Max Payne 3 is a wide departure from the previous Max Payne games. This third-person adventure thriller has a new writer, new developer, new distributor, and no input from the original series creator. As far as I can tell, there is no one involved in this game who was involved in either of the previous games, so I wouldn’t count on being able to recognize any of the elements or mechanics from those games. While past Payne games were dark, brooding, and themed strongly on vengeance and pain, this new one focuses instead on cynicism and alcoholism. Max is in a new stage of his grief, the one which makes him a stereotypical grizzled action star with a painful past. The story this time seems to have little to do with his family—instead he’s rescuing a missing mob-boss’s wife, kidnapped by a rival gang. Max becomes embroiled in a dangerous gang-war, which threatens to consume all of Brazil. The only feature that seems to have been retained is Max’s ‘dive’ ability, which has been modified slightly. He can now become ‘grounded’, allowing him to turret after landing. Rockstar has added the feature to integrate the game with their latest Grand Theft Auto game. Players who also play GTAV can set up multi-player squads in one game which carry over their set-up and XP to the other game, a feature that Rockstar plans top implement for any future games of this style.
The Game of Thrones tie-in game gives players two stories to follow. Luckily, neither is drawn directly from the novels or TV show. The adventures take place in the world of Westeros, but the protagonists are not characters from the books—though they may interact with some book characters. If you’re a big fan of Game of Thrones, and don’t mind a game engine, graphics, and mechanics which seem to be from over a decade ago, you should give this one a look.
Diablo III is the third game in the franchise that defined the dungeon crawl genre. Players choose a class, and advance through levels while defeating monsters in randomized 3D levels. The game has quite a few changes from the previous entries. There is no longer the classic skill-tree for character development—instead, players unlock options for their characters which remain open as they advance, and can be changed around at will. Also lost, unfortunately, is most of the player interaction in co-operative multiplayer. In Diablo III players have completely separate drops, including gold and other general resources, based upon their class and level; they cannot heal or buff one another in nearly as direct ways as was possible in previous games, and attacks do not seem to work in concert. In short, the cooperative multiplayer is not very cooperative. While the single-player version of the game seems to be an improvement in many ways, if you like to play with your friends, you might be disappointed.
Following is a full list of this week’s announce North American releases:
Windows
- Diablo III
- Game of Thrones
Wii
- Battleship
- Monster World IV (VC)
- Wonder Boy in Monster Land (VC)
DS
- Battleship
3DS
- Battleship
- Mario Tennis Open
Xbox 360
- Battleship
- Game of Thrones
- Max Payne 3
- JAM Live Music Arcade
PS3
- Battleship
- Game of Thrones
- JAM Live Music Arcade
- Max Payne 3
- PixelJunk 4am
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