Max Payne 3, worst sequel ever, it gets everything wrong, I mean sure it's polished and it plays well enough but the tone of the story and character development is all wrong and so is the game design, I don't have time to elaborate right now because I have to run but I might have to edit it in later because I hate that piece of garbage that much and it's obvious that Rockstar had absolutely no idea what made Max Payne good in the first place, I really wish Remedy had done the MP3 that they left on Alan Wake as an easter egg instead, but you know Rockstar had the rights and they wanted to do it themselves even though it's obvious they weren't up to the task.
So what exactly is wrong with Max Payne 3:
Game-play/Design:
So let's start off by talking about the bullet dodge crash, since that is something terrible in Max Payne 3, why is it even here? It makes the game more realistic, sure but Max Payne wasn't supposed to be realistic it was styled as graphic novel and it's main influence was the movie Hard-Boiled neither of which are realistic things and is exactly what made you not care about your blatant defiance of the laws of physics, anyway besides it not fitting what is wrong with this? Well it breaks the flow of the combat greatly and severely decreases the usefulness of the bullet-dodge as now you have to be extra careful as to where to use it and good luck in not crashing with something that's outside your field of view, the way it was done before still required careful planning and strategic use while also punishing you for ineffective use but all without breaking the flow of the game or being excessively frustrating.
The weapon carry limit, again some odd change that was probably made for the sake of realism, so how does this this hurt the game? Simple by only allowing you to carry 2 weapons the challenge of the game shifts from finding the way to optimally clear the room while taking the less damage possible to figuring out how you were supposed to clear the room with the weapons that are laying around since even if you save your favourite it'll probably run out of bullets, in any case this completely changes the dynamic of the game in a way that is in my opinion way more frustrating and annoying, plus the fact that you cannot holster 2 single handed weapons as your alt is pretty stupid, if you want to use a machine-gun or a shotgun for a bit you're going to have to drop one of your weapons if you were dual wielding something.
The extremely directed design, where Max Payne 1 & 2 were all about dropping you into an action scene and letting you do it however you wanted with the available resources Max Payne 3 is more about dropping you into an action scene and letting you figure out how it was supposed to play, this is easily Max Payne 3's worst mistake and probably the main reason why the previous 2 were made, in any case how is this bad? Simple it simply is not a Max Payne game when you do this, this isn't what the game was about, it's also more frustrating and leads to another of MP3's offenses which is the cut-scenes, despite it's great style and being one the franchises most recognizable things Max Payne 1&2 let you skip them almost entirely with some scenes being completely optional, what else is bad about this? Well like I said much of Max Payne was the adrenaline rush of the non-stop action sequence and trying to do it perfectly but much of that is lost if you are constantly being interrupted by cut-scenes but not only that those scenes require you to do something very specific like shooting some guy in the head while you slide mid cut-scene, there just is no flow to any of it at all and it feels terrible when compared to the previous games.
Narrative Possible Spoilers Ahead
Let's Start with the obvious, Max Payne 1 & were self aware satires, while 3 is not, and this is pretty obvious and feels very off, while yes both 1 & 2 were played straight it's hard to argue that they were meant as satires when Max Payne 1 includes lines like "The truth was like a green crack through my brain. Weapon statistics floating in the air, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. the repetitious act of shooting, time slowing down to show off my moves. The paranoid feeling of someone controlling my every step. I was in a computer game. Funny as Hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of", "After Y2K, the end of the world had become a cliché. But who was I to talk, a brooding underdog avenger alone against an empire of evil out to right a grave injustice. Everything was subjective. There were only personal apocalypses. Nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you." and who can forget when he thanks you for turning off the alarm? Or you know the entire level on 2 that is an abandoned theme park about Max's whole psyche or that most of what is on TV is either Max's story or his inner demons and doubts, except Lords and Ladies I don't know what's up with that but it was funny, in any case all of that charm and cleverness is lost on 3.
Max's Character, at this point he really should be past drowning himself in alcohol, painkillers and wallowing in self-pity, it's pretty much the complete opposite of his arc on the second game and it's stupid, they pretty much rested him to how he was at the beginning of 2 and made him even worse, I'm not against making him pathetic and neither was 2 but this is just inconsistent and an insult to how great 2 was.
The style, why does this look like a Tony Scott movie? I mean even the story is ripped straight off Man on Fire except done worse and with really unlikeable characters which really are only caricatures, which is par for the course in Max Payne (More of a MP2 thing than a MP1 thing though) but if you're going to rip off Man on Fire at least do it well.
I could probably think of more things but I think I'll leave it at that.
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