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LTTP: Max Payne series (I don't like 3)

The movie comparison further illustrates that a lot of people place a disproportionate amount of importance on story in video games. The gameplay is so often an afterthought in threads about this series, which is pretty crazy.
You haven't played Max Payne 1 or 2 or Alan Wake then, as you would understand that for Remedy's games, narrative is as important, if not more so, than gameplay for them.

Every game is different. I wouldn't ask for story in Splinter Cell, because it's all about mechanics, while I demand it in MGS games because they are narrative games about stealth, with mechanics that support the themes they want to portray.
I don't think MP3 is as bad as Godfather 3. Let's be fair now.

Relative to the quality drop it is, but purely based on their merits, of course not. MP3 is one of the best TPS ever built. I was stunned to play GTAV and feel the steps back they took, how is that possible? The mechanics are great, and really add to the whole package. It's just a bad Max Payne game.
 
My favorite levels in Max Payne 3 were probably the gritty/dark ones set in NYC because of the MP1/MP2 vibes I got from them, but most of the Brazil levels weren't that bad either IMO.

Same here, the MP was not very good though. I was getting my ass handed to me. Maybe because I didn't get at launch people people were running around like the hurt locker armed to the teeth and I got these whack potato guns. I didn't like the whole MP interface, load outs or anything really..

Overall, I played very little of the first game, I actually have it on my phone now but not really played it much still. Max Payne 2 was awesome, really like that. Music and atmosphere are great.
 
You haven't played Max Payne 1 or 2 or Alan Wake then, as you would understand that for Remedy's games, narrative is as important, if not more so, than gameplay for them.

Every game is different. I wouldn't ask for story in Splinter Cell, because it's all about mechanics, while I demand it in MGS games because they are narrative games about stealth, with mechanics that support the themes they want to portray.


Relative to the quality drop it is, but purely based on their merits, of course not. MP3 is one of the best TPS ever built. I was stunned to play GTAV and feel the steps back they took, how is that possible? The mechanics are great, and really add to the whole package. It's just a bad Max Payne game.

I don't agree with that simply because I love Max just as much, if not more so, in 3 as well as the originals. Story overall I agree with isn't as good but Max himself is just as awesome and I consider that to be one of the most important things in an MP game.
 
I feel bad for people who played MP1/2 on consoles. That's why you get posts like the one's earlier in the thread who say the cover system in 3 was put in to replace you hiding behind pillars. Which, and I really feel gutted even having to say this, using any kind of cover in MP1/2 is completely antithetical to the games' design.

Max Payne 3 feels like a game designed by people who played Max Payne on consoles (which I suspect is why the game was so broken control wise on PC when it released) and as a result shoehorns in a cover system to help alleviate a problem that never existed if you were playing the game with a keyboard vs a controller.

That being said I still really enjoy Max Payne 3's core gunplay and consider it the best of the series on old school mode (turns off last stand and almost doubles your BT bar), and overall don't get people who say you have to use cover on harder difficulties outside of the few scripted encounters where it's forced. I played through the majority of Hardcore mode in the game without once using it except where it's scripted, but I guess people using a pad are probably going to have a lot more problems with it vs people who are using a mouse, but I digress.

One thing I've found laughable as a complaint was the animation priority complaints. Hey guess what, don't want to ram face first into a wall? Don't shoot dodge into a wall! Problem solved. Another thing that chaps my ass when people are talking about MP3 is the recovery frames on shootdodging. "Waaaaaah the game won't let me snap to cover after using a move that would borderline break the game if I could do so!" Well, how about after learning that you have recovery frames, don't shootdodge in stupid scenarios, and learn to use the mechanic skillfully rather than throw a fit when the game punishes you for playing stupidly. But then again I've always been more of a "man how these mechanics sets are balanced really contextualizes play in an interesting way, and gets me to play it in more interesting ways once I master those nuances, resulting in an extremely rewarding experience" rather than a "let me play the game however I damned please because reasons otherwise game is shit" type of guy....

