Max Payne 3

I have never finished a Max Payne game even though I have owned them all for years. I think I got the first two in a steam dale package for about five dollars and I picked up Max Payne 3 on sale on steam for about 10. I have tried to play through the first game and for one reason or another I gave up and never went back to it.

Same goes for the third game. I started playing it and never finished and never went back to it until now. I did play quite a bit of the multiplayer though when it was still populated and it was pretty decent.

I never even started up Max Payne 2 , but some parts of the third game make me want to go and play the previous ones through to get the references.

I just had an unexplainable urge to play Max Payne 3 again, so I started it up and this time started the campaign on hard. I'm glad I did because this game is incredible. It has graphics that hold up against many of todays games, it has great voice acting by the entire cast and it also has great motion capture.

It does a lot of other things really well too. One thing I really love and don't get tired of are the deaths. When you kill someone ( and you kill thousands of people) they stumble and react in different ways. One guy I shot in a cemetery, grabbed his wound then stumbled sideways. There was a tombstone in front of him which he put his hands on to brace himself as he fell and it was incredibly realistic. There were many more times where I was in awe at how enemies reacted to being shot and killed. I cant think of another game that does it this well.

This game is very cinematic and the narration from the voice actor playing Max is great. He reminisces about his experience as you play through it giving insight into his thoughts at the time of the events , and you can come across clues in the missions that add more voice overs about the situation.

The camera moves around the characters and camera effects quickly flash around which puts you into Max's drug and alcohol induced state of mind. Really, the entire time you're playing as Max, he's drunk and on lots of pain killers so he is never fully focused and clear headed.

There are moments when you kill the last of a group of bad guys and the camera will pull in to a cool shot of Max firing his gun, then you will see the bullets in slow motion tearing through the last enemy and you can stop firing , or keep unloading while the camera moves to show the poor guy get ripped apart by your bullets. It's so fun to see and very satisfying.

The story is actually interesting and keeps you invested by making all the characters engaging. It starts off as a simple story about going after a girl who gets abducted on your watch. It slowly twists into something more with Max being a pawn in a bigger scheme.

The story goes back and forth between the present and the past which was pretty neat. You get to see old style Max with his classic trench coat and full head of hair, to him bald with a full beard wearing a bright shirt with palm trees and parrots on it.

The gameplay is top notch. The basic gunplay is really fun and there are lots of weapons to use. Handguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, shotguns and grenade launchers. Also, each level has 2 golden guns you can find. Each gun has 3 pieces you need to find and when you do you unlock the golden gun which I assume is more powerful but it doesn't really say. The gold guns also look cooler.

On top of the basic gunplay you have the bullet time. When you press the bullet time button, time slows and you can take out a bunch of enemies before they have a chance to do much. It helps when you are outnumbered and you need to get up from cover to take the group out. Without bullet time they would mow you down quick but with it you can aim and kill them before they do that .

Also, if you dive , time will slow down and you can fly through the air and pick off baddies in a really cool looking way before you hit the ground and time goes back to normal speed.

The music in the game is very intense and keeps with the mood of the situation at all times. I really enjoyed the music in the game and stopped a few times as I realized just how tense I was feeling about what was happening in the game.

Hard mode is definitely hard, and I had to replay certain sections over many many times because of how hard it can be when you are outnumbered, only have so much ammo and health and your survival relies on how good you are at headshots and if luck is on your side. I saw the death of Max too many times to count. It did get frustrating but beating those sections felt very rewarding.

Yes, this game is old, the game came out in 2012, but I personally don't feel the need to purchase every new game that comes out for 80 dollars. I am more selective on new games, but there are always steam sales and even just going through your backlog of game when you're bored and don't know what to play. That's pretty much what brought me to playing through Max  Payne 3.

I recommend this game. If you want a great shooter to play through and you have never played this one, then go try it out. Its always on sale on steam and its worth what you'll pay for it. It has great production value and I didn't run into any game breaking bugs and you will have a ton of fun with it.

Don't shell out big bucks for what's

out now. Do you need the new call of duty or assassins creed at 80 bucks a pop? I say wait for those games to come down in price or go on sale on steam and in the meantime go to your backlog and finish an old gem of a game that you might have overlooked.

Onechanbara Z2: Chaos

What does that mean? I have no idea, but the last part "chaos" really does fit the game. I did play another Onechanbara game for the Xbox 360 and that one was subtitles "bikini samurai squad" It was about female characters in bikinis killing zombies and it was pretty fun. I also came across a live action movie based on these characters but I never watched it.

This one is similar. You have the same 2 main characters Aya and Saki, but this time they are joined by another set of sisters Kagura and saaya. There might have been some kind of story to the game, but I didn't pick up much between the boob jokes and hints of lesbianism in the dialogue between characters.

The gameplay however had me hooked on the game and I played through the story on normal and I have beaten all the missions on normal so far and jumped into hard mode. The game plays similarly to Bayonetta, though the fight system isn't as in depth as that one, but it is good enough to keep you learning new moves and having a good time annihilating monsters throughout the levels of the game.

You can switch between all 4 characters on the fly which leads to some cool combos where you start a combo with one character then switch to the next to have her finish the combo. Also, you can call in the other girls to fight alongside you which is neat because of how much chaos happens on screen when you have all 4 girls battling it out against hordes of monsters. It's really cool and part of me thinks they missed an opportunity for co-op play here.

Each character can build up a meter and use that to unleash a special powerful attack that can deal a lot of damage to enemies in a large area , or that meter can be used to tag in the other girls for the all out carnage I talked about.

The two sisters Kagura and Saaya have an ability to change into powerful beasts as well which look really cool and deal a lot of damage. Aya and Saki get this ability near the end of the game, but you can carry that ability over to a new game and have it right from the start.

