One of the biggest games of the summer was Max Payne 3. Its been many years since weve last seen Payne in action and since then the series has switched developers from Remedy to Rockstar. Did they do the series justice? After two playthroughs I can say that for the most part yes. Like the previous two entries you have some interesting enemies, a little bit of humor (mainly from the TVs you can turn on), a plot that makes sense at first but then gets a little confusing by the end and Max always down on his luck sulking as he blasts through hundreds of enemies.

The mechanics of the Max Payne 3 carried over much of what made Max Payne 1 and 2 fun. That means that bullet time is back though you cant rely on it that much and the slow mo during dodging still works as well. However unlike the first two entries Max Payne 3 no longer is about run and gun action. Rockstar has followed the trend of many third person shooters this generation and implemented a cover system. This does change the way this entry of the series plays from the rest. For the most part it works. When there is distance between you and the enemies popping out to take shots is really fun. What isnt so fun is when you have to get out of cover. The way Max controls is a bit like how GTA4 controlled meaning that there is this weight to the character that doesnt make your actions immediate. For example if Im heading to the right and make a quick turn to the left it takes some time. Also, ground rolls arent as comfortable and many times you use this to get out of dodging grenades. It never gets comfortable. Its frustrating that running and gunning feels so unnatural now because it was so fluid in the first two games. There were a number of times I died because there was no perfect place to get cover and that spells doom for our hero. Still, for the most part the game does play well. Well enough for me to enjoy multiple playthroughs.

There are definitely some things in Max Payne 3 that are much better than before. Te length of the game is quite long for a single player third person shooter. Especially compared to the short Max Payne 1 and 2. There is lots of different scenery and locales you go to ranging from Maxs old days in New Jersey to clubs in Brazil, soccer fields, favela slums, and some other places I dont want to give away. Another thing that I enjoyed was specific set pieces. You get put in specific cool looking situations where Max is automatically put into bullet time and you just worry about shooting. Like I said earlier, there is some humor in the game that comes from the TVs you can turn on. My only gripe would be that I wish that subtitles for the Portuguese were shown in English so I could understand what was being said. There could have also been more TVs and shows too. I miss my Lords and Ladies soap opera from Max Payne 2. The last thing that stood out was the physics. There is a really nice mixture of rag doll physics with some pre animated deaths. For example if an enemy was shot in the neck area they would grab at their wound before letting the physics take over the rest of their death animation. Its best to see some game play to see how this works. It made for a lot of cool deaths.

Is this the last we see of Max Payne? I cant say, but after another episode of infinite slaughter and heart ache I feel like Max should be left alone for the rest of his life. The story is concluded though I guess if the publisher wanted they could find some characters to attach to another Max Payne game. One last little thing. HEALTH did the soundtrack for this game and it didnt really stand out. A couple of tracks were nice (Tears is a great track no doubt) though their input didnt have much of an affect.

Hey everyone,

I got a blog piece in the works that I hope to upload tomorrow or the day after. What I'd like to do is give a small update on where I am in life and such. Since I last made a blog post I have faltered quite a bit. My social anxiety became too much and I flunked out of university. This is something I have been working on and I'm finally returning to school this semester. Simply put I'm righting the ship. The past few years I was living with some roommates and though I didn't have the ability to buy many games at all during this time we had all the current generation systems and they bought games pretty frequently so I was able to stay in the loop all these years. At the moment though I am back home with my family as I try to get my life back on track. So what I have is my new laptop which is no slouch and has been used extensively this summer. I have my DS Lite and PAL Gamecube which I have used for Paper Mario 2. Also there is a PS3 here that my folks got from some person renting one of their apartments so I'm sure to make use of it at some point. My 360 died some years ago but I let my good friend borrow my games for the time being and I also left all my PS2 stuff back with some family friends near where I used to live (my family moved to a different country when I went to university). They were nice enough to let me store some things in their basement when I was at school and away for whatever other reason. So what you can expect from me is mainly talk about games that appear on the PC and a little bit of handheld talk (iPhone user) as well.

In fact I'm going to be posting a piece about the Max Payne series which I have only played on PC. Mainly focusing on Max Payne 2 and 3 and how Rockstar has treated the series and the differences between their take and Remedy's take on the Max Payne story.

This should be the last thing I post about myself on a more personal level. I don't like to get too detailed about my personal/family life so don't be surprised if I ignore any questions wanting to get some specifics out of me in that regard. Only wanted to give a little glimpse of how things are at the moment before I move on to start posting about game topics.

