By Matthew Scott Hunter

‘Max Payne 3’

(M)

****1/2

Rockstar Games

Xbox 360

When you think of brooding, noir-ish antihero Max Payne, you probably don’t think of colorful nightclubs, loud Hawaiian shirts and plenty of sunshine, but those are precisely the elements that form the backdrop of “Max Payne 3.” Max has gathered his baggage (both literal and metaphorical) and headed for Sao Paolo to work in the private sector — specifically to act as bodyguard to the wife of the wealthy Rodrigo Branco. So when she’s kidnapped, it’s up to Max to find her. Beyond that, the story is a brilliantly written, twisty affair, nicely complemented by Max’s running internal monologue of cynical one-liners. Max is at his all-time world-weariest here, and the game’s blurry, rough-around-the-edges presentation acts as a constant reminder of how Max sees the world through his swollen, alcoholic, drug-addicted eyes. Every time he picks up a bottle of health-restoring pills, he mutters a new rationalization for why he deserves them.

In terms of gameplay, “Max Payne 3” doesn’t show us a whole lot we haven’t seen before. “Bullet Time” is still the game’s chief mechanic, turning every firefight into a stylized slow-motion event that allows Max to be just a little quicker on the draw than his adversaries. But in addition to hurling himself through the air to avoid bullets, Max has acquired the ever-so-popular ability to take cover, adding a tactical element to the running-and-gunning madness. But it’s the unpredictable plot and seedy atmosphere that steal the show (as should be the case in any film noir). Even one of the new multiplayer modes is plot-based, with each new round offering different objectives based on how the previous round ended. Max may have perpetually fallen on hard times, but his eponymous series certainly hasn’t.

‘Battleship’

(T)

**

Activision

Xbox 360

Here it is: the video game no one asked for, based on the movie no one asked for, based on the Milton Bradley board game. For the most part, this is a shameless “Halo” knockoff — an alien-blasting first-person shooter with an embarrassingly limited assortment of firearms. But it also pays homage to its board game roots with a real-time strategy component in which you wage naval warfare on a grid. It’s an unusual mash-up and one that might’ve paid off had this game not had a truncated development cycle. Unfortunately, it was rushed to coincide with the release of the movie, and it shows.

‘Game Of Thrones’

(M)

**

Atlus

Xbox 360

Another game that clearly could’ve used a little extra development time is this tie-in to HBO’s popular fantasy series of the same name. The game casts you as two different characters, navigating through the world and events of George R. R. Martin’s first book. The story is actually quite good (even if you’re unfamiliar with the source material), but the action-RPG combat is shallow, the character models and levels look a generation old, the animations and voice acting are atrocious, and there are enough bugs to fill an entire series of games based on the “A Song of Ice and Fire” books.