POSTED 17/5/12


MAX PAYNE 3

Rockstar Games
PS3 (also on Xbox 360, PC)

Max, Max, Max. All he really needs are cigarettes and alcohol... and more painkillers than Gregory House could crave limping through a Vicodin-addled sploog dream.

Yep, Max is back, mercifully looking less like Marky Mark since last seen on our TV screens. He’s been through the wringer though. He’s still got the moves, but he’s added delights like drunken stumbling and sink vomming to his otherwise respectable repertoire.

His desire to drown in distractions is understandable though. The dead wife, the fucked-up life – plus he’s now playing bodyguard for a gaggle of vacuous Brazilian dipshits. It’s hardly woo-inspiring reason for respiration.

What is woo-inspiring – or Woo-inspired - is the action. Playing like a bastich lovechild of John Woo and Guy Ritchie, following prolonged dippiness in the healthily cynical Noir storytelling pool, MP3 makes the Crank flicks look like softcock Merchant Ivory productions. It’s as kinetic as fuck, taking the interactive movie concept and making it cohesive, rather than random button stabs intercut with interminable, non-interactive drivel.

It’s super-stylised – much of the design could have emanated from classic Brit mag The Face - combined with attention to detail that can stop you cold, awestruck; occasions usually rewarded with a swift bullet to your scone in what’s very much an on-your-toes cover shooter. Gung-ho = cactus. Also, duh, there’s ‘bullet time’ stuff (a registered trademark of Warner Bros!) which adds immeasurably to the wondrously, mindlessly excessive gruesomeness of it all.

Max could be Bruce Willis, or Jason Statham – even if looking more like Walter White as you progress. You’ll be enthralled, you’ll be frustrated when you’re so caught up in the action you forget that you’re a bullet’s burp from death and have to do it again – and, often, again - but you’ll never nod off

The closest thing to perfect interactive Big Dumb Action Film we’ve encountered, stuff the fags and booze, this’ll do.

CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!