ANGRY BALD GUY ADVENTURES: Max Payne 3

[Captain Russ]

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Fucking colors and shit? In a Max Payne game?

Zach Galifianakis'd Payne?

Kiss my cat's asshole, Rockstar.

[BillyG]

All up on this shit. WHERES MY PILL BOTTLE RATTLE

[Captain Russ]

It'd better have some poor mook in a giant burrito suit exploding or a capoeria mod.

Bald Max just reminds me too much of Kane & Lynch.

[Master Shake]

I'll play it, but no Sam Lake means that I'm not jonesing for this game. I just hope that they keep the reasonable mix of drama and humor in the dialog from the previous games intact.

Nice to hear James McCaffrey's voice again, though. If he wasn't involved, then Max Payne 3 could kiss my ass. Thankfully, his involvement holds off my hatred.

Not sure how I feel about HeisenPayne, though. He really needs a hat to finish that look off.

[Abraham Smashington]

RIP

[Timothy225]

It's Vin!

[V]

Huh?

Well... my hair is longer now.

[Master Shake]

Okay, I'm going to give Rockstar all kinds of credit here. This game is stylish as hell. Like a Michael Mann riff on 'Man On Fire' with David Cronenburg supplying the Violence (yes, with a capital V. I haven't cringed so much at bullet damage to a body in a game since the 'Soldier of Fortune' games).

I love how seemless everything is. Except for loading the game for the first time in a session, you won't see a loading screen. Cutscenes transition directly to the action, which is a great mixture of cover, diving and slow motion craziness. Even dying doesn't have a load screen, which is good because you might be dying quite a bit even on Normal. Enemies don't mess around and Max isn't bulletproof (even though some enemies are, with vests and helmets that you can actually see the bullets flatten themselves against and fall off). Rockstar's engine acquits itself well, most likely because it doesn't have to load huge open worlds here. Guns feel nice, sound nice and Free Aiming works even with the sticks.

As for the story, there's less 4th-wall breaking and mythology and more cynicism and sarcasm from Max. McCaffrey's got his A-game going here. There's some great call-backs to the previous games as well.

Going to have to get some multiplayer going later.

[Abraham Smashington]

I haven't cringed so much at bullet damage to a body in a game since the 'Soldier of Fortune' games).

FUCKING SOLD.

[BillyG]

Watch the Giant Bomb QL. it's awesome. Playing this for about an hour until d3 server is up.

[Captain Russ]

I hope there is some sort of Captain Baseball Bat Boy reference at some point.

[Matt]

Glad to hear this is the goods. I loved MP and MP2.

[BillyG]

I played the first two chapters. Fucking great.

[Master Shake]

Ever had one of those moments where, after you complete a checkpoint, you pause the game and take a break just so you can grin ear to ear about the shit you just pulled off?

Yeah, just had one of those. Max, 1 painkiller bottle, 16 pistol rounds and 20 shotgun rounds vs 14 guys with ranged weapons and body armor. The setting: an outdoors environment, so my shotgun is slightly outmatched by their ranged weapons.

Ducking, bobbing, weaving, slow-motion rolling, bouncing from cover to cover to get the best shot for minimum ammo. I felt like goddamn Inspector Tequila a couple times, the highlight being when a slow-motion dive for cover netted me three consecutive headshots.

I ended the battle with 2 bullets remaining, which I used in the last guy's killcam because I thought his face needed more slow motion holes.

Welcome back, Max. I've missed you.

[Master Shake]

This fucking game. Goddamn.

This is the action game I've wanted since I first saw the intro to 'Dead to Rights'.