So I have a little over an hour playing Max Payne 3. That's actually a lie - I have yet to play the game. I have been wanting to for a long time, and was waiting until I bought a new computer to play it. Today is that day!

Instead of being able to play the campaign of Max Payne 3, there's a minigame at the beginning called "Sign in to Rockstar Social Club". I have yet to beat it. The best I can figure out is that it works like some kind of gambling / slot machine type game, where you feed it characters in the form of an email address and password and you get a result. Usually it's some message about contact steam support 1000.50 error, sometimes it's unable to find email address as a proper Social Club account (despite being able to sign in on their site). I assume the winning jackpot game is that I get to play a single player game of Max Payne 3.

99% of the time (I'm going to say 99% because I'm sure there's a way to beat this minigame) I just get these messages and have to try again, so I've yet to see the winning screen where I assume I get to play the game. Or perhaps there's another minigame after this one. Occasionally the minigame makes it interesting by just removing the email address and password fields and requires you to type in some numbers. I'm not sure if this increases the chances of winning or adds a bonus jackpot.

Also, I give this minigame 1 out of 5 stars because the background music is exciting and makes you wonder if you're going to win.

EDIT: OH! I won the minigame! There was a cutscene, and then the game's title menu! I promptly cranked all the graphical settings up to the max to test this computer out. Of course that usually requires a restart and it looks like when you restart you have to play the "Rockstar Social Club" minigame again. :(

Isn't it funny that there are places on the internet where I could get this game for free and not have to deal with this Rockstar Social Club? Instead I pay for not being able to play a game. Why did no one realize this was a bad idea in implementation? Or was the Social Club rigged for the testers to always win? Such a bad idea... I shouldn't have paid for this.

I give up for now I suppose. I'm getting a constant email address invalid now, and maybe that means I'm out of credits to play the game today? Funny enough there's not an exit button that I see - I assume you have to get past the minigame to be able to even exit (don't tell anyone I used a cheat and pushed Alt-F4). I mean, who would need to exit without beating the minigame, right? That's unprobable!