Opening words:
I never played any of the previous max payne games, so keep that in mind when reading this review. My pc rig, Intel q8400 @ 2.66 ghz, 4 gb ram, Radeon 6850 video card. Played the game in 1080p with high details on windows 7.

Single Player: 9.6
The pc is in need of a killer 3rd person shooter that is not GTA. This nails it and is what i wanted out of a 3rd person shooter. Great shooting mechanics, a game that is challenging, and a long campaign. It is on the rails, you don’t really do much in the way of exploring, still there are some hidden gold gun parts laying around to collect so it doesn’t hurt to look in off shoot rooms and on corners. I read reviews bashing the story. I laughed at it because i like the story and the narration. I liked the pacing even though some times i just wanted to get by the waves of bad guys to continue the story. It did kind of drag towards the end. I did not use the slow down jump stuff that often and saying that, this game is challenging if you don’t cheat with the bullet time slow motion stuff. With it, you can get through pretty easy. So if you want more of a challenge, do not use the bullet time slow motion.

Visuals:9.6
Excellent. 1080p full details on high. So bad ass. So much better than 360 and ps3. Great textures, character models, and buildings. Textures look very good. This is by far the best looking rock star game I have ever played. There are so many very different levels. I love the maps and the multi leveled stuff. So fun to explore the multi player maps, they are so much bigger than uncharted 3. I would compare this over all game to uncharted 3 but you cannot climb. Still the visual are better in this because on the pc its so high res.

Audio: 8.0
I loved the voice acting a lot in this. The narration was very well done. The mood music is decent as well. The main song at the end credits is pretty cool too. I have heard better gun fire and death screams in other games though. Still socom confrontation is the best for gun fire, and killzone 2 for death screams.

Game mechanics: 9.8
This is where I was worried. I really hate that in the single player game there is no crosair on the screen untill you go into aim mode. This makes it harder for sure. With out using the max payne bullet time the game is very hard and challenging. So I was happy with the challenge. In multiplayer man is this a blast, people walk at a decent speed there is a run button to which makes mele attacks really fun. This is a typical 3rd person shooter but it jsut feels better than the last socom games, and uncharted if you can imagine that. This is on a PC though, so I have no idea how the console versions play. Everything is tight and super responsive with my pc set up, no laggy controls like on killzone 2. No frame rate issues. The cover system is really nice in this game, though sometimes you can get hung up on corners.

Multiplayer: 9.1
I love the maps. I love the guns, its fun to play with the shot gun in this game, the sniper rifles are a little unfair, makes the game a little unbalanced. Just stay out of open areas and hunt in close quarters and man this is a blast. I like the vendetta system in multiplayer, if a person keeps killing you, you can hit E when you die and then if you kill them you get extra hp to level up. You get money by looting dead bodies. Pretty cool. By far the best 3rd person multi player PC experience I have played. I even like the cover system, but never use it much. You can change the looks of your guy, but you have to unlock a lot of the stuff. I love the dead guy one the most. You have to play the free aim mode or you are cheating, auto lock on is lame. I am so glad they give you the option. You can get adrenaline by looting corpses, denying streaks, and winning vendettas. Adrenaline allows you to use burst mode better and gives you burst abilities that you can unlock and this gives you an advantage, this makes the game play really deep and interesting. Load outs effect your speed and, a heavy load out makes you slower and regen health slower. There are pain killers as well that help you heal fast. Be sure to loot, but remember you can get blasted while looting.

Replay:10
This has future expansion dlc. The multi player is the bomb for death match and team death match.

Total score: 9.2
I bought this off steam for 58 bucks, only to find 2 days later at best buy they had it for 29 bucks talk about shit luck. For 29 its a steal, i am happy and i paid twice that. This is by far the best game I have played in a long time. Sure I am a sucker for 3rd person shooters. They are my favs. So if you like 3rd person shooters, you cannot go wrong. Go get it at best buy cheap if you still can.

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