Overall, what tipped Max Payne 3 off into "probably replay every once in a blue moon" vs the "put 50 hours into it over the course of a month and come back to it weekly for over a year" was the god damned cutscenes. Trying to play through the game on New York Minute destroyed the game for me, and I can't even imagine the people who had the testicular fortitude to beat NYM Hardcore and sit through all those fucking cutscenes over again if they died a few steps from the end of the game.
 
It felt sluggish and unresponsive right form the start. Gameplay sacrificed for nice animations.

But maybe I should try it once more, I gave up pretty fast.
 
I don't agree with that simply because I love Max just as much, if not more so, in 3 as well as the originals. Story overall I agree with isn't as good but Max himself is just as awesome and I consider that to be one of the most important things in an MP game.

How is he "awesome"? He's a drunk who can't find his ass, and can't realize he's in a trap, while in the first two, he's aware of the traps and is constantly moving to figure it out. How is drunk sad Max awesome? They barely have him say anything but woe is me.

Because you kill a bunch of people in more gruesome ways? Totally awesome?
 
Played MP1 when I was younger. Got to a part that was really dark and had like blood trails or something. Never got past that.
 
How is he "awesome"? He's a drunk who can't find his ass, and can't realize he's in a trap, while in the first two, he's aware of the traps and is constantly moving to figure it out. How is drunk sad Max awesome? They barely have him say anything but woe is me.

He is awesome. He's a subversion. Max in MP1 and MP2 is basically an archetype: A Heroic Bloodshed protagonist in the former, and a Classic Noir protagonist in the latter.

MP3 takes the next step of saying: How would a man with that kind of past really deal with it?

He hides behind the Painkillers, which were once purely a clever punny mechanic and have now become a crippling narrative addiction. He is also an alcoholic which fits his development into an addictive personality (not just painkillers, he loves combat hence "I'm at my best when I'm at my worst"). His monologue, which was once the philosophical purple prose of a cultured and well read Chandler fan, has become an introspective nightmare; he takes every opportunity to bluntly beats himself up.

Max is a lot more human in MP3 than he ever was before. My favourite is MP2 but he's an absolute arsehole in that one (especially to Mona during their Raid on The Cleaner's HQ).

At least, that's how I see it.
 
How is he "awesome"? He's a drunk who can't find his ass, and can't realize he's in a trap, while in the first two, he's aware of the traps and is constantly moving to figure it out. How is drunk sad Max awesome? They barely have him say anything but woe is me.

Because you kill a bunch of people in more gruesome ways? Totally awesome?


With 3 I consider it to be Max down in the dumps and at the lowest point in his life, like major setback and in full blown addict mode compared to say 1 and 2. As in he can't go any lower. I actually empathised with Max a lot more in 3 as a character compared to the first two games. You're right in what you say about Max being more on the ball in MP1 and 2 but that's not what they were trying to do with 3.

Due to his drunkeness and alcoholism he's a fuck up but he's still a killing machine doing the best he can in bad situations and trying to do the right thing. I love how this gradually changes/turns throughout the game. They picked him because he was a bum and drunk and thought he'd be a good patsy for them. At the start of the game they were right, he's a killer but not much of a challenge to them but overall they were wrong. Badly wrong. So not only is is he a killing machine but he's also now sobering up and that results in Max killing everybody and bringing their whole operation down. I loved the way they did that with Max's character. He's not a hero, he's not perfect, he fucks up. He starts to come around and does things for the greater good and to get a bit of revenge for how they thought they could use him. I liked that about Max in 3.

I consider Max Payne 3 to be about the redemption of Max in his own eyes and coming out from the lowest point of his life. Yeah he is a bit miserly during the game but there's also a lot of dry wit their as well and I never really felt that Max was miserable for the whole game. Just trying to figure things out, along with the player. Different from 1 and 2 but I loved it because of that.
 
