Max Payne 3 (MP3) was something of new territory for celebrated video game developer Rockstar, while they had published the previous titles in the series those games were actually developed by Remedy, now known for the Alan Wake series and the upcoming Quantum Break. But, while the original game was a masterpiece of video game storytelling thanks to the wonderful witty, self-aware, and poetic writing of Sam Lake. Max Payne 3 on the other hand feels like a cheap imitation, like a student trying to replicate his teachers work but fails to understand the larger picture behind the work.
Now, let's get this out of the way this analysis is focused solely on the story and plot of Max Payne 3, I will not be talking about the gameplay which in my opinion was an amazing highlight of the game. No, we are sticking to the core of a MP game, the story and more importantly it's titular character. And, while I will be pointing out the flaws in the game's narrative I will not hesitate to point out the good parts, I'm not here to degrade the game but simply show why the game fails to live up to its namesake.
My Name is Max Payne and My Life Sucks
So lets start at the beginning of the game shall we. After a quick flash forward or in media res, a technique used in the previous titles (we will get into more later why it makes no sense here), we are greeted with our main character, Max Payne. In a very well done opening scene Max enters his new apartment in Brazil looking haggard as hell and wastes no time getting to boozing and swallowing down painkillers like candy. Ladies and Gentleman, Max Payne is back!
But wait, lets take a step back here to the ending of Max Payne 2. This game seemingly concluded the story of Max. He solved the mystery of Mona, Alfred Woden dies along with the last of The Inner Circle, Max kills Vlad, and in the end (depending on which one you got) Max either gives a final kiss to a dead Mona, or kisses her just as she wakes up. In either ending the last panel is the same, Max states:
"I had a dream of my wife. She was dead, but it was alright."
In other words, by the end of the game Max is finally able to let go of the psychological trauma of losing his wife and infant child. He's born again, a new man, ready to live a new life. Yet, here we are at the beginning of MP3 and Max is back to moping about his wife and child clearly still hung up on the past and far from moving on.
However, we have to let some things slide, this is a new game afterall and considering MP2 basically tied things up nice and neatly it would be difficult for R* to start a new story directly after these events. No, rather it was simply easier to cast Max back into his familiar role of a drunken mess of a man, a shell of a person, and then build from there.
Now, this opening scene is actually one of the highlights as far as writing goes in the story. Max in typical dry wit fashion comments about his various habits we directly witness and how he is "over them." He looks at a portrait of his family and comments that "It was a long time ago...let it go." He drinks to excess but bemuses, "Honest, I just got kinda bored of boozing, well maybe once in a while." This scene points out the delusion that Max's character mental state is in, and also serves as quick cover-up explanation as to why Max is still screwed up despite the ending MP2. According to this scene, Max simply is in denial he believes he has gotten over all of his past traumas and tragedies but in reality he is a man stuck in time, unable to move past these events.
And so here we are ready to being Max's new adventure, yet this fantastic writing and self-awareness seen in the opening never really crops up in the same force again. But, before we get into why the writing went so downhill it's important to understand R* and specifically the writers behind the game.
Dan Houser is not Sam Lake
Dan Houser the man behind the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto series and more recently Red Dead Redemption is no stranger to video game writing having written every GTA game as well as RDR. However, those games are no where near the same type of game that Max Payne was. GTA games are open-world crime stories reminiscent of Goodfellas, Casino, or Boyz in Da Hood. Their structure is very much, goto a marker, watch a cut-scene, do a mission, return for another cut-scene. This is not a bad thing, it is not a criticism of these types of games, but merely points out the difference in structure to a more linear and focused game such as Max Payne.
If you've played any of the GTA games or RDR then you should begin to notice the strong suits of Dan Houser's writing style which play a large role in MP3. To sum it up, he is extremely good at writing quick and witty dialogue, conversations that really give life to a scene and create crazy loveable characters. Think of all the off beat and wonderful characters between GTA and RDR. Ryder, Truth, Little Jacob, Mr. West Dickens, Rosenberg, Abraham Reyes, etc. And each of them provided the player with hours of lengthy back and forth funny banter.
