Max Payne 3 review

10! Seriously? Just when I thought GR were starting to become harder on grading games, giving Ninja Gaiden 3 and everything they do this. The writing in the review strongly dictated that it was a 9 at the most. 10s don't mean anything when they are given out so lightly.

...So if GR gives a hyped game a 9. They are underscoring it, and being unfair and it means the game is a piece of shit. (Just see the reactions to the Uncharted 3 and Skyward Sword reviews.) If they give it a ten, then they are being lenient, dick sucking sellouts that make a 10 not mean anything. Wheee fanboys! Mind, I'm not directing all of the above to you, gilgamesh, but your reaction to them giving it a ten reminded me about how no matter what you do, you can't please anyone, not by a long-shot. And by the way, whether the game is deserving of a 10 or not is still yet to be seen, but reading the review It did feel like it deserved a 10. Mainly because really, the one big complain they gave was about how the last man standing mechanic, or other mechanic don't work as well 5% of the time... Which IS honestly a pretty wimpy complaint to knock down the score of a game considering skyrim got a 10... And no amount of extra fingers are enough to count what doesn't work right with that game :P Oh, and the other complaint is about checkpoint that honestly sound like it only makes the game more challenging, because dying actually PUNISHES you. So overall I don't see that being a negative all in all.

They should just be honest. It shouldn't be important whatever any fanboys think. I don't think much of the Uncharted games at all. In fact i wrote a review of Uncharted 3 myself and gave the game a 6/10. As well as the flaws that you mentioned that he listed, there were also several others as well. Overall the reviewer just didn't seem enthusiastic enough to give the game a 10. I haven't played the game yet so I can't say what I'd give it but it just seems that GR throw out 10s for any very good game. They should be reserved for true masterpieces. If they want to give out their highest score so often they should probably just rate on a 1-5 scale instead. That way it's much easier just to give most really good or great releases the highest score.

Did you review it like a reviewer is supposed to? Reviews don't just say what they like personally about games, because their opinions don't matter in reviews. It's about what is good and what is bad. While you may have given Uncharted 3 a 6/10, how much of it was because you didn't like it (compared to how much was WRONG with it)? Probably a lot. The more opinion that comes into a reviewer's score (small asides pointing out things that someone likes/doesn't like that doesn't actually affect the score are acceptable here and there), the worse the review is. He complained about one or two things in the game, one of which he said happened about 5% of the time. I don't see people complaining when completely glitchy games get 10s all the time Side note: If you're complaining about scores, then ignore them. Just read what the guy thinks works and doesn't work and compare it to others' views, and then form your own opinion instead of complaining about his.

The purpose of a review is to reflect an opinion accurately, so I talked about what I didn't like about it. There is no such thing as an objectively good or bad game. It all comes down to opinions at the end of the day. If reviewers say differently it is because rhey are more than likely being paid off.

In any reviews I do, I make sure to be critical, not opinionated. If I find things I don't like, but have no problem of their own outside of the fact that I don't like them, I'm not gonna say that those things are bad. I may point out it in an aside, but I'll never factor something trivial into my reviews. (Although, to be fair, I find scores more arbitrary than anything else, and as such, I don't implement them. But that's neither here or there.) And as to your comment about there being no such thing as an objectively good or bad game: Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. 'Nuff said.

So suppose I find the shooting in a game to be rubbish, am I meant to include that or not? I don't like it. Does that make it bad or good? Do you want me to show you the review so you can say what you think?

Depends on why you find the shooting mechanics to be rubbish in the first place. Is it because the aiming is wonky? because the collision detection is faulty or doesn't register? Is it because the enemy AI is limited and always runs at you and peeks at covers predictably? All of those stated above are objective factors in order to judge whether the shooting is mechanically good or faulty. Now, whether you LIKE the set-pieces or not, or stuff like regenerating health, those are more subjective areas. What I'm trying to point out is: A review, in my eyes, is always going to have some bias, or subjectivity based on the author's personal tastes and experiences. That being said, what distinguishes a good reviewer from a bad one, (To me.) is the ability to try and be as objective and fair as possible, even if you can't be completely. It's admirable when you have a reviewer that isn't necessarily a fan of the genre or franchise, but still can admit or appreciate when a game does something good. Conversely, said person would also be able to recognize flaws even on things he usually enjoys. This particular kind of trait is what most user reviews lack, and which is why I never really find them to be very reliable.