With 3 I consider it to be Max down in the dumps and at the lowest point in his life, like major setback and in full blown addict mode compared to say 1 and 2. As in he can't go any lower. I actually empathised with Max a lot more in 3 as a character compared to the first two games. You're right in what you say about Max being more on the ball in MP1 and 2 but that's not what they were trying to do with 3.

Due to his drunkeness and alcoholism he's a fuck up but he's still a killing machine doing the best he can in bad situations and trying to do the right thing. I love how this gradually changes/turns throughout the game. They picked him because he was a bum and drunk and thought he'd be a good patsy for them. At the start of the game they were right, he's a killer but not much of a challenge to them, they were wrong. So not only is is he a killing machine but he's also now sobering up and that results in Max killing everybody and bringing their whole operation down. I loved the way they did that with Max's character. He's not a hero, he's not perfect, he fucks up. He starts to come around and does things for the greater good and to get a bit of revenge for how they thought they could use him. I liked that about Max in 3.

I consider Max Payne 3 to be about the redemption of Max in his own eyes and coming out from the lowest point of his life. Yeah he is a bit miserly during the game but there's also a lot of dry wit their as well and I never really felt that Max was miserable for the whole game. Just trying to figure things out, along with the player. Different from 1 and 2 but I loved it because of that.

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With 3 I consider it to be Max down in the dumps and at the lowest point in his life, like major setback and in full blown addict mode compared to say 1 and 2. As in he can't go any lower. I actually empathised with Max a lot more in 3 as a character compared to the first two games. You're right in what you say about Max being more on the ball in MP1 and 2 but that's not what they were trying to do with 3.

Due to his drunkeness and alcoholism he's a fuck up but he's still a killing machine doing the best he can in bad situations and trying to do the right thing. I love how this gradually changes/turns throughout the game. They picked him because he was a bum and drunk and thought he'd be a good patsy for them. At the start of the game they were right, he's a killer but not much of a challenge to them but overall they were wrong. Badly wrong. So not only is is he a killing machine but he's also now sobering up and that results in Max killing everybody and bringing their whole operation down. I loved the way they did that with Max's character. He's not a hero, he's not perfect, he fucks up. He starts to come around and does things for the greater good and to get a bit of revenge for how they thought they could use him. I liked that about Max in 3.

I consider Max Payne 3 to be about the redemption of Max in his own eyes and coming out from the lowest point of his life. Yeah he is a bit miserly during the game but there's also a lot of dry wit their as well and I never really felt that Max was miserable for the whole game. Just trying to figure things out, along with the player. Different from 1 and 2 but I loved it because of that.

So his life could go lower after his wife and kid is killed, and then the woman he was falling for killed?
 
Agree about cover seeming out of place, but it works, and the game is better for it if you ask me.

It's not something that is supposed to be relied upon. It is something that makes sense in the world, you would take cover in a firefight, at least momentarily, to judge the area before doing your john woo dive shit. In the other games, the only way to avoid shots is to strafe around poles and walls, which looks ridiculous.

Going into cover briefly gives you a moment to judge where the enemies are, or let them get closer to you. Forget blindfire or shooting from cover. Use it to figure out what you should do/avoid a few shots, then get back in the fucking action.
 
So his life could go lower after his wife and kid is killed, and then the woman he was falling for killed?

Well, he didn't have anything to distract him for quite a while: No job. No mystery to solve. No mooks to shoot in the face. Without any of that, he clearly turned on himself.

Agree about cover seeming out of place, but it works, and the game is better for it if you ask me.

It's not something that is supposed to be relied upon. It is something that makes sense in the world, you would take cover in a firefight, at least momentarily, to judge the area before doing your john woo dive shit. In the other games, the only way to avoid shots is to strafe around poles and walls, which looks ridiculous.

Going into cover briefly gives you a moment to judge where the enemies are, or let them get closer to you. Forget blindfire or shooting from cover. Use it to figure out what you should do/avoid a few shots, then get back in the fucking action.

It also builds up your bullet time.
 
So his life could go lower after his wife and kid is killed, and then the woman he was falling for killed?

