Elysium-777
Member
Fantastic game, gunplay is still the best in a TPS in my opinion. It was a missed oportunity not to include Mona Sax though.
Fantastic game, gunplay is still the best in a TPS in my opinion. It was a missed oportunity not to include Mona Sax though.
Best Rockstar Game and story they've ever made.
Nope.absolutely their best game, though saying their best story really doesn't mean much.
No Remedy. No hair. No sale.
Just started this. Was part of my backlog.
What a piece of crap it is. One of the most pointless and drab third person shooters around. The gameplay is embarassing. It's a hot mess in terms of maneuverability and suffers from an enormous amount of jank. It feels like playing a corridor shooter version of GTA 4.5.
The enemies pop out of nowhere. The story is poor. The cutscenes make absolutely no sense with those flashing lights and popping words. Everything feels artificial.
But again, the controls are so sluggish and cumbersome. Were reviewers hit by massive delusion for it to average 8.6 out of reviews or was it waddles of ad money?
No Remedy. No hair. No sale.
Just started this. Was part of my backlog.
What a piece of crap it is. One of the most pointless and drab third person shooters around. The gameplay is embarassing. It's a hot mess in terms of maneuverability and suffers from an enormous amount of jank. It feels like playing a corridor shooter version of GTA 4.5.
The enemies pop out of nowhere. The story is poor. The cutscenes make absolutely no sense with those flashing lights and popping words. Everything feels artificial.
But again, the controls are so sluggish and cumbersome. Were reviewers hit by massive delusion for it to average 8.6 out of reviews or was it waddles of ad money?
She's in the gameFantastic game, gunplay is still the best in a TPS in my opinion. It was a missed oportunity not to include Mona Sax though.
Really good base game that was hampered by Rockstar design decisions. The production was incredible though, from the slick animation to the amazing soundtrack.
Also agree that while it was an overall admirable effort, they failed to capture the tone and quality of MP1/MP2's writing.
No one thought the first two games had superb stories. It was the world, the zanyness and the characters that people loved.
Oh and Dick Justice.
Great game and great gameplay but barely a Max Payne game. The writing/feel is nothing compared to the previous two.
It's a good thing that they failed to capture the tone of MP1/MP2's writing, because that's not what they were aiming for at all.
MP3 is not a zany and playful Remedy production. It is a dark and gritty Rockstar production. They were never trying to emulate the previous games, and I would have been very disappointed in them if they tried to.
Just started this. Was part of my backlog.
What a piece of crap it is. One of the most pointless and drab third person shooters around. The gameplay is embarassing. It's a hot mess in terms of maneuverability and suffers from an enormous amount of jank. It feels like playing a corridor shooter version of GTA 4.5.
The enemies pop out of nowhere. The story is poor. The cutscenes make absolutely no sense with those flashing lights and popping words. Everything feels artificial.
But again, the controls are so sluggish and cumbersome. Were reviewers hit by massive delusion for it to average 8.6 out of reviews or was it waddles of ad money?
The game's gunplay is superb, but it honestly feels like Rockstar designed the game to give you as little uninterrupted control as possible. I can't think of any other game, apart from maybe David Cage style things, that take control away from the player as often as Max Payne 3 does. Cutscenes all the time. I normally have a perfectly fine sense of direction, but I actually found myself almost getting lost in this game because you're just never given the opportunity to explore a level by yourself; the game doesn't trust you to walk from one side of a room to another. Walk up to a door and the game takes over, and when it reluctantly returns control to you you're facing a different direction.
There's a sniping section in the middle where you're locked into the rifle's scope for the entire duration, and the game actually moves it around for you. It shows you the dudes it wants you to shoot, then lets you shoot them, then as soon as you've killed the last guy it takes control again. There's no visual indicator of when you're allowed to play the video game, you just have to sit there wiggling the mouse until it has an effect. Terrible.
All the cutscenes are unskippable, too. They say "Loading" when you try and skip them, but when you have the game installed on an SSD and you're waiting several minutes it's hard to think anything but Rockstar just wanted you to watch the latest round of their trademark Oscar-worthy storytelling where a gruff straight man encounters a procession of over-the-top side characters that he doesn't play off at all. The fact that you can load a checkpoint from the chapter select menu and not have to wait through a cutscene-length load time pretty much proves it; they're just straight up unskippable cutscenes.
