Max Payne 3

Time to kill

Fri 25 May 2012 // 11:00 UTC

Wield those weapons

AI has dramatically improved as well, and while enemies still run out in droves to attack, they don't do so in the same mindless fashion as before. Instead, they now take better cover behind walls themselves and throw grenades more strategically as they flush you out at every opportunity.

Diving with wails

A new feature, 'Last Man Standing', sees a face-off with an enemy close to taking Max's remaining life capacity. If you shoot down the guy before he kills you first, you take a painkiller and continue. This can happen quite a lot if you're not careful, especially in a room brimming with gunfire. Wipe out all your enemies and you're rewarded with a prolonged, follow-the-bullet shot of your final kill.

Gamers can even slow this down further, watching ammo pierce enemies at snail speed. It soon loses its novelty, but for the sadistic Payne killer players (possibly all of them) they'll be sure get their money's worth of gore.

Banging stuff

As with the previous Max Payne epic, when the campaign mode ends, you're desperate for more – yearning to engage in fresh levels without another decade of waiting.

Fortunately, multiplayer is a whole new game in itself. Usually on-line modes are thrown into games like this as a means of necessity, but with Max Payne 3, the on-line multiplayer is ridiculously addictive and stands on its own. It incorporates the bullet time feature ingeniously and offers the ability to build your own gang of mates to play Payne, as well as future Rockstar games together, through the publisher's Social Club feature.

Payne in the gang

Verdict

The single player campaign doesn't quite match up to the more varied experience of Uncharted 3, but as interactive movie-like shooters go, Max Payne still takes some beating. The man himself may have aged but his bullet-time antics feel as newfangled as ever. Max Payne 3 is a seriously awesome game that you'll keep playing until both your favourite drinking arms ache. ®