Thematically speaking, Rockstar Games is really playing to their strengths some might even say that they've found an interesting storytelling niche. But when Branco's trophy wife is kidnapped by an army of ski mask-wearing, AK47-toting goons, Max's vacation is evidently over in favor of yet another damsel in distress story. His new digs are the product of an old Police Academy friend named Raul, who thought it would be a slick way for Max to take a Brazilian vacation.
Payne spends his days playing babysitter to the socialite family of industrialist Rodrigo Branco, and spends his nights downing pills and drunkenly stumbling into a bed that makes a wooden sound when he collapses.
He's has traded his Detective's shield and crappy New York City apartment for a private security job and an even crappier apartment in São Paulo. But in a franchise whose primary gameplay mechanic is a tortured metaphor for lost time, we certainly can't expect our protagonist to have recovered from his past.Īctually, Max's pain actually seems to have grown deeper over the last decade. Well, nine years later, life has proven to be far less sunny than Max Payne might have hoped for. Those of you who made it through Max Payne 2 (and happen to possess a particularly well-focused memory) might recollect a hint of optimism in our hero's closing line: 'I had a dream of my wife.