Hence why I said it's barely a Max Payne game. Fans of Max Payne expected a continuation of Max Payne.
Instead we got Man on Fire, which is fine, but it's not Max Payne. Since this is a sequel to ya know...Max Payne 1 and 2.
Hence why I said it's barely a Max Payne game. Fans of Max Payne expected a continuation of Max Payne.
Instead we got Man on Fire, which is fine, but it's not Max Payne. Since this is a sequel to ya know...Max Payne 1 and 2.
You do know that you're not playing the whole game as bald Max, right? I thought people realized that years ago.
Really hope this gets out on the Xbox one back catalog . Loved it from start to finish and loved a lot of its old school design. Chasing med pills etc . Was a really hard game too which I loved , no aim assist etc
- Stylistically, the game is off. The old games were conspiracy-driven drug-fueled detective noir. This new chapter is straight-up generic action.
- The pacing is off. The old games were slow boils occasionally laced with dark humor. This new chapter plays everything straight-faced and it ratchets up the drama very quickly and to ridiculous extremes. I've been watching for about 30 minutes and Max is already having gun-fights while hanging off a helicopter.
- The writing is off. The most prominent thing wrong here is the narration. In the old games narration worked because Max was a loner and because the story was sparse and mostly delivered by way of comic panels. In this new chapter there is a large cast and a heap more story. Max is seldom alone and I feel his constant soliloquies don't mesh well with the constant dialogue. Max himself also seems out of character. I'm having trouble nailing this one down. The things I notice most prominently is that he's less introspective and more profane.
- The action is off. The 3rd person bullet-time shooting mechanics are here but the direction is all wrong. The game is violent, and while the old ones were definitely that, this new chapter is stylised and showy. It revels in the kills and blood splatter.
I don't think the previous games' narration hinged on the fact Max was alone, especially considering he was partnered up with Mona for a significant portion of MP2. In every game Max is telling us his story after the fact and, even back then, his narration peppered any and all dialogue. The narration is a clear nod to a noir staple and a Max Payne without it is tough to imagine. There is certainly less purple prose in MP3 and some cracking lines, but on the whole it doesn't quite capture Lake's take.
The Max of MP3 is a wreck who suffers from PTSD from murdering thousands of gangsters and who goes out of his way to try and ignore it. It's like the Houser's took both the previous games and asked themselves "What would a guy who has been through all this actually be like?" I think they were pretty successful.
I don't get this at all. Max Payne, as a series and in terms of gameplay, is all about stylishly dispatching mooks and revelling in the kills. They have had kill cams in every game that show you a sniper bullet going through an enemy's head or mooks riddled with your bullets and screaming as they die.
Best Rockstar Game and story they've ever made.
absolutely their best game, though saying their best story really doesn't mean much.
I have a lot of things to say about this game... But I'll just put it like this: It was a decent TPS but a mediocre Max Payne entry.
^^ Terrific post! I'll try to respond to a few points.
I agree the narration is trademark Payne but I felt the script was too... busy...? for that sort of story-telling device to work well. MP1 and MP2 are tense and often sombre affairs. The narration only adds to the atmosphere. MP3 by comparison is showy and loud and busy and profane and all the impact of that terrific voiceover work seems lost.
These are good points and could well be true but even if read as intended I feel there's no depth to this characterisation of Max. He doesn't come across as troubled or haunted by what he's done and there's no attempt to develop this angle. He's presented as a self-hating alcoholic fixated on his dead wife and that's it. No personal arc, no growth nothing. Even this shtick doesn't really work because, despite his boozing, he's still apparently fit as a fiddle and a crack shot no matter the situation.
The difference is in the presentation. The old Max Payne presented these end-of-fight cutscenes as stylish John Woo action sequences; the climax to a cool gun ballet. MP3 focuses much more prominently on the gore and blood splatter. Watching these scenes in MP3 I am reminded less of The Matrix and more of 300. It's seriously gory stuff. Check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaFsCjobFKQ
My main issue with the VO is that there is a reliance on Max describing what was going on outside over what was going on inside him
Let me take that last point first: Max Payne can be beaten into a near coma by one of the Mafia’s foremost experts on beating people into near comas, shot to shit by 101 mooks and killer suits, get shot directly in the noggin' and fall down a 50+ foot pit, and still wake up fresh as a daisy, never missing a step. He’s a near invincible killing machine. These situations all occur in MP1 and MP2. So why is it a problem in MP3...?