Cheers

P.S. What was I thinking in those early blog posts? I almost have to laugh at myself for thinking some of the things I wrote were clever. I can even see hints of trying to be slightly edgy. That's all in the past now but wow haha.

I haven't used Gamespot much the past few years. I got burnt out on posting in the forums and that doesn't look like it will change. Instead I will become rather active on my own blog. I see I've made a few attempts in the past but this time I'm actually more enthusiastic about the idea. I have a couple ideas in my head what I want to write about and plan on posting my first blog later this week. Don't know if anybody on my friends list still cares, but I figured I'd give a heads up anyways. I hope that some of my blogs will make for some good conversation. See you soon.

I wasn't sure how much I would use the blog feature. Turns out I barely even acknowledged its existence. Here I am on number 3.

Looks like the last post had me talking about Halo 3. ODST is in my 360 right now. I beat the campaign and checked out the new multiplayer maps. I like the package as I didn't own any of the extra maps for the original Halo 3. That's not why I play the game (well multiplayer is key for Halo). I've been playing lots of firefight. for those that don't know its a mode where you take on waves of covenant just like Horde mode in Gears of War 2. Unfortunately there isn't much fun playing this part solo and most maps aren't built for that play. In fact whenever I play alone there are only two maps that I select. Of course it's meant to be played with friends though so it's really an issue.

Aside from that I don't have much time to play with college right now. But I've also been listening to music a lot more now and my DS has been off for several months. I will finish Chrono Trigger though when I get in the mood eventually. There's a game with excellent music.

Wonder how many months will pass before I post on this thing again. I promise that whenever that will be it will be more enjoyable or interesting.

This is my second post on my page and the only reason why it is my 2nd one is because I don't really care to write about every little minor thing. Perhaps writing about playing my DS while I'm on the toilet might interest some but...nope.

Instead of that I'm more interested about writing about what I have been playing in the last half year or so. Some of my gaming habits maybe. In my first post I think I mentioned that I was playing through Halo 2 at the moment. Beat that and it was good. Halo 3 came out and pretty much put the other Halo games to shame in every way possible. Yes Halo 3 was my top game of 2007. Loved the campaign and multiplayer although CoD4 comes very close. I would actually say that CoD4 campaign was better than Halo 3. That's saying something but to realise that Infinity Ward was able to make a fantastic game in about 2 years (CoD2 was 2005) is just insane. Those guys are the masters of polish. Some people complained that the game was too linear but to them all I have to say is this:

Cod4 is fantastic. Get it.

Mass Effect. You know if a game decides to be boring for the first hour you play it, it isn't really excusable. So that means it will have to wait until I beat GRAW which I just started yesterday. I bought this game back in early 2006. I think it's time I actually put that game disk to work.

I just picked up Shadow of the Colossus and FF12 today. Funny thing is I don't even own a PS2. Lucky for all of us at the end of February it is going to be only $99. Well, at least in Target so we can assume all other stores will follow suit soon. So yeah I kind of shifting gears and going old school. Plus I really want to play Metal Gear Solid Essentials which includes all three Metal Gear Solid games.

But aren't these blogs always supposed to have some negative rant to get people to read them? I guess. Let me see here... AH! My iPod decided to wipe itself. Yep. My entire collection gone within a second. It is pretty old now though that isn't a reason for it to wipe itself. Whatever, I'll get myself the next version of it that should come out at some point.

Hey. If you're lucky you might see another post from me within half a year. Or I might get addicted to this and write everyday how I was playing my DS while taking a dump.

First entry here.....

Well I've been gaming since the SNES/Genesis generation so a lot of the series I respect come from that time (Mario is my favorite). So let's see... I have a SNES, Gameboy, Gamecube, GBA, Xbox 360, Gamegear and a Nintendo DS Lite as well as a PC for games. Right now I'm playing games on my 360. Recently I picked up Halo 2 since it's b/c and I'm enjoying it. As for my DS I'm trying to get into FF3 but I really am trying to finish my older games for my 360 before fall this year.

Enough about games. My other hobbies include sports. I like to golf and play squash. I've been learning to play the guitar the past 3 months or so which reminds me... I like music. I mostly go with rock or metal. Some of my favorite bands include Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Blink 182, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Pantera. My first concert was Kiss when I was 6 years old I believe and that was quite an experience.

Almost done. Living in Michigan you have to support the sports teams and Red Wings begin their playoffs this thursday against the Flames. That's all I really care about since I'm not into baseball and I don't really like to watch basketball. Almost forgot about the Lions but since they are SOOO bad they don't even deserve to get mentioned.

End