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LTTP Max Payne 3

Phloxy

Member
Im not gonna go into a big rant but I hated it. It shits on the story of 1 & 2, its a poor mans 'Man on Fire', the shooting works well at times but I notice no ones posting the gifs of Max spazzing out and the frequent physics fuck ups. Only good thing was the soundtrack.
Max Payne 2 is still the GOAT. I cant even begin to tell you how much the story in 3 aggravated me. Its fucking awful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuedZ1Y_dU4
 

Screaming Meat

Unconfirmed Member
Max Payne was never about hiding behind cover.

Cover was only there to refill the Bullet Time meter or as a safe place to end a shoot-dodge.

Basically the entire game can be completed using the pistol you get at the start and doing headshots.

0.jpg
 

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
LOL What is this?

Fot starters, you've had someone go through the story in basic detail, which leaves your complaints as being a) weapon swap outs mid game/level (which isn't big enough a blemish to take away from the rest of the game, and whilst it's an oversight that MP3 - because of its level of detail otherwise - had less of an excuse to miss and really should've taken care of, it's an historical common oversight in shooters), and b) that the game felt 'less agile' than MP1/2 which really.... is down to those games having fewer animation details.

To answer your question, yes they are easily ignored given the meat of the game which was full of amazing shooting mechanics and hit detection, and a great soundtrack and sense of direction. I feel complaints about the story seem to misunderstand nuance from what I read, and for all the complaints, no one has ever mentioned pacing. For as much as some people hate the direction of the character development, the truth is the story is engagingly presented from beginning to end. It's tight. No plodding. The lulls are the exact length needed. One of the reasons COD4 is so highly regarded is the pacing of its campaign and MP3 has a similar determination.

What i meant is that one has tried to fight in my other points i listed besides the character arc, i should have made that more clear. Obviously i was wrong in the character arc stuff because i stopped caring at some point but my other points still stand, that stuff i pointed out is just fucking bad man and yes it blemish the whole game. If the janky suff didn't detract from your enjoyment of the game well good for you! But don't try to act like the stuff i listed is not bad, because it is.
 
Loved it. The shooting was brutal, hardcore, slo-mo fun, from start to finish. I never got tired of it. I fully intend to replay it at some point down the line.

Also the pc version was technically and visually superb, so all that shooting was wrapped up in a real pretty package.

The plot does get a bit confusing and may have some holes, but the characters and dialogue were of a typically high Rockstar standard. Max felt like a completely real person, so much so that I became convinced they must have based him off some guy I saw in a movie somewhere. I don't mind cutscenes if they're of such a high quality.

I also loved the gritty, realistic representation of Brazil. The favela levels were just breathtaking in their detail and realism. The flashbacks to New York were icing on the cake.
 

misho8723

Banned
MP1/MP2 are legendary games.. MP3 for me is only mediocre.. only the graphics & PC port + some music from Healt are really good.. i don't like what they did with Max and overall with the writting - oh yeah, Rockstar Games.. never was a fan of their writting.. atmosphere nowhere to by seen.. gameplay great, but so many cutscenes - and i don't mean only those which are replacing loading screens - after every cutscene game resets your weapon to pistol - why? I don't know.. but it is annyoing as hell.. story? i didn't like her.. and those filter use on every cutscene ? worst idea - just annyoing

For me the real Max Payne 3 is Alan Wake - i just like Remedy .. so far every game from them is a classic for me - well, only 4 games that they have released so far, but still..
And so far not a single game from Rockstar Games did entertain me enough to finish here - well yes, only MP3, but it was just because i wanted to see how many times we are going back to New Jersey - not much :( (those were the best parts of the game)
 
Wow. I didnt know there were people who truely disliked this game. I think some of the "cons" listed are pretty miniscule. Getting pissed cuz the came switched your weapon seems trivial. Just my opinion.
 

KalBalboa

Banned
I'm really missing my PS3 right now.

I'm on the road for work until mid October and have my PS4 with me and my Macbook Air. I own Max Payne 3 on Steam & PS3, and while my Air can play Max Payne 3 at a decent frame rate on low visual settings... it'll cook the thing.
 