However, his strong suits are not so much subtlety nor the kind of metaphorical and poetic writing that Sam Lake provided in the original MP games. While Red Dead was most definitely a career highlight that showed his potential to supply more depth to his stories, he still struggles with subtlety and creating depth to his overall narrative. Red Dead was filled with one beautiful foreshadowing line near the end of the game that perfectly summed up the theme of the title "Our time has passed." A line spoken by the character Dutch just before his death. Yet, despite wonderful moments of writing like this the game could be quite heavy fisted the most the time with the rest of it's overall themes. How many times does a character have to complain about "government encroachment" and the "restriction of freedom" before we get the picture.
Thus, it is of no surprise that for MP3 Houser is a bit out of his league when it comes to this level of complex writing. His attempts at metaphors come off as laughable, and the game's overall plot is a total mess ripe with plot holes, with a story that in the end meant absolutely zero to the character of Max Payne.
But again, I would be unfair to not point out the good parts in his writing. Again, his strengths are witty conversational dialogue between two characters and we get this throughout the game, most especially with Max's interactions with Passos. From the very first scene in which we are introduced to Passos his witty dialogue writing is apparent:
Passos: How's the cocktail?
Max: It's scotch, I never mix my drinks.
Passos: Oh at least not on duty?
Max: Something like that.
Passos: Man that favella is big.
Max: Yeah, nothing like the view of extreme poverty to make a cocktail party really swing.
Passos: I guess they call it trickle down economics.
Another example:
*Max is wounded with a gunshot in his arm and proceeds to push the elevator button in the stadium*
Max: So what am I the button pusher?
Passos: Yeah, you're so good at it. Good job.
Max: Just another day at the office, huh?
Passos: Should've known this wouldn't end well.
Max: It didn't begin well, this was hardly a case of a textbook hostage exchange.
Passos: I guess I must have skipped that class.
His writing brings much humor and character to the conversations throughout the game, comparable to a Joss Whedon movie.
This on the other hand is not so much an example of good writing:
Max: This place was like Baghdad with G-strings...
Which of course brings up to our next point.
Thinking With My Mouth
One of the most glaring problems with the writing in Max Payne 3 are the inner monologue narrations by Max himself. This attempt to recreate such an iconic part of the series ends up severely hurting the game. Now, there are several reasons why the inner monologues fail but I'll narrow them down to just two reasons: Number 1 being that Houser seemed to miss the point of the monologues of the previous games and Number 2 simply being that they are poorly written.
The point of the narration in the previous games was two fold, first it added support to the graphic novel style nature of the game. Max Payne 1 was released at a time when motion-capture and facial animation quality were simply not up to snuff to convey the kind of deep and complex story Remedy was going for. Remedy also at the time was a small studio working on a limited budget. Thus, they thought of an ingenius way to tell their story without compromising their vision, turn the story into a stylized graphic novel. However, the narration also was a homage to classic noir-detective stories which were always rife with inner monologue narration of the main character. However, if you notice there are less graphic novel panel scenes in Max Payne 2 than in the first game, this is simply due to the fact that motion and facial capture was finally catching up to the vision the developers imagined and Remedy now had a bigger budget. This meant they could show more and talk less, something MP3 forgets.
In MP3 the graphic novel panels are done away completely and replaced by real-time cinematic cutscenes with some stylized editing thrown in. However, the game features more inner monologue than any of the previous MP games. Why? Remember, part of the reason they were included in the series originally was due to a limitation on technology. Now, when the technology is finally here to do full cinematic cutscenes Max can't seem to shut his mouth, spewing obvious thoughts towards the player.