There are regular combos, there are COOL combos which involve you hitting the button for the next attack and the right moment, there are partner combos and so on.

You can also learn new combos for each girl by spending orbs, which are dropped when you kill enemies.

Along with new combos, you can spend orbs on new weapons and rings. Weapons are specific to each girl, but rings can be worn by anyone though only one girl can wear a particular ring so if she has it on no one else can have it. Each character can wear 3 rings at a time. Rings give you bonuses such as causing more orbs to drop meaning more currency to upgrade with, or another ring gives you more attack power and so on.

As you tear through enemies, your weapon gets blood and guts on it and there is a gauge on the screen showing how bloody your sword it. The more on it, the less damage you do so you have to hit the shoulder button to have your character clean it off so that your weapon does full damage again.

This serves two purposes. First, just a fight mechanic to keep your eye on and second, because there are quests. And one quest wants you to do a 500 hit combo 30 times. So if you do this while your sword is fully coated and doing little damage , then you can rack up the hits on surrounding enemies without killing them, letting you get those 500 hits in.

There are other "quests" such as defeating a large number of bosses, or beating level section without taking damage. These quests are what unlock art illustrations for you to view.

There are 16 chapters to play through and each level is neither too long or too short and they throw in boss battles at the right times to keep you on your toes. Finishing a boss is pretty neat since you have to use QTE movements with the directional pad. I know, I know, most of you hate QTE's but this time it adds to feeling like you're actually slicing the boss apart with your sword. I don't know if you can fail the QTE because I never did even with presing the wrong direction accidently once or twice.

The campaign was fun to play through and after normal , there is hard and then I think 3 more difficulties after that. I unlocked a new outfit that any of the characters can use. Speaking of outfits, as you play mission mode you unlock new items that you can put on your characters as you beat each mission.

Missions are pretty fun. The normal missions were mostly easy enough with some harder ones that took more time near the end. They consist of killing a set amount of enemies, or you can only hurt enemies using COOL Combos or only using secondary weapons. After each mission you unlock another wearable item and some of them are pretty cool.

There are 20 missions for normal and I'm guessing 20 for Hard as well, each unlocking new items.

You can dress your characters as skimpy or as covered as you want, that's up to you.

There is a good amount of replayability to this game and with all the unlockable content , which also features illustrations (game art) the price of this game was a steal. This game might not be for everyone because of the TNA or just the playstyle of the game, but if you're like myself who plays a wide range of games and doesn't get wierded out because of digital female bodies then you might have a lot of fun with the game.

This game was initially released on PS4 and was ported to PC not long ago. I bought the game instantly when I saw it was on steam for a couple reasons. First, the first game I played on the xbox 360 was really fun and second, I want more of these developers to bring their games to steam as well.

The price tag was about $30 dollars which also helped.

Being a PS4 port the graphics are pretty decent, but don't expect anything spectacular as the characters look like expressionless plastic dolls at times and background textures and enemy textures can look pretty dull and low resolution.

The animation though is pretty good. The girls move fluidly and not stiff or clunky which was nice, and the best part is that the game runs very smooth. I had it constantly at 60 FPS and I never ran into a hitch with this port.

Though, some people on steam had issues with crashes, but apparently there was a patch that resolved the issue.

So, to reiterate, this game is tons of fun and you should definitely give it a try if you like beat-em ups and hack and slash Bayonetta type games. I thoroughly enjoyed it and still have a few playthroughs to do before I'm done with it.

BattleFront

Battlefront

This game has been out for a while now and I bought it maybe a month ago now for 39.99. At that price point I was willing to give it a shot even though I heard that there isn't too much content in the base game and like most games today, you need to shell out another $60 bucks for a season pass to get more padding to feel like a complete game.

Well, at $40 bucks I didn't feel ripped off. The game is tons of fun if you're a Star Wars fan and or a fan of Dice shooters like the Battlefield series which I am a fan.

If you were still on the fence at $40 bucks, then maybe give it a shot now since it is $20 bucks on Origin. There are always full servers and people always use the chat and help out new players when you ask questions.

Personally I plan to get the season pass, but not before it drops to $20 dollars, which is what I did for Battlefield Hardline. I just cant justify spending all this money on a game then the same amount for a season pass. Some people defend this by saying that it costs a lot of money to develop this content, but you can definitely tell when a game feels lacking for the price tag and then content that seems like it was cut out gets added with the season pass.

The way you get to pilot those vehicles is by grabbing a pick up in the level. Then you can choose to activate it or not. Flying can be tough but rewarding when you get the hang of it.

Piloting the walkers is really fun as well and easier than flying. The other cool pick up in the game is the hero pick up. When you get one and activate it you can choose a hero to use. The empire has heroes like Darth Vader, Palpatine and Boba Fett, while the Rebels have Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia.

Heroes have more health and have special abilities they can use to wreak havoc on the enemy team. Darth Vader for example can throw his light saber, force choke people or just slice his way through lots of troops in no time.

Star wars isn't known for having a ton of different weapons. In the movies you have the storm troopers all using the same blaster , and Han has his blaster and there isn't much in the way of handheld weapons. This game has a lot of different blasters to use and they have different uses. Some are great from far away , some are close combat blasters and they sound different but they can feel the same as they all fire out the same red laser blast. There are definitely some overpowered blasters in the game though most of which you need to buy in the season pass which can be frustrating when you keep getting killed by the same two players on the other team who have the season pass and these overpowered weapons.

The game is surprisingly team oriented. If you stick with your team you are far more likely to take out enemies and take over objectives. If you try to go solo you will die a lot. I usually play freelance and take off to wherever my team would need me more. I might help out people taking an objective, or try to flank the enemy who are trying to take an objective from my team.


No matter how you decide to play though you will have a fun time. This game is definitely not boring.