The loading screens and forced walking is really annoying but the gunplay is buttery smooth and well worth it.

Great game. Lots of fun.
 
What i meant is that one has tried to fight in my other points i listed besides the character arc, i should have made that more clear. Obviously i was wrong in the character arc stuff because i stopped caring at some point but my other points still stand, that stuff i pointed out is just fucking bad man and yes it blemish the whole game. If the janky suff didn't detract from your enjoyment of the game well good for you! But don't try to act like the stuff i listed is not bad, because it is.

If no one is responding to your post it's probably because the things you mention are either miniscule or poorly explained. You mention the game automatically switching weapons, bigger weapons being lost at certain points, the story being similar to Man On Fire and the gameplay being "stiff/rigid. Those are the only post that I saw you make it and if those are your only points they don't make a convincing argument as to why 3 is worse than 1 and 2.

Automatically switching back to a base weapon and losing a large weapon periodically are minor annoyances and not enough to make one game worse than the others. The story itself thing similar to a movie doesn't matter much. Your last point is the only one that might have any weight, yet without saying anything more specific than "rigid/stiff,"I've it suggests you aren't to appreciate what 3 does with its gameplay.

I'll link to another post I made about this game shortly, but I didn't really feel any need to reply to your one post here because it didn't have any points I hadn't already addressed in many old threads.

EDIT: The person this was in response to made more points, but this still addresses most everything else.






Since anything I'll say will have been said in that old thread, I'm going to try to avoid retreading old ground — in this post, at least. You say you didn't watch any pre-release material, so here are some videos from R*'s "Design and Technology" series for Max Payne 3. They're definitely designed to build hype about the product, but they do a decent job of laying out various aspects of the gameplay.


Creating a Cutting Edge Action-Shooter


Targeting and Weapons

Bullet Time

If the concepts shown and described in these videos excite you, then you'll find something to enjoy about the gameplay. Everything in these videos can and does happen during gameplay. If you're lukewarm on it, then you'll likely feel the same about the game itself. If you happen to really like what you see/hear in those videos, but you ended up not liking the game, that would be interesting and I'd like to specifically hear why, if that's the case.

Chances are, if none of that interests you about the core gameplay, then you won't like it. The smaller issues (automatically switching to one of the player's equipped handguns after cutscenes, the "last stand" feature putting the player in awkward spots that require shoulder-swapping the camera to get out of, Etc.) will seem much more glaring and less tolerable. The positives of the game will be harder to recognize if you personally don't like them, or if you have a preconception of what the game should be that differs from the way it is.

When it comes to whether a game is good or bad, you've got to look past your own preference and consider who the game is good or bad for, preferably without a slant in which you paint aspects of a game that you despise in a particular light. If you want a gritty arcadey-type shooter with a camera that really captures the feel of a artifact-filled handy-cam, Kane and Lynch 2 is for you. If you want a weghtless, fast twitch arena shooter, Quake is right up your alley, and so forth.

Certain aspects of design achieve different things. the aspects of Max Payne 3 are as they're presented in the above videos. That core gameplay is different from that of Max Payne and it's different from that of Max Payne 2. The kind of experience one gets from playing those games is different from Max Payne 3 and that it differs from those other games is not inherently bad for many. Not everyone wants to play a sequel, or threequel, because they want exactly what was offered in previous series entries. Some may have never liked the series, or were mildly interested, yet wanted something with the same core concept (e.g. third-person shooting) but vastly improved or changed.

Some people shared your grievances. Some didn't. I distinctly remember there being responses to your "diving into a wall" gif where people asked "what did you expect?" and questioned why you had a problem in a game with a consistent approach to physics. some brought up that you can still aim and shoot while tumbling back. Some shared your sentiment that that got in the way of enjoying the game while others said it was part of a risk-reward system that made gameplay more intense. By using presenting that feature in the game as being inherently bad, you give off a sense of naivete, as if you don't even consider what this aspect of the game could contribute to, or that there might be those who would really appreciate it.

Not that you have to, or anything. But if you care enough to rally against a game more than a year after playing it, some open-mindedness and some attempts to understand how it works will probably make discussions about it less frustrating.
 