Y'know, I couldn't have worded that better myself. Before a few weeks ago, my views on this would've been radically different, but since I started reviewing - a series of in-depth pieces on all 16 Zeldas in chronological order (by canon, not release date), in case anybody cares - I've started seeing many games in a different light. Rather than judge them by opinion, I now judge them by actual quality (at least when recommending them to others; of course I'll still personally judge them by opinion). But I digress. Where was I? Oh, trusting reviewers: I really don't tend to trust reviewers, either, at least not specific ones. If I wanna know how a game plays, I'm going to go to about five or six different reviews by trusted sites (like GR), and then move onto friends' opinions/forums to see how the public views them. At least that way I know much more about what I'm getting into if I buy a game, rather than go by either a 10, as seen here, or a 7, as seen at GameTrailers.

Well there is those things you mention and other stuff besides. The act of shooting any enemy simply isn't satisfying at all. I never get the impression that I am hurting anyone, which is important in a shooter. The enemy just flinch when they are shot and soak up loads of bullets. The cover system is really restrictive and saps a lot of freedom and hence fun out of the experience. Enemies can get in a load of cheap one hit kills especially in the latter sections. The melee combat just gets in the way during a lot of the firefights. The stealth is utter rubbish.The enemies have utterly daft AI and must suffer from some form of secular degeneration during them sections. A lot of the 'cinematic ' set pieces are just fluff and merely amount to you pressing forward on the analogue stick and they try to pass themselves off as levels. The story is mediocre and just involves you following a trail of muffins. Those are some of the highlights from the review. I also reviewed binary domain and gave that an 8. The shooting in that is extremely satisfying and the story is quite good too.

...Oh, we were talking about Uncharted 3? My comments were made to no game in particular, I wanted to clarify. But okay, now that we're fully on that subject, and you've given your criticisms, you've actually exemplified precisely what I meant about bias and non-proffesional users being unreliable, here goes: -"The act of shooting any enemy simply isn't satisfying at all. I never get the impression that I am hurting anyone, which is important in a shooter. The enemy just flinch when they are shot and soak up loads of bullets." This is subjective at best, and simply untrue at parts. whether or not the impression of you hurting anyone is satisfying enough or not is completely up to your taste, however, the enemy soaking up bullets part is incorrect, specially when compared to other shooters. In uncharted 3,ANY normal enemy that gets head-shotted dies instantly, even in the hardest difficulties, whether it is via a sniper rifle bullet, or a SMG Micro bullet. Enemies only "soak" up bullets when shot with weak or automatic guns, and this is something that happens in almost any modern shooter. If you use a properly powerful gun, such as a shotgun at close range, a sniper rifle or the revolvers, enemies die in one, two shots at most. And i always instantly realized when I killed an enemy, so the feedback is accurate. "The cover system is really restrictive and saps a lot of freedom and hence fun out of the experience." Another subjective aspect, since you're judging a game-play mechanic as a whole which works pretty much the same in most cover based shooters of this generation. U3's isn't in any way more restrictive than other trend setters such as gears of war or Mass effect. So if you have an issue with chest high wall cover based mechanics, then it's an issue you have with the genre as a whole, not this specific game. "Enemies can get in a load of cheap one hit kills especially in the latter sections." Not really, most enemies capable of killing you in one hit always give you a head up one way or another. If it's a sniper, they have red dot sight which you can see and evade. If it's a grenade or rocket launcher person, they all have significant reloading times that allowing to either find better cover, or kill them. If we're talking about D'jinns, their fireballs work pretty much as an instant contact grenade, so if you see them launching one you always have time to evade if you're paying attention. And shotgun guys are only deadly one shots if they gets really close to you, and if they do it's kinda because you let them. The rest of the enemies in the game can't really kill you in one shot, and even on the hardest difficulty you can have enough reaction time to move away or find better cover. "The melee combat just gets in the way during a lot of the firefights. The stealth is utter rubbish." The melee combat is meant to be used mainly in melee specific situations within the game, in which case it works well. In shootouts you never really have to use it if you don't want to, and you don't need to. (Except with brutes, but I found that the game usually gave you enough time to dispatch them even if other enemies with guns were around.) "The stealth is utter rubbish." Ah, THIS golden nugget of a comment right here represents why this is clearly a user review, and why they are so unreliable. You're calling a part of the game rubbish, without explaining in any way why. The stealth of the game might not be incredibly refined, but it's not a central game mechanic, and works enough in a basic sense. Enemies have a set patrol pattern, and you remain undiscovered as long as you don't make noise, and stay out of their front line of sight. And the game doesn't break this rules, so it works well under them. Plus, even when you fail them, the game doesn't force you to start over, simply punishes you by giving you more enemies to fight against. "The enemies have utterly daft AI and must suffer from some form of secular degeneration during them sections." Another golden nugget that. fails to explain what exactly is wrong with the AI I didn't find it a particularly impressive AI, but it was functional enough that it never felt glitchy, omnipotent, or too dumb. enemies moved away or switched positions if i was aiming at them for too long, and they fired without mercy if i ever got too close to them unprepared. As they should. "A lot of the 'cinematic ' set pieces are just fluff and merely amount to you pressing forward on the analogue stick and they try to pass themselves off as levels." Um... you're kinda missing the point of what a cinematic set piece is meant to be. It's called cinematic precisely because it's more akin to a movie, in which they are showing you a cool action or set piece that otherwise you wouldn't be able to perform as neatly with current gameplay. the quality of these segments lie in whether the set piece is actually exciting or not, which is a bit more subjective.