MP3 is the first one that gives Max's movement physicality and weight. I feel like I'm controlling a 40-50 year old fat man, even when I’m diving through the air! I felt it every time he cracked into a wall from a mistimed shoot-dodge. I felt every step as he slid backwards down the stairs. It's a pretty amazing achievement.
He progresses from a constant victim of circumstance to a man taking action and responsibility.
But the series reference point isn’t so much The Matrix, it’s John Woo i.e. Hard Boiled, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow Part 2 etc. which uses blood, gore and horrible deaths as part of its visual tapestry. Blood is part of Heroic Bloodshed films' visual texture, the contortions of fresh corpses are part of the dance. The genre is all about those kinds of morbid details. It's glorious!
I loved this game so much. I hope there's some sort of a sequel.
I got this as well. The interesting analysis and introspection stuff from the older games is mostly gone in MP3. When it does show up it's in the form of one-dimensional self-hate stuff. Things like (paraphrasing) "I failed again", "I need to drink again", "I'm such a loser" etc. Man, I miss Sam Lake
The difference, I feel, is the lack of internal consistency. Sure Max has always been an indestructible bullet sponge but previously he was always portrayed as hopped up on all kinds of interesting meds and it all made sense. In MP3 the painkillers are still there but now he's also drunk. And old. And probably unfit (he sure smokes a bunch!). But only in the cutscenes.
Ugh.
It bugs me, y'know?
Does he? He starts out a loner drunk in Brazil. He ends up a loner drinking in Mexico. He doesn't find any stability and there's no indication he's getting over his fixation with his dead wife. Also, it's pretty clear his self esteem is still rock bottom insofar as he still refers to himself as pathetic leading up to the final boss fight.
The work in MP1 is undone by MP2 as the work in MP2 is undone by MP3. He gets a brief respite at the end of each game (including MP3), but he will always be hard on himself and he will always need 1000 dead mook therapy.As an aside, I noticed at one point (iirc) the Max references Mona Sax along the lines of (paraphrasing) "she was a mistake". That one line effectively undoes all the progress he made in the previous game. Harrumph :-/
I think these clips are entirely consistent with what I'm saying. They're violent but it's fun and action oriented. The camera stylises each kill; it slows down, pans and speeds back up to emphasise the impact of each shot and to highlight the fluidity and the grace of the shooter. It doesn't revel in the blood and guts. By comparison, in MP3 the camera lovingly pans around the body of a dying enemy, showing us the gaping hole in his head and the lavish amount of blood spraying out of the wound, all in oh-so-slow motion. I feel the game is fetishising the murder and that's unexpected and somewhat unsettling.
Yeah, definitely. The majority of the game is like that but there are moments, Chapter 13 (not 11!) particularly, where the Housers pull out some really good writing. I wrote a massive post about that Chapter on another site but cant find it
Yeah, absolutely but hes never going to like himself and he is never going to get over the deaths of Michelle and Rose. Not ever. It may become easier for him to deal with, but he is the sort of person who will always fall back down that black hole. PTSD and addiction arent things you can simply kill your way out of.
The character growth in MP3 comes from the fact that he a) comes to realise exactly the kind of person he is, and b) he takes responsibility for his actions and tries to take control of the situation. Its definitely there and pretty hard to miss.
The work in MP1 is undone by MP2 as the work in MP2 is undone by MP3. He gets a brief respite at the end of each game (including MP3), but he will always be hard on himself and he will always need 1000 dead mook therapy.
But yeah, that was bollocks. Mona Sax is my favourite video game character and I took personal offense at the way they dismissed her till I got to play as her in the multiplayer. : )
I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it was more difficult than I expected. I usually don't have trouble with such games on even their hardest difficulties, but this one was tough.
I beat it, and gave it a really high score. Looking back, maybe a bit too high, but it was quite good and had a really fun multiplayer mode -- even if it wasn't superb quality.
I could be wrong, but I dont think he was ever portrayed specifically as hopped up on drugs, it was something the community (rightly) inferred. There may have been a throwaway line in MP2 but I dont recall it off-hand, it was more a game mechanic based around a clever pun.
At the end of the day though, gameplay is king and story considerations that dont improve the gameplay in some way or make it more interesting shouldnt have an effect on it, in my opinion.
