Max Payne 3 - Stark characterization yields almost-masterpiece

Max Payne: Drinker. Recluse. A man clawing his way back up from the gutter of despair. Wife and daughter in the ground – neither delusions about humanity nor his place in it. His only solace from the cesspool of corruption is in the bottom of a bottle, a futile attempt to purge his past by staying drunk on self-pity.

Max has moved from the siren-riddled streets of New Jersey to Sao Paulo, Brazil. He’s now a bodyguard for a powerful family. Being surrounded by layered corruption and vain cosmopolites leaves him feeling empty. When the family he’s hired to protect is kidnapped, a chain reaction begins that will send Max racing across Brazil and Panama and ravaging his past in search for answers. Filling in the blanks and adding layers of loss to this epic game are playable flashbacks to Max’s life in New Jersey.

The manner in which the narrative and cut-scenes unfold is uniquely reminiscent of the police films of the 1950s. Payne’s sandpaper smoky voice overlaps the gameplay, a curmudgeonly narrator with quips and qualms aplenty. The story-board style that emerges at times in the cut-scenes is refreshing and gives the game a creative hook.

“Bullet-time” returns to add a visual panache to the gunplay without feeling tacked on. An enhanced version of the slow-motion deaths of Fallout 3, you have the option of following the bullet in blistering detail. The ensuing bloodbath is well executed – you’ll notice droplets of blood – for those hungry for more visceral retribution. The fluidity of the action is complemented not only by the addition of a smooth cover system but also dynamic environment destruction, complete with bloodstains to your clothing. A gun battle in a bar will see chairs ripped apart and bottles exploding. An office tousle will have cubicles shredded and paper flying. It's quite impressive the amount of finesse that's gone into this game.

Visually, though the clay-like faces and frozen-in-place hair typical of the current-generation action games of North American plague the game, it’s flawlessly executed in its visual presentation. Crisp motion-capture brings subtle nuances in main characters to life. Blips of double vision, over exposure, and fuzziness reinforce just how on the edge Max really is. This is just one in a long list of careful details that add a genuine flavour to the game.

But the real payoff is in characterization. Payne is layered with a sardonic humour that will have you laughing out loud, juxtaposed with a crime story of self-reclamation and layered with tons of grisly action. In the same way that Clint Eastwood had never looked as hard as he did in Grand Torino, so too has Max Payne never looked better. An unfettered, uncompromising wisdom is etched in his face - all fueled to fruition through his farcically fervent dialogue.

This is a game where one has to admire the dialogue. There’s too many games where dialogue is slapped together like a Big Mac, with the only care apparently being to placate the F-bomb gamers out there. Here though, the dialogue becomes just as important as the voice acting and facial expressions.

On the downside, once you get past the impressive graphics, diverse settings, impressive AI, and subtle nuances of dialogue and action, the gameplay is horribly linear. Something moves, you shoot it. Something flies at you, you shoot it. Though there are clues and collectibles scattered about, the game never develops the depth of mystery of Heavy Rain or L.A. Noire. Conversation wheels and plot-driven choices would have fathered a further connection to the storyline.

Max Payne 3 is riddled with contradiction. Max himself is both heroic and tragic. The game itself is both beautifully sculpted and horribly pedantic in its linearity. As such, Max Payne 3 is well above average, yet never rises to the level of masterpiece.

And yet, Max’s own words seem to reveal an awareness of these contradictions: “If I survived this, it’d be a victory for gross incompetence.”