...Oh boy, i ran out of characters, that had never happened before >>; Anyway, if that wasn't enough to get my point across, then i don't know what would.

This whole subjectivity thing is bullshit. All reviewer's opinions are subjective. The fact that I find the act of shooting an enemy in Uncharted 3 unsatisfying means I should write about it in the review. If I don't I am only lying to myself and to others. That is not what a good review is about. Most enemies do die when shot in the head but that still doesn't excuse the fact that it takes loads of bullets from other guns to kill an enemy when shooting them in the chest. It's not true of the best shooters. The best shooters rely on good AI to outwit you, not make the enemies bullet sponges. The shotgun will kill most enemies when you get close, but even then it's not that satisfying. Just compare it to the point blank shots with a shotgun in Gears of War. Now that is satisfying. As are the headshots. If you want some sort of objective facts, it's because they explode and loads of blood flies all over the place. That doesn't happen in Uncharted. When enemies get blown up by grenades in Gears of War they explode into loads of pieces. In Uncharted they merely get blown in different directions. It's both unrealistic and unsatisfying. "Another subjective aspect, since you're judging a game-play mechanic as a whole which works pretty much the same in most cover based shooters of this generation. U3's isn't in any way more restrictive than other trend setters such as gears of war or Mass effect. So if you have an issue with chest high wall cover based mechanics, then it's an issue you have with the genre as a whole, not this specific game." True, but I think it's an insipid fun sapping mechanic anyway, and Im not entirely happy that Max Payne 3 features it either. Hopefully it won't be forced in that though. But at least in Gears of War the shooting is still satisfying, so I can enjoy that more. "Not really, most enemies capable of killing you in one hit always give you a head up one way or another. If it's a sniper, they have red dot sight which you can see and evade. If it's a grenade or rocket launcher person, they all have significant reloading times that allowing to either find better cover, or kill them. If we're talking about D'jinns, their fireballs work pretty much as an instant contact grenade, so if you see them launching one you always have time to evade if you're paying attention. And shotgun guys are only deadly one shots if they gets really close to you, and if they do it's kinda because you let them." The point is though in a lot of case enemies will get in a shot with a rocket launcher out of nowhere before they can be spotted or a shotgun wielder will appear out of nowhere and one shot me. This is especially true in the final sections. And please don't make any excuses for them ghost rider wannabes. They are an absolutely infuriating enemy to fight. The way they can just teleport behind me after being shot and instantly kill me. Good god! "The melee combat is meant to be used mainly in melee specific situations within the game, in which case it works well. In shootouts you never really have to use it if you don't want to, and you don't need to. (Except with brutes, but I found that the game usually gave you enough time to dispatch them even if other enemies with guns were around.) " I agree that it works well in the melee specific occasions but there are times when you have no choice but to use it in a firefight. Enemies will often ambush me and initiate it while one of is comrades shoots me in the back. "Ah, THIS golden nugget of a comment right here represents why this is clearly a user review, and why they are so unreliable. You're calling a part of the game rubbish, without explaining in any way why. The stealth of the game might not be incredibly refined, but it's not a central game mechanic, and works enough in a basic sense. Enemies have a set patrol pattern, and you remain undiscovered as long as you don't make noise, and stay out of their front line of sight. And the game doesn't break this rules, so it works well under them. Plus, even when you fail them, the game doesn't force you to start over, simply punishes you by giving you more enemies to fight against. " What annoys me most about the stealth is that it is borderline impossible to get through most areas completely while being stealthy. You can only trim down the enemy numbers before the inevitable gunfight kicks off. It just seems tacked on and pointless. What pisses me off most about it is that an early E 3 trailer showed Nathan Drake stealthily breaking a few guards necks and sneaking past them in one part of the ship section. That is impossoble to do in the game, as there are aa far greater number of guards there to spot you.