Tom Bissel said:It could be that Max Payne 3s designers thought deeply about the games ludonarrative dissonance and judged the problem it presented as insoluble and, from a commercial perspective, maybe it is. Whatever the case, the result is a game that appears to be trying to say something about regret and death and slaughter and addiction, but, of course, cant. Max Payne 3 is an exuberantly stylish, utterly empty game a kind of Higher Trash, you might say.
I think well have to agree to disagree on this. Mooks in John Woo are riddled with bullets in slow motion, heroes are drenched in their enemys blood, and civilians are shot indiscriminately by despicable killers
Tom Bissel said:Bullet time has, however, been given a singularly gruesome augmentation. In certain situations, Maxs fatal shot will be tracked from his guns barrel to his targets eye socket or groin or forehead. Plenty of games have harnessed a similar snuff-film frisson, of course, but Max Payne 3 allows for an additional measure of kill-cam interactivity. Now you can keep firing after the fatal shot and see the animation respond in real time. The first time I did this, in the tutorial, I watched an anonymous Brazilian dudes nose get blown off, and, with each successive trigger pull, his right eye disappear in a puff of red mist, his chin burst open, and the back of his head explode in a floriform bloom of dangling gore.
Hey can I get in on this?
The writing is hit and miss to me, as far as the narration is concerned. (And the plot too) For one thing Max swears constantly in the narration of 3, which just hardly happens in the first two games, and it's quite jarring. He also throws out terms such as "fat gringo" and getting paid to "bang waitresses" when he and Passos worked their first security job, which is something I can't imagine Lake's Max saying, and in some ways Max feels like a different person entirely. I understand what you were saying about the revisionist take, and making the character more real, but it's almost like MP3 Max has different morals than MP1&2 Max.
That being said, there is some good writing here and there, one line that stuck out to me as I advanced through the compound looking for Fabiana and killing goons, was Max's line: "I kept moving toward the signs of life, rubbing them out as I went along." - A fanstastic line in my opinion, it sounds like something Lake could have written.
There's some clever word play peppered here and there. During the office attack Max comments that the attackers must have figured that, "The Bronco security team consisted of more than a dame, a dork, and a drunk." (Nice alliteration) and a few moments later he states: "Rodrigo's office overlooked the atrium. I could check in and make sure he hadn't checked out." The word play reminded me of the line near the end of MP1 when he says he "Parked the stolen wheels, got out, got in, got cracking."
I think you're spot on here, a man that has lost his wife and baby, and killed a couple thousand people would never be "normal" probably my favorite character arc in MP3 is where Max comes to grips with the fact that he can't save everyone, but he can kill all the bad guys. And through the last few levels of the game he goes head-on into the Imperial Palace Hotel, the precinct, and the airport with little purpose other than kill everyone, and get a few answers.
I think when Max is at the cemetary he simply says, "I still hadn't forgiven myself for the Mona business, but I knew that was just grief." My theory on Max's internal conflict about Mona has to do with the scene in MP2 where he says, "The things I want by Max Payne." And he goes on to mention that he wants his wife and baby girl back, but - "Right then, more than anything, I wanted her." (Mona) Basically in that moment he would rather be with Mona than his wife and that's a big part of why he hasn't forgiven himself "for the Mona business."
Also I'm not sure what could have been done with Mona in MP3 considering the ending/alternate ending of MP2.
There's a few explicit points, in both the original game and its sequel, where Max makes reference to taking painkillers to block out physical and emotional pain. But the script is not so important; the charaterisation of Max by way of his in-game actions is enough to drive home the point that he's suffering from substance addiction. It makes sense in the context of the game world too; the original is filled with junkies trying to escape the pain of the real world. Max suffers from the same problem; he's just a bit more lucid than the rest.
I don't really agree with this. I feel the narrative is trying to tell one story and the game, through its mechanics, tells another. I feel the dissonance drags the game down. Incidentally, I was browsing Grantland earlier today and I stumbled on this highly topical article from Tom Bissel. He makes some familiar criticisms, albeit more than three years ago(!):
I feel you're missing my point. John Woo's films are violent, no question. There's blood and there's people being riddled with bullets. What Max Payne 3 has, which is missing from these John Woo films is an obsession with the moment in which the kill happens. Anyway, I don't want to repeat myself. Here's Tom Bissel instead: