Payne who delivers Marvel one-liners in intense firefights.

I think a cocaine-addled producer at Rockstar thought Max Payne was cool but thought it didn't need the cool gritty crime detective noir with vague mysticism and Max only being attracted to women who die like a day after meeting him -- so he just cut it all out. "Let's turn down the contemplative ramifications of being addicted to painkillers and have a 50 minute shootout in a futbol stadium that sucks."

I have talked a lot of shit up front because it deserves to be acknowledged that Rockstar kind of reshaped Max Payne because they are obsessed with party culture and glorification of violence rather than take a moment to reflect on the psychological ramifications of prolonged struggle. It sucks dick this game doesn't have a memorable story beyond some shock moments.

Here's the thing: the shooting in this video game is awesome. They may not spend to much time on the dudes themselves to push any strong narratives, but killing dudes is on point. If you are challenging yourself to look cool with the tools at your disposal this game is a trickster's paradise.

It feels like a natural evolution of a Max Payne game in how it plays, but this is a piss poor continuation of the franchise. Not even in the flashback missions where you shoot hundreds of people in Jersey does it feel like a Max Payne game. Still worth playing though because got DAMN is it fun to play and kill shit.