>>>continued "Another golden nugget that. fails to explain what exactly is wrong with the AI I didn't find it a particularly impressive AI, but it was functional enough that it never felt glitchy, omnipotent, or too dumb. enemies moved away or switched positions if i was aiming at them for too long, and they fired without mercy if i ever got too close to them unprepared. As they should" I was specifically talking about the AI during the stealth sections. They have no sense of hearing and no peripheral vision. Their behavior is very binary too. They either don't spot you at all or one guard does and they are all immediately after you. I don't like to see stealth in games when it is just tacked on and not done well. "Um... you're kinda missing the point of what a cinematic set piece is meant to be. It's called cinematic precisely because it's more akin to a movie, in which they are showing you a cool action or set piece that otherwise you wouldn't be able to perform as neatly with current gameplay. the quality of these segments lie in whether the set piece is actually exciting or not, which is a bit more subjective." Why not just make it all a non interactive cutscene instead then? I don't like how they try to pass it off as being interactive when all you are doing is pressing forward on the analogue stick. The part where you move along the desert after the plane crash migh as well have been a cutscene. Ideally it should have featured proper gameplay and allowed you to explore properly and try to find your own sense of direction, wby maybe following the stars or something. But no, to Naughty Dog gameplay just isn't important. You say you don't trust user reviews, but the only thing different to a user review and a professional review is that the professional reviews are usually better written. They are all just opinions at the end of the day. A lot of professional reviewers only follow the trend of what most gamers want anyway. Their opinions don't even be honest most of the time. If Bioshock was released ten years ago it would have gotten the same treatment that Deus Ex 2 did. It's equally dumbed down, but now that we live in an age of mostly stupid and dumbed down games, most reviewers will just appeal to the 13 who only play simple and stupid games like Call of Duty.

"This whole subjectivity thing is bullshit. All reviewer's opinions are subjective. The fact that I find the act of shooting an enemy in Uncharted 3 unsatisfying means I should write about it in the review. If I don't I am only lying to myself and to others. That is not what a good review is about. " The problem lies in the arguments of why you find the shooting to be unsatisfying. In this case, your argument pretty much lies around gore. Which is kinda stupid to expect U3 to have that since from it's inception, the game has always been rated as a "T" game, and the one is one of a Indiana Jones movie. Not a gritty gore fest. The franchise has always aimed to appeal to a winder audience and not just adults. Right here, for example, lies a key difference between a professional review, and a user review. The professional reviewer recognizes and accepts the concept and target audience and limitations of the rating, and judges the game accordingly, withing those set limitations. A user review, such as yours, focuses only on what YOU want and expect of the game. When i mentioned the rating, i am sure you probably went "When they should have made the game to be "R" rated instead". But then you're thinking only about what YOU want. And not why they wanted to keep it in a milder, more accessible tone. I don't really have the time or patience to reply to everything again one or one, but I'm going to focus on the things that stood out the most. The enemies might sometimes come out from expected locations, but they always appear from the same places. They might catch you off guard the first time at worst, but you should be perfectly capable to know better the second time around. Also, shotgun wielders might appear from tricky locations, but NEVER they appeared in an unfairly close range in which you had no way of stopping them or moving away. And don't be a cry baby, D'jinns are tougher to deal with, yes, but their teleportation pattern was always predictable, if you know they are going to teleport near you, then you expect it and blast them away accordingly. Also, you're wrong about all the stealth sections being impossible to complete by being all stealthy. The only one I remember it not being possible is the first one in the Chateau. The later ones such as the one in the museum, or the one at the shipyard were completely doable, and not all that hard. As for the interactive cutscenes. Well,they could make it just be custcenes, but like it or not, they are less immersive that way. For example, the idea behind the entire desert section is mainly to convey the desperation and felt futility of wandering around across a vast desert. In this sense, I felt it succeeded. You're whining about it not being more interactive, and let you explore, but again, that is what YOU wanted, and not the vision of the game. Lastly. The key difference between a professional review and an user review is not just that is better written. But while still an opinion, it strives to judge a game fairly within what it sets out to do, and doesn't judge it entirely to the reviewer's selfish standards. Which is what most user reviews do, like you have continuously keep demonstrating here. I agree that no review or reviewer is 100% objective and fair. But professionals at least strive to make it more objective and fair, while most user reviewers don't give a shit. Also, another proof why I wouldn't trust a review coming from you: You state hypothetical situations as if they were facts: "If Bioshock was released ten years ago it would have gotten the same treatment that Deus Ex 2 did." You don't know that, you can't possibly know that. And I am not going to bother explaining once again why this is wrong, because I went about it elsewhere. But the fact is that you keep trying to push YOUR opinion as a fact, or as the absolute right. And that's a kind of immaturity that most user reviewers lack and that professional ones try to avoid.