SugarDave

Member
I loved it. It's got its issues and the cutscene barrage is really overdone but the action was so damn satisfying and the score was fantastic. I'm really looking forward to replaying it with M+KB controls @ 120Hz.
 

KalBalboa

Banned
The Creed was great.

You working on anything else now? That you can use that Hawaiian shirt for?

Thanks!

I've been working on some TV shows this summer, one for TLC and this current one for A&E. It's hot where we're shooting, so I did bring my Max payne shirt with me for off days. I get weird looks, but I love the damn thing. I've got something similarly goofy a few friends and I are going to put out by year's end and then something a bit more serious next spring.
 
My favorite part was the airport scene, that soundtrack was on point.
YES. The final level (except for the "boss-fight section") is just perfect. The airport fight is why I still have the game installed on my PC. Go back to it every month or so, it's just so well made.
 

Qassim

Member
This thread makes me want to play it again - it feels so good to play. The best third person mouse and keyboard controls I have used in a long time.
 
I loved it. It's got its issues and the cutscene barrage is really overdone but the action was so damn satisfying and the score was fantastic. I'm really looking forward to replaying it with M+KB controls @ 120Hz.

Seriously, I think that is the best way to play it personally. Played through once on 360 and liked it. Got the PC version and was playing with the controller for a bit like an idiot. I then remember how I played the original games on PC and made the switch. The headshots started to become way more frequent and I was hooked. After beating the game again I instantly went through the different challenge modes and platinumed every level. SO GOOD.
 
I'd be down for a reboot of this series, considering Max Payne 4 seems out of the question.

I love noir.

I think Max should take a bit of a rest. What I think could be interesting is to take what they "helped" do with LA Noire, pick a decent setting and time period and incorporate the MP3 gunplay mechanics. Maybe True Detective inspired. Intense gun battles with more somber investigation portions to help pace it well. Hell, make it take place in the 80s in Miami. A fucking dark Miami Vice.
 
I think Max should take a bit of a rest. What I think could be interesting is to take what they "helped" do with LA Noire, pick a decent setting and time period and incorporate the MP3 gunplay mechanics. Maybe True Detective inspired. Intense gun battles with more somber investigation portions to help pace it well. Hell, make it take place in the 80s in Miami. A fucking dark Miami Vice.
What did Rockstar do to be able to make The Warriors game? I'd want to see that done with John Woo's Hong Kong action movies using a revamped MP3 engine without frequent loading-masking cutscenes.
 

Andrew.

Banned
Honestly, reading this thread is getting me to want to play through the game again. I have every gold gun, but whatever haha.

You can always turn off the GG effects.

Also, every time I replay this game I make sure to install it all over again (PS3). That is the only way you're able to hear Max's dialogue every time he finds a piece of evidence. Repeated playthroughs dont play the dialogue.
 

GavinUK86

Member
What did Rockstar do to be able to make The Warriors game? I'd want to see that done with John Woo's Hong Kong action movies using a revamped MP3 engine without frequent loading-masking cutscenes.

oh dude, what if they took max payne 3 and rejigged it into a hard boiled game. stranglehold was alright but i would love to play through the hospital scene with an uzi in one hand and a baby in the other using max payne 3 shooting mechanics.

tumblr_m08y90YHkE1rqfhi2o1_250.gif
 

Screaming Meat

Unconfirmed Member
What i meant is that one has tried to fight in my other points i listed besides the character arc, i should have made that more clear. Obviously i was wrong in the character arc stuff because i stopped caring at some point but my other points still stand, that stuff i pointed out is just fucking bad man and yes it blemish the whole game. If the janky suff didn't detract from your enjoyment of the game well good for you! But don't try to act like the stuff i listed is not bad, because it is.

The story itself being similar to a movie doesn't matter much.

You're spot on here. I'm gonna backtrack and make a point about this one:

MP3's debt to movies is very much in line with the heart of the series. Max Payne games are meant to be movies where it gives the player the tools to choreograph the John Woo gunfights in between.