Again, R* misses the old adage of film "SHOW DON'T TELL." In the previous game, the inner monologues were there for us to get a sense of what Max was thinking, gives us some quick background, and briefly describe a scene. It was used just at the right moment to point out something important. In MP3 Max has to point out everything to the player and explain to us every action he makes. Let's take a look at one scene half-way into the game where I literally threw my hands up in frustration because Max couldn't shut up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ri7G4r1NPQ&list=PLEA393D1F8FD49477
In the scene Max navigates the favela as the police show up and raid the place, he ends up following the death squad cops to find some clues as to what is going down. Here are his thoughts:
Max:I decided I might as well follow them, I was lost and they were going somewhere.
It was the closest I was going to get to a plan.
Where were they taking them? Did they have Marcello or Giovanna, was this just an average favela raid or something more?
When all your left with is questions your only option is to go with your gut, and my gut was telling me that band of merry-men would lead me to some answers, answers I would wish I never received.
What was going on here? They looked like the same paramilitaries from the stadium and office attacks.
Something felt wrong, in fact everything felt wrong. Anytime those guys joined the party you could be sure it wasn't going to end with a pinata and a slice of cake.
What the fuck was this? The vigilantes doing an exchange with the death squad cops. Were they buying people? What the fell for? None of this made any sense.
What is the point of this narration? We see the same theme repeated again and again, Max doesn't know what is going on and is trying to find answers. Yet, he has to keep reminding us of this fact despite the fact that we can clearly see exactly what he is doing and that we the player are thinking the exact same thing in our head. This is a common problem with Max's narration throughout the game he is constantly telling things the player they can clearly see through Max's actions or the look on his face rather than giving us any deeper understanding of the character and his journey.
Which is where point number 2 comes in, on top of the glaring problem of Max insistently pointing out the obvious, his narration is also laughably written. It's a cheap attempt at Sam Lake's hard boiled writing, which confuses maturity with curse words and comments about sex and venereal disease. In case you never noticed in the original MP titles there was a clear separation to the way Max talked, to the way he thought (or talked to the player). Max's normal speech was common and simple, no fancy words, no use of metaphors or poetic rhythm, just your average Joe talking, but most importantly it was short and to the point. On the other hand, Max's inner thoughts were rife with metaphors, allegories, poetic language, a large vocabulary, rhythm, rhyme, and they were quite lengthy. But, what is also striking is that Max never once makes use of heavy curse words, especially in his thoughts. Not once does he ever utter the phrase "Fuck" something Max relies on heavily in MP3.
Let's take a look at some examples in the previous titles:
(Max's inner monologue)
Max:
I felt thin as death. I'd been living on an endless
supply of week-old doughnuts. They were fuel for this
crazy furnace inside my head. I couldn't remember when
I had last seen the sun. I was on a permanent graveyard
shift. When the darkness fell, New York City became
something else. Any old Sinatra song notwithstanding.
Bad things happened in the night, on the streets of that
other city, Noir York City. I was in an all-night diner
downing cup after cup of coffee that tasted like engine
oil, when a new message from B.B. got me back on the
killer track.
(Max's regular speech)
Max: What the Hell does B.B. stand for anyway? Backstabbing Bastard.
B.B.: Come on, don't be like that. Have a cigar.
Max: I don't smoke.
B.B.: Maxey, you have no idea how big this is. It's huge. You have
no idea.
Max: I think I do. You're a bribe-taking bent cop who sold out
his partner. Those mobsters in the subway were a dead
giveaway, hard to miss. Bet it was exactly like this with
Alex, up close and personal.
B.B.: You can't win this one, Max.
Max: No, but I can make damn sure none of you do either.
Now let's look at how Max speaks and thinks in MP3:
(Max's thoughts)
Max: What the fuck is going on around here?
(Max's speech)
Max: What the fuck are you doing?
I think you get the picture, gone are the wonderful metaphors and rhythm, though Houser does attempt to replicate them. However, simply stating that something "was like [insert parallel]" doesn't make the said thing a good metaphor. A few wonderful Dan Houser examples:
Max: This place was like Baghdad with G-strings...
Max: I felt like my vacation was coming to an end, except I wasn't going home with a sun-burn, a bag full of duty free, and a dose of VD...