Well human beings are complicated creatures. That shit can niggle at you and gnaw at your soul. I could easily see Max in an extremely bad state over his wife/child and Mona all piling up on him. The guilt can build up and it can hit you hard later on in life than when things happened. Even if you think you are ok, that doesn't make it so.

I'll give you an example from my own very personal experience. My mother died of breast cancer 4 years and at the time I took a month off work, thought I had dealt with it etc. Then last year, 3 and a half years later. it came back and hit me hard, proper breakdown and really fucked me up. I hadn't dealt with my issues at all - my feelings of guilt, grief etc. This was years later after she actually died and this was due to cancer.

Yes I'm projecting here but I have no problems believing in my eyes that someone like Max could suffer badly, even worseso, years later after actually losing people he loved. Especially the way they were killed and with Max being fucked on pills and booze. A deadly combo.

That's just my own personal take on it though and I am projecting my own experiences into it a bit too and as to what I find believable.
 
Also does anyone else think the constipated look is some sort of meta commentary by Remedy to address the real life constipation side effect of codeine use?

No? Okay v_v
 
You haven't played Max Payne 1 or 2 or Alan Wake then, as you would understand that for Remedy's games, narrative is as important, if not more so, than gameplay for them.

I've played Max Payne 1 and 2. If narrative is more important to them than the gameplay, it explains why I didn't have much fun with those games.

Considering how at least 80 percent of those games consist of shooting people/preparing to shoot people, I'd hope gameplay is the game developer's utmost concern.

So his life could go lower after his wife and kid is killed, and then the woman he was falling for killed?

You can come to grips with the deaths of people you care about, but that doesn't mean you've learned to live with yourself.

What Big_Al says makes sense. Keep in mind that Max saves a mother and her child in 3, even though the overall situation isn't about him. without outright saying/properly conveying this, Houser made a story about Max accepting that he was a killer, realizing that he went after trouble rather than having trouble find him and gaining some sort of redemption for his past failings.
 
It also builds up your bullet time.

Cool I did not realize that, it's been a while since I've played it. But yeah I loved the cover addition, it seems to go against everything MP stands for, but it was simply another tactic to use in gunfights. Shootdive to cover, repeat. Fun as fuck. It's not like they were trying to make it a cover based shooter.
 
Cool I did not realize that, it's been a while since I've played it. But yeah I loved the cover addition, it seems to go against everything MP stands for, but it was simply another tactic to use in gunfights. Shootdive to cover, repeat. Fun as fuck. It's not like they were trying to make it a cover based shooter.

Agreed. It had a different rhythm than the other games but I liked it (not as much as MP2, mind).

I heard they were considering human shields at one point, which I assume would act as cover on the go. That would've been immense.
 
I've played Max Payne 1 and 2. If narrative is more important to them than the gameplay, it explains why I didn't have much fun with those games.

Considering how at least 80 percent of those games consist of shooting people/preparing to shoot people, I'd hope gameplay is the game developer's utmost concern.

You can come to grips with the deaths of people you care about, but that doesn't mean you've learned to live with yourself.

What Big_Al says makes sense. Keep in mind that Max saves a mother and her child in 3, even though the overall situation isn't about him. without outright saying/properly conveying this, Houser made a story about Max accepting that he was a killer, realizing that he went after trouble rather than having trouble find him and gaining some sort of redemption for his past failings
.


It also ties into Maxs guilt for not saving his wife and Mona. Hell his whole reason for leaving New Jersey is because he acted a white knight for a woman being treated like shit by a gangster. By saving Giovanna and her baby it's a big step for him in his redemption and doing things right.
 
It also ties into Maxs guilt for not saving his wife and Mona. Hell his whole reason for leaving New Jersey is because he acted a white knight for a woman being treated like shit by a gangster. By saving Giovanna and her baby it's a big step for him in his redemption and doing things right.

That last bit is debatable since, y'know, Mona lives.
 
Max Payne 2 is one of my favourite games of all time and holds up pretty well (I revisited it earlier this month actually) and I felt extremely let down by Max Payne 3. I'm not sure if it was the story(and lack of graphic novel cutscenes), the setting or just the anticipation but it just wasn't what I wanted. The shooting mechanics were grade A though and it's a decent game.
 
Agreed. It had a different rhythm than the other games but I liked it (not as much as MP2, mind).

I heard they were considering human shields at one point, which I assume would act as cover on the go. That would've been immense.

Meat shields? Mobile Cover?

Why isn't that a thing?!

That creates a huge dynamic for using and abusing Bullet time, where now you can slip in and out of wall cover and human cover simultaneously while shooting in slo mo and building the meter. We could've had long combo chains :/
 
Meat shields? Mobile Cover?

Why isn't that a thing?!

That creates a huge dynamic for using and abusing Bullet time, where now you can slip in and out of wall cover and human cover simultaneously while shooting in slo mo and building the meter. We could've had long combo chains :/

Reminds me of the shootout from Django Unchained.
 
Meat shields? Mobile Cover?

Why isn't that a thing?!

That creates a huge dynamic for using and abusing Bullet time, where now you can slip in and out of wall cover and human cover simultaneously while shooting in slo mo and building the meter. We could've had long combo chains :/

They must have chopped it at concept. I want the next Max Payne to:

A) Star Mona
B) Have all the mechanics from MP3
C) Have Human Shields
D) Use an updated Bullet Time 2.0
E) and (controversially) Have wall running and Kung fucking Fu like Kenneth Yeung's A-FREAKING--MAZING Kung Fu 3.0 Mod...


But that's just me...
 
Due to his drunkeness and alcoholism he's a fuck up but he's still a killing machine doing the best he can in bad situations and trying to do the right thing. I love how this gradually changes/turns throughout the game. They picked him because he was a bum and drunk and thought he'd be a good patsy for them. At the start of the game they were right, he's a killer but not much of a challenge to them but overall they were wrong. Badly wrong. So not only is is he a killing machine but he's also now sobering up and that results in Max killing everybody and bringing their whole operation down. I loved the way they did that with Max's character. He's not a hero, he's not perfect, he fucks up. He starts to come around and does things for the greater good and to get a bit of revenge for how they thought they could use him.

I like your analysis there, but I never understood why they needed Max as a fall guy. The way I understood it Victor's plan was to have Rodrigo killed so he could inherit his money and play the sympathy card in the upcoming election. Bachmier killed Rodrigo, but Victor was possibly going to frame Max for it? But why Max? Why would anyone in Brazil care about Max one way or another? No one in Brazil would have known about his violent, drunken past and I don't see how Victor would have profited by his brother being killed by an American. Am I missing something?
 
I like your analysis there, but I never understood why they needed Max as a fall guy. The way I understood it Victor's plan was to have Rodrigo killed so he could inherit his money and play the sympathy card in the upcoming election. Bachmier killed Rodrigo, but Victor was possibly going to frame Max for it? But why Max? Why would anyone in Brazil care about Max one way or another? No one in Brazil would have known about his violent, drunken past and I don't see how Victor would have profited by his brother being killed by an American. Am I missing something?

White guy with a known history of violence who is an inconsolable drunk and therefore easy to blame when things go wrong.

A big theme of the game is about white colonialism/white man's burden (see the conversation between Max and Neves on the Imperial Hotel Rooftop for the culmination of it).

The plot hole/shit bit I can't fathom is Passos' reaction to Max when he gets off the boat in Panama...

Well ok I know the Mona lives ending is another ending in MP2, didn't realise it was canon :P I thought there was an easter egg with her grave in Max Payne 3 but I'm probably wrong on that one then.

No grave, man. ;)
 
I like your analysis there, but I never understood why they needed Max as a fall guy. The way I understood it Victor's plan was to have Rodrigo killed so he could inherit his money and play the sympathy card in the upcoming election. Bachmier killed Rodrigo, but Victor was possibly going to frame Max for it? But why Max? Why would anyone in Brazil care about Max one way or another? No one in Brazil would have known about his violent, drunken past and I don't see how Victor would have profited by his brother being killed by an American. Am I missing something?