Take MP1, for example. It had a Tarantino-like disregard for intellectual property: The Matrix, X-Files, The Usual Suspects, The Punisher, The Untouchables, The Killer, The Godfather, Twin Peaks, Pulp Fiction, Leon, Sin City (for the cover art)... that's just off the top of my head. Man, the entire structure of the game is lifted straight out of Point Blank; which, funnily enough, was the basis for Payback, which shared certain surface similarities with Max Payne and came out a couple of years before it released.

MP1 is meant to be one long and loving parody. Max isn't even a character here, he's a caricature of every badass action hero in a noir there is i.e. an edgier, noir-ier Duke Nuke Em, really. Christ, the game isn't even really Noir at this point bar some surface elements... maybe a bit of Mickey Spillane or the Sin City comics end of things. It owes much more to John Woo's Heroic Bloodshed films and maybe the X-Files more than anything else.

MP1 was totally style over substance; a nicely layered, parodic, framing device for popping skulls in classic film set pieces. It's admittedly a bit more difficult for me to level that charge at MP2.
 

ThatManTy

Neo Member
The Good:

This is an awesome game. It excels at every level of a 3rd person shooter and does justice as a Max Payne game. Jumping in without knowing anything except fawn memories of Max Payne 1 & 2. I still remember stepping into a room only to be greeted by bunch of bad guys and your bullet time instinct takes over and you clear the room without a scratch. Well, with Max Payne 3, that feeling was back and it felt exactly the same. And it doesn't get old either. With the new techs, the details and the "realism"are amazing. With your bullet wounds still showing during the cut scenes and I love how your gun just doesn't disappear when you scroll through your weapons. With realistic bullet ballistics, kill cams, blood sprays, destructible environments where paper flies everywhere, it's all there. As for story, nothing new here. I can't say it's great or awful. Actually, the story goes well with the whole self tortured thing. More reason to shoot more bad guys Neo style and that's really what this game is about. But the reason needs to be plausible and it does get the job done.

The Bad:

One word.. CUT SCENES! Holy shit, there are more cut scenes than anything. Not only that, you can't skip through it and have to sit through the stupid blur effects every 5 seconds. A real buzz kill for sure. The cut scenes alone almost broke this game to non playable.

Cheers! One of the top 5 games last gen, for me. Gameplay is ridiculous. I had to play through it at least 5 or 6 times. You can skip the cut scenes, though. Each cut scene is like a quick load of the next area, and basicallly after maybe 20 secs to a minute (depending on how long the cut scene is), you can press a button and just move on without watching the whole thing.
 
I'm replaying it right now, as a long time fan of the Max Payne franchise, someone who has literally played both of the first games in the upwards of 100s to completion along with a lot of time spent playing various mods available for both games, this is the best possible outcome of what I imagined a sequel could go and it's fantastic. It plays fantastic, the realism in every single detail is mind boggling and on PC it looks absolutely stunning.

I mean I had no issues with this at all, I loved how the story turned out and the crazy plot twist towards the end of the game. I loved how the game felt control wise, I was getting headshots in big beautifully animated shoot dives like a mad man.

All I wanted from a sequel to Max Payne 1 and Max Payne 2 was that the gameplay that makes the series is there, Max's personality is there, and that there was an evolution of what is already there and making it pretty. That's what Rockstar gave me, as a fan in my opinion, and like most I also wish they could optimize and fix the loading and cutscene issue somehow. In my experience on PC it can vary from terrible to okay.

I mean overall I loved Max Payne 3 and I loved the ending, and the gunplay I feel satisfied but part of me still yearns for such finality for Half-Life, another series I love dearly.

Still, the amount of hate this game gets on GAF surprises me a lot sometimes, I thought it was an amazing game.

You know what they say about fans, sometimes you just can't win with them either way.
 

Screaming Meat

Unconfirmed Member
I'm replaying it right now, as a long time fan of the Max Payne franchise, someone who has literally played both of the first games in the upwards of 100s to completion along with a lot of time spent playing various mods available for both games, this is the best possible outcome of what I imagined a sequel could go and it's fantastic. It plays fantastic, the realism in every single detail is mind boggling and on PC it looks absolutely stunning.

I mean I had no issues with this at all, I loved how the story turned