When I saw Max Payne was back I was so excited due to the original Max Paynes being my two favourite games of all time. So I purchased Max Payne 3 on the Playstation 3 as I get nearly every game on the Xbox and I honestly just fancied a change. The first thing I have to mention is how long it took from inserting the disk to playing! From update to install to menu to playing took around twenty minutes (this is one of the reasons I usually go for Xbox games, due to the non compulsory game install), but when the music of the haunting violin from the original Max Paynes start playing...all was forgiven.
I only have two parts of the game that I want to review as I expect everyone has heard the storyline a million times so just my thoughts on the cutscenes and gameplay.
Cutscenes: One of the things that I loved about the original Max Payne was the comic like cutscenes with the metaphor-laden noir narration, this is sadly missing from the new Max Payne and has been replaced with overly long cutscenes that have an EMP effect every few seconds sending a strange vibration through the screen and shaking who/what ever the camera is currently focused on, Max's voice has changed to someone sounding very similar to Jack Beuer and the metaphors have seemingly disappeared (or there no longer as poetic as they were so didn't really register). Another annoying cutscene effect is every now and again words come up on the screen that one of the NPCs has just said like they are importantly relevant, an example of this is an NPC saying I have a BIG DEAL to discuss with your BROTHER, the words made bold are the ones shown on screen from that sentence, I'm not really sure what this adds and along with the pulse effect I would say the cutscenes didn't win me over.
Gameplay: This feels very similar to the original Max Payne games and although I maybe should stop comparing them it is the reason I purchased Max Payne 3. I'm glad they haven't messed to much with the old style mechanic, one of my favourite and contradictory most frustrating things about the Max Payne series is bullet time so satisfying when you kill 4 or 5 in a single leap but equally as annoying when misjudging a jump to do a slow motion flying head butt into a wall. Its a shame the Valkyr has been removed from the storyline but I guess you can't keep going over old ground and the dream sequences are no longer there which made the original games quite haunting, this in mind though its still a very strong action packed storyline and a very fun game to play.
I'm yet to play the multiplayer as I'm still collecting trophies on the single, but from what I hear this is very good too, but even without the multiplayer I have found the single player makes this well worth a purchase and I highly recommend you buy it, old fan or not. Well done Rockstar.