Basically what Screaming Meat says above there.


No grave, man. ;)

Ah ok then! Still, at least my point still works using only his wife and child :P
 
Mate, I think your points on his character are excellent and waaaay better articulated than I could manage. :)

Well I empathise and even sympathise with major fuck ups in games :P It's why I adore Kane and Lynch, 2 other major fuck ups who are much worse human beings than Max Payne but who I also can't help but feel sorry for (especially with the fantastic voice performances)
 
Well I empathise and even sympathise with major fuck ups in games :P It's why I adore Kane and Lynch, 2 other major fuck ups who are even worse human beings than Max Payne but yeah I can't help but feel sorry for them (especially with the fantastic performances)

I agree but I just wish those games could live up to the characters!
 
MP3 goes down in one of my all time favorite shooters. Some of it became overwhelming with the amount of enemies but it was also *almost* perfection when the music started playing and you went all out in slow mow as a fucked up, high, deeply depressed killing machine.
 
I loved the first two games on my Xbox back in the day.

I'd love to try the third but it's a fucking 40GB download full of huge video cutscenes. Or so I'm told. Either way, the developers are assholes who could easily cut the size significantly if they used in-game cutscenes. It's fucking 2014.

But the first two games were something else. I remember playing through the first in one sitting and moving on to the second immediately.
 
White guy with a known history of violence who is an inconsolable drunk and therefore easy to blame when things go wrong.

A big theme of the game is about white colonialism/white man's burden (see the conversation between Max and Neves on the Imperial Hotel Rooftop for the culmination of it).

The plot hole/shit bit I can't fathom is Passos' reaction to Max when he gets off the boat in Panama...

Okay thanks, that makes a little more sense.
 
The movie comparison further illustrates that a lot of people place a disproportionate amount of importance on story in video games. The gameplay is so often an afterthought in threads about this series, which is pretty crazy.

You say this, but Max Payne 3 is a 10 hour game that's almost 50% cutscenes on a normal first playthrough, many of which were unskippable. In all honesty, it feels like the GAME thinks gameplay is an afterthought so why should story complaints take a backseat in discussion? In fact, I think it's the execution of said story with it's seemingly infinite amount of cutscenes that ruined Max Payne 3's potential at being an all-time great shooter instead of just having great mechanics. So, for me, criticism will ALWAYS come back to the story in one way or another because that's the biggest problem with this game.
 
You say this, but Max Payne 3 is a 10 hour game that's almost 50% cutscenes on a normal first playthrough, many of which were unskippable. In all honesty, it feels like the GAME thinks gameplay is an afterthought so why should story complaints take a backseat in discussion? In fact, I think it's the execution of said story with it's seemingly infinite amount of cutscenes that ruined Max Payne 3's potential at being an all-time great shooter instead of just having great mechanics. So, for me, criticism will ALWAYS come back to the story in one way or another because that's the biggest problem with this game.

Criticizing the story is one thing. Saying that the story in any of the MP games takes precedence over the gameplay is another.
 
To be fair, it is a ridiculously convoluted plot at times. Then again, there is a murder that is completely unaccounted for in The Big Sleep and that's considered a stone cold classic.



You hear that R*? Where's my goddamned job? XD

It would be a shoe-in if its flash forwards and flash backs between playing with Mona and playing with Max and having two different gameplay styles for each character, yet while at the same time telling the path to their ill fated love.
 
I loved the first two games on my Xbox back in the day.

I'd love to try the third but it's a fucking 40GB download full of huge video cutscenes. Or so I'm told. Either way, the developers are assholes who could easily cut the size significantly if they used in-game cutscenes. It's fucking 2014.

But the first two games were something else. I remember playing through the first in one sitting and moving on to the second immediately.

They were adament about not compressing the texture files
 
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