Nowhere is the difference more apparent than in the final level of the game. Let's compare the beginning of the MP3's end game airport level to the beginning of Max Payne 1's end game Aesir HQ level. In both scenes we see Max about to start the last leg of his journey where he must enter a heavily fortified and guarded building to finally confront the main villain. Notice the difference in the structure and writing of Max's thoughts.
(Max Payne 1)
Mine wasn't the most original approach to the problem.
It wasn't as if it hadn't been all done before. An eye
for an eye, the first principal of revenge. Old as dirt,
still going strong. The cardinal rule in going after
someone with an intention to kill was not to make it
personal... Which it almost always ended up being anyway.
It did with me. I took my time, cruising around the city
in the snow. There was no hurry, I knew what I had to do
now. I took my time, thinking about it, building up the
rage. When I was ready, I parked the stolen wheels at the
front entrance of the Aesir Corporation HQ, got out, got
in, got cracking. I had a bullet with Nicole Horne's name
on it. I had ten thousand bullets with the hag's name on
them. She had ultra-high-tech security systems, enough
mercenaries and weaponry to start World War III. There
was no fear. New York disappeared behind a veil of snow.
I had crossed the threshold. This was her domain. Sleek
and sexy and souless, all glass and steel. A place of
color-coded security keycards, metal detectors and
surveillance systems. Colder than a walk-in fridge...
Cold as a gun.
(Max Payne 3)
Max:
So of course, I knew they were looking for me.
But, the airport was just about the only place a fat gringo might blend in, well, there or a sex club.
My delusions of disguise lasted around two seconds, they were out in force, and they were out for me.
But then, I was out for them too, every last one of those bastards.
In the first game the entrance into the Aesir HQ building is filled with powerful imagery, Max is about to enter the devil's domain, another world. The language invokes deeper meaning "New York disappeared behind a veil of snow." The violent snow storm that plagues the entire game is a metaphor for Max's journey, the storm gets more intense the farther along in the story he progresses, as he enter Horne's building he is separated from the storm outside. Again, the language makes it clear this is her domain, where time is still, and everything is under her control. The setting also provides insights into Horne's character, "sleek, and sexy, and soulless, all glass and steel." And to top it all off the language is done in the same rhythmic fashion that Sam Lake repeatedly makes use of throughout the series. "...got out, got in, got cracking." "Colder, than a walk-in fridge. Cold as a gun." I could spend an hour deciphering this one paragraph of speech alone.
Now, look at the end of Max Payne 3 and what it conveys. The monologue does nothing more than to point out to the player the obvious, Max is going to the airport to chase down Victor Branca. There's a pointless attempt at comparing a airport to a sex club, Max's disguise is blown, and then we begin a shootout. The airport doesn't serve as some metaphor for Victor's character, it doesn't convey any sort of insight into Max's thoughts at the end of his journey, rather it does the bare minimum to explain why Max is there and to get into the action. So here in all it's glory we can clearly see the main difference between the writing styles of Sam Lake and Dan Houser.
So Let's Talk About Plot, Max Payne: The Fall Guy For Nothing
Alright, so we're ready to begin a new journey with Max Payne in an all new setting, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Now, let me be upfront there is nothing wrong with the setting of Max Payne 3. MP isn't about snow/rain, and darkness, or NY and NJ. That is not what makes a noir-detective story, those are superficial elements. What makes a noir-story is the character, the plot, and its narrative structure. Hell, just look at the movie LA Confidential or Chinatown a large portion of both movies take place during the day in L.A., yet it is about as noir of a story you can get.
Noir-stories typically involve a cynical type of main character, a loner who is usually an ex-cop now a private eye or body guard. Now, while they pretend to be a cynic on the outside, they in fact care a whole lot about the well being of others and the state of affairs of their current world. They tend to reject authority but follow their own moralistic code and have a thing for troubled ladies. As far as dress code and habits go, they tend to wear trench-coats, leather jackets, or sport a fedora. They love to smoke cigarettes or drink whiskey to excess. With regards to narrative structure there are certain genre staples, inner monologues being one of them. There are also double-crosses, femme fatales, damsels in distress, and of course the seemingly small women's problem or case that kicked off the story that always ends up leading to a larger conspiracy in the end.
