Max Payne 3 is available in stores all across North American shores. This was a game that we got to play at Pax East this year and it was awesome to see what this new game brings to the table. As of today only the PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360 versions of the game are available, but that of course will change on May 18 when the PC version of the game comes out. If you are a fan of Grand Theft Auto and are looking forward for GTA V, Max Payne will be using the same game engine and should serve as a glimpse for things to come.

In the new story, Max Payne is no longer a cop. He is a little bit older and pretty much an alcoholic spending most of his days drinking his life away. While at a bar, he runs into Raul Passos, who get’s him into all of this trouble and has him going around Sao Paulo and Brazil’s famous Favelas’.

This is probably the best Max Payne game so far, so be sure to pick it up if you happen to be a fan of the series or a fan of Grand Theft Auto.

If you follow the Max Payne series, you will probably be interested to know of some of the details that we found over at Pax East. As it turns out and chances are that you know this already, Max Payne is no longer a cop. He is a little bit older and pretty much an alcoholic spending most of his days drinking his life away. While at a bar, he runs into Raul Passos, who get’s him into all of this trouble and has him going around Sao Paulo and Brazil’s famous Favelas’.

Max Payne 3 is not an easy game and if you thought it was, we can assure you that it isn’t. This time around, Max uses painkillers as a way to heal himself, similar to the system seen in Kane & Lynch. With these painkillers he has the option to use 5 and re-charge them as the game progresses and in addition to that, you have bullet-time, which slows things up for you to make that perfect shot. If you shoot in the right location the bad guy dies faster and that is important to know.

We found that there were times in which it was hard to shoot and kill the bad guys even with bullet-time. To help with that, Rockstar added an auto-aiming system that allows you to aim better and that’s helpful in certain situations.

Max Payne 3 is an awesome game especially to those that are fans of the Grand Theft Auto series and that is because it uses R.A.G.E and the Euphoria engine. These game engines are the same used in GTA IV and Read Dead Redemption and will also be used in the upcoming GTA V game. With Max Payne being the third next-gen game coming from their studios, it is noticeable that the development team has put a lot of work on making this game.

My thoughts
While Rockstar Games is one of the best video game developers out there, there were some negative things noticeable with Max Payne 3. I personally never experienced this with them before and while there I felt like they lost touch with what the fans really want. The reality is that when you think of Rockstar Games, the first thing that comes to minds is GTA and this doesn’t mean that they should make one every year, but just offer more of that and occasional Max Payne, L.A. Noire and Red Dead Redemption.

Get us into these other franchises as slow as possible without forgetting that GTA is not Call of Duty. This means make a GTA every 2 or 3 years that way you keep things fresh and fun. The fanbase for Grand Theft Auto is getting older and soon the next generation of consoles will be coming out. Not everybody is going to buy one right away. After a while, older gamers are going to get tired of waiting and simply forget about the franchise.

In Conclusion
Go and get the game especially if you happen to be a fan of their Max Payne and the Grand Theft Auto series. It will be fun and it has an interesting story that the fans will like and most importantly, it’s a game coming from the same people behind GTA. It was really enjoyable and we’re sure that you will enjoy it as well while you wait for GTA V to come out.

About 2 weeks ago we received a tip that suggested  Grand Theft Auto IV: Stories for the Vita and while it was difficult to believe this, we posted the article to notify you GTA fans out there of this future game. Our tipster gave us a lot of details and it caused quite a stir around N4G and other sites were talking about it. As with any tip, we usually post those type of articles under the rumors section until there is an official confirmation from the publisher.

To give you guys an update, we thought that you should know that Eurogamer posted a screengrab of what appears to be a Grand Theft Auto for the PlayStation Vita. The screen was taken from the major European game store known as Play.com. In the image it shows that the retailer posted Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Nights with preorder options, which is a really good hint of a future title. Although this may be a mistake from the retailer there are times in which game stores have sensitive information about future games and their releases.

In my opinion Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Nights on the PlayStation Vita would be awesome, but I highly doubt that Rockstar would put all this effort at creating a new Vice City just for the handheld. I can see them doing this for the consoles and then making a slim down version that would work with the handheld. We will have to wait and see, but below you can see the item as it was posted on Play.com.

[Fake Vice City Image] – [Eurogamer Article] – [Screen Taken from Play.com]