There are other ways of making the shooting more satisfying other than making it more gory. The Timeplitters series features no blood and yet the shooting feels very satisfying. You think this is just me talking about this kind of stuff but most 'professional' reviewers do it all the time as well. Have you checked out any reviews for Quantum Theory. Most reviewers commented on how unsatisfying the shooting was in that. Explain to me how it's possible to complete the stealth section inside the ship in the ballroom. Even if it is possible, the difficulty feels artificial. It's also very artificial the way heaps of backup troops show up if you are spotted, that wouldn't be there at all otherwise. You talk about the vision of the game being important, but suppose the vision of the game is for it to be shit, are we all just meant to accept that? You can't account for everyone's taste when reviwing a game anyway. Everyone likes different things. It is a reviewers job to provide an honest opinion. If he is not doing that the review is an immediate failure. No review can ever be fact and that is not what I am trying to do. I am merely expressing it in an honest way, which is what a review is supposed to do. Gamesradar gave ninja Gaiden 3 a 3/10, yet I read somewhere in another magazine where the reviewer gave it 80%. Is one of them wrong for not accounting for the other's taste. If so which one?

If you're trying to figure out which is wrong, then you're the one who is actually wrong. Some reviewers simply decide to omit some smaller things unless they pack up, while others tend to nitpick at every little problem. Max Payne 3 and Skyrim are polar opposites in this scenario: This reviewer wanted to point out the flaws he found with the game itself (not what he did/didn't like), whereas most Skyrim reviews ignore almost every glitch found, but both got high scores. (I'm quite surprised that this review pointed out glitches in Max Payne, frankly; most R* games get a pass here, just like Bethesda.) Trying to figure out which is wrong isn't the issue, but it's trying to figure out which is less marred by unsupported opinions, if anything. Side note: I'd rather trust the majority opinion in a case such as Ninja Gaiden 3. If it's universally bad, outside of a magazine, then I'm not gonna buy it full-price, or vice versa. I mean, you can find bad reviews (both in terms of the score or the actual review) for anything, so it's a matter of weeding out the crap and finding the average review.

How am I wrong? What am I even wrong about? Im after playing some of Max Payne 3 now anyway. I think it's just about okay so far. There is hardly any innovation with it.

You are trying to figure out whose review is wrong. That's why you're wrong. Different reviewers highlight different parts of the experience, and have different experiences and tastes themselves. Neither is wrong, assuming both chose actual reasons in their reviews (of Ninja Gaiden 3). GR likely got more glitch problems or found more fundamental flaws with the game than the other reviewer, or the latter was a fan of the series and thus couldn't give a fair review of it. Either way, neither is "wrong" as you claimed. Not to mention that if one accounted for his or her own tastes in the review of the game (say GR's reviewer hated that gameplay, not because it was bad but because it's not his/her thing), then their review isn't fair to the game. If you actually read my comment, specifically the first sentence of it, you would've understood that. (Also, since you brought up MP3 and called it average, let me point out every game/series that gets great reviews and doesn't innovate: Elder Scrolls, CoD, Battlefield, Halo, Bioshock, Borderlands...need I go on? No game innovates much, if at all, anymore, but they get great reviews. Why does this one, in particular, irk you so much with that concept?)