But, let's make one thing clear about the main character in this story he is NOT a Nihilist, he does not "believe in nothing." As I said before, he may play the cynic but he is far from uncaring and apathetic. And he almost always despises violence against women above all else.
Now let's get back to the plot of MP3, so Max is a drunken mess and decides to accept a job as a bodyguard for a rich and powerful business man in Brazil, who oh just so happens to have a young and beautiful wife. A classic set-up for a noir story. And the wonderful, hot, and sunny setting of Brazil could easily make for a wonderful stand in for the rain or snow that symbolized New York. Yet, what the story actually devolves into is a chase to recover a spoiled rich girl who Max has zero attachment to and return her to her immoral, old, rich husband. Eventually, the story winds up including a conspiracy to steal and sell the organs of innocent civilians and a plot to elect Victor Branca as Mayor.
Tell me why does Max care about any of this? Brazil is not his home, he has no real loyalty to Rodrigo Branca (who is by no means a good man), and he can barely stand Fabiana and the rest of the Branca family. And yet, he continues to press on in this plot for no real reason, even after every motivation for him to do so is gone. And, throughout the entire story he can do nothing more than to tell the player how much his life sucks, how he is screwing up, going to screw up, has screwed up, and will continue to screw up in the future. In the previous titles Max was always fighting for something; for revenge, for love. Here he fights at first because he is paid to and later because he's a "fat gringo." Why that means he has to be the one for the job beats me.
Then of course there is the massive plot hole in the game, remember Max was intentionally brought to Brazil to be the "fall guy" for some scheme. Yet, we never are told what he was supposed to be the fall guy for. For what Fabiana's kidnapping? Who? What?? It seems the game was trying to copy the plot to Man On Fire but there the revelation of the main characters supposed role of "fall guy" made sense. In the film, John Creasy is an ex-military type, now a drunken, depressed has been who wants to end it all. A powerful businessman hires him, knowing of his drunken history, to protect his daughter. The whole point being that he wanted his daughter to be kidnapped and figured that a the drunken Creasy wouldn't be able to protect her. The reason he was hired and not just any old drunk was because his wife had to approve of Creasy, she liked him because he was American, where she previously turned down all the local bodyguards.
In MP3, there is NO reason for Max to be hired as a bodyguard for Rodrigo. They could have found any old local do be their "fall guy." But instead, they have Passos travel all the way to NJ to convince Max to join up with them in Brazil. Yet, there never ends up being a point to "using" Max, he's never blamed for any wrong doing, he doesn't need to clear his name, he's just there in Brazil doing things for no reason.
Now to be fair, there was a part when I legitimately thought the game's true theme was finally coming forward, where I thought the game's story would finally redeem itself. That moment came when the character of Giovanna reveals to Max that she is pregnant. At this point in the story Rodrigo, Fabiana, and Marcello are all dead, and Max is left protecting Giovanna from the bad guys to reunite her with Passos. At last, I thought here comes the true theme of the game, Redemption. If you recall, Max lost all of his loved ones years ago, his wife and his infant child, and now here comes Passos and Giovanna about to start a family together. Could it be that Max sacrifices himself to give Passos and Giovanna the life he never could achieve? What if he does so but Passos dies and he ends up promising to raise his child with Giovanna so that in the end he finally gets the life he always wished for?
Nope. Sorry. No instead Giovanna links up with Passos and Max lets them both drive away to start a new life while he himself stays in Brazil to solve the case of the organ stealers for absolutely no reason. At the end of the game Max sums up the game's story pretty much perfectly:
Max: Was it Redemption? Nah, it was pathetic desperation, and not much else.
