7 Awesome Video Games You Weren't Ready For

7. Max Payne 3

I cannot put into words how much you must play Max Payne 3. How I too, was in the crowd that took one look at Max in a Hawaiian shirt and thought "That's not Max Payne!", the reality of the IP being given to a different developer other than Remedy being all we needed to stay the hell away.

And yet, that developer was Rockstar, the lead writer was Dan Houser i.e. the dude that helped give you everything from Bully to Red Dead Redemption, and Max Payne 3 is nothing short of a masterpiece when it comes to a subversive, genius take on any third-person action character.

The problem with Max Payne returning in 2012 - some nine years after The Fall of Max Payne - was that both previous games' shared identity was routed in Matrix-style slow-motion. In leather-clad cool, one-liners and being a one man bullet-spitting machine, interspersed with awesome detective noir dialogue and memorable characters.

For Rockstar approaching the project, that whole zeitgeist had passed, and for the guy who wrote GTA and all of Rockstar's biggest hits, Houser took the character in a totally different direction. A direction that would later be mirrored by Uncharted 4 in 2016, and especially God of War in 2018.

Max in part three is a sardonic, black hole of a man. The game mechanic of munching painkillers has turned into a crippling addiction, alongside rampant alcoholism, and his decision to don a Hawaiian shirt and shave his hair off? Yeah, that was him being completely self-aware about what a joke he's become.

Play Max Payne 3 as the matured addendum to those stylish younger years - the same way as Kratos and Nathan Drake's latest efforts elevate their past instalments - and there's a solid throughline that only makes you appreciate what Rockstar were going for.