I didn't say either of them were wrong. I was just trying to make a point to Bladed Falcon that no reviewer is in fact ever wrong. He said it depends on what a reviewer says that makes them wrong and talked about expressing suff objectively, but it's all a matter of opinion so nothing can ever be expressed in an objective way, unless you are talking about a set of facts that can't ever be argued with, like how many levels are in a specific game or what guns are in it and such. The purpose of a reviewer is to express an opinion. If we want a set of facts we can just go to wikipedia. With regards to MP 3 you are right about many games not innovating but most of the ones you listed are overrated anyway. CoD has turned into a running joke. I feel that MP 3 should have had more innovation because of how long it spent in development. There are also other problems, like enemies soaking up millions of bullets before they die and just too much repetition. Chapter 13 went on for fucking ever. Aiming with a pad when playing the game on a console is often a very labourous affair. You need to abuse the snap to cover function to have much success at all. The reticule is far too small to aim properly. I should have probably waited for the PC version, but instead I am playing the PS 3 version and have to put up with that annoyance. The dive to cover move is impractical as Max almost always gets stuck on objects after using it. There are a number of other flaws as well that I couldn't be bothered to list.

Yeah, sorry for misinterpreting your first point then, about the reviewers never being wrong. I saw five text walls and skimmed through you two pointing out flaws in each other's quotes. As for my list, that was just the first few that I thought of. I can't give my opinion on MP3 just yet, so I'll let you maintain your stance, since I haven't gotten to play it just yet. Anyway, I didn't expect MP3 to innovate at all, because, well, it really didn't need to. The game was fanservice for the MP 1 and 2 players, and is only a niche game. It was never intended for a huge audience (though multiplayer may make it seem that way). Max Payne 3, to me (since I wasn't a fan of the first two), is only there as a morsel of what may be to come with GTA V (not in terms of gameplay, just generally).

To be fair, you are actually right. MP 3 didn't need to innovate. Ive played through it all anyway. It's a good game but it does have a number of other flaws. Some of which I named. It has a really extreme difficulty spike once you get to chapter 12. Enemies start beconimg bullet sponges and the difficulty is a little too extreme, sometimes in cheap ways. I would give the game an 8/10.

Question, did you start playing the game on hard? or jsut normal difficulty? Got the game on Friday, currently in the middle of chapter VII on hard difficulty. And well, I'm loving it, though I do feel the game is challenging enough as it is, so a even higher difficulty spike later on sounds a tad worrying... meh, bring it on anyway! So far, I haven't felt enemies to be bullet sponges since I can down almost anyone with head-shots, and even with a machine gun, I've seen some goons drop with 3 to 4 bullets to the body at most. Using SMGs they take far more damage though. I WILL complain that the tank like enemy in chapter V felt pretty cheap, and not really fun to fight at all. (Mainly because not only does he drop you instantly if he hits you... but even if you use LMS, it only knocks him down for a second, and he's hitting you back again before YOU can get up and move to safety.) Otherwise, I think the game's a step above other shooters of this generation. Mainly because the lack of regenerating health forces you to play smart and seek to conserve your painkillers and explore for more. Exploring for clues is also a cool extra, and the kind of collectible that's worth finding, if you ask me. And I like the the slow mo slide is "unlimited" so it always gives you a way out if you're cornered and out of painkillers and BT gauge, but it still doesn't allow you to spam because enemies can and WILL shot the crap out of you when you land, unless you threw yourself into cover, that is. I will agree it's not a perfect game though. The game physics does make it so that your slide will react unpredictably sometimes, though not enough to be a deal breaker. and in this difficulty, even enemies with handguns can drop you in less than a second. Which is kids frightening considering there's even two MORE difficulty levels >>; Still having a blast though, the setting, story, and Max himself are pretty top notch, and the animation of the bulletwounds and reactions are breathtaking. I wouldn't give it a 10 so far, but definitely a 9 at the very least.