There you have it from the characters own mouth, a story with no overall theme or point. Rather, it's just about a guy shooting a bunch of locals, including their ENTIRE police force, to right a wrong he has no stake in. And then, at the end of the game Max is on the beach having solved the mystery and beaten the bad guys and seems to walk off into the sunset ready to start a new life. WHY? HOW? Seriously, how does this character development make any sense? I killed a bunch of corrupt Brazilian officials so now I am over the death of my wife and child. Yeah, that doesn't mix, rather it is a ham fisted attempt to try and make the story mean something in the end. Needless to say it doesn't work.
Dodging The Point, In Conclusion
The entire game can be described as missing the point, the central heart of the Max Payne franchise. MP isnt about some degenerate, loner, who cares for nothing and spends all day moping about his tragedy. The game and character were about much more. They didn't take themselves too seriously, they were self-aware. In the same game that we had a wife and infant die while the husband cradles their dead body we also had Captain Baseball-bat boy, we had Lords and Ladies, the Pink Flamingo, Vinnie Gognitti, Address Unknown, and The Scary Door. In the original games Max was in on the joke, he wasn't writhing in self-pity but had a constant smirk on his face. He understood how absurd everything was. Secret societies, conspiracies, Inner Circles, shoot-outs, femme fatales, and waves and waves of goons. In one hilarious scene the game actually breaks the fourth wall:
(Max upon being given a heavy dose of Valkyr)
The truth was a burning green crack through my brain.
Weapon statistics hanging in the air, glimpsed out of
the corner of my eye. Endless repetition of the act of
shooting, time slowing down to show off my moves, the
paranoid feel of someone controlling my every step. I
was in a computer game. Funny as Hell, it was the the
most horrible thing I could think of.
By the time we caught up to the beginning flash forward scene in Max Payne 1 we felt we had completed this characters arc. We finally understood everything and felt a little elation over everything we had just been through, we understood why this moment was important. Why Max on top of the Aesir building was so monumental. And in MP2 we understood why Woden's mansion and the hospital mattered. Hell even Nicole Horne's death was full of deeper meanings. She wasnt simply killed by a bullet to the head, no she was killed by her own building structure, the tallest point of her building literally collapsed on top of her. Remember, her company's tag line "A Bit Closer to Heaven", her skyscraper serves as the symbolism of a person trying to elevate themselves into the heavens. Yet, in the end she is crushed at they very top of her tower, the physical structure that she sought to elevate her and was a representation of her power in the city. On top of this, she falls all the way to the bottom of building and ends up burning in a smoldering fire. The devil has been slain and sent back to hell and Max Payne sits high above it all.
Now, let's look back at MP3 and the beginning flash forward scene, we see a bald Max pointing his gun at a heavily burned man. He comments:
So I guess I became what they wanted me to be, a killer.
Some rent-a-clown with a gun who put holes in other bad guys.
Well, that's that they had paid for, so in the end that's what they had got.
Say one thing about Americans but we understand capitalism, you buy yourself a product and you get what you pay for.
And these chumps had paid for an angry gringo without any sensibilities to know right from wrong.
Here I was about to execute this poor bastard like some dime store angel of death, and I realized they were right.
I wouldn't know right from wrong if one of them was helping the poor and the other was banging my sister.
I wouldn't know right from wrong if one of them was helping the poor and the other was banging my sister.
WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? First of all, Max is a killer, has been for a while now. Now, he's always fought for good but at this point he's killed over a hundred people, but only now at the end does he think of himself as one? Second, what earth shattering revelation do we learn at this moment? This isn't like the mansion scene from MP2 or the Aesir rooftop of MP1, this scene just seems like a random moment in the story when we finally get to it. There is absolutely no importance to this scene, Becker isn't even the villain of the story, he's a secondary bad guy. Why the references to Americans and capitalism, it all is devoid of any real meaning, just like the game.
In the end, Max Payne 3 is simply a soulless recreation of the past titles, one that attempts to mimic the imagery, language, and sounds of the original but fails at every corner. The developers simply did not understand the character or what the game was about confusing curse words and super-seriousness with a mature story. Here's hoping that one day we can get a true sequel to Max Payne and not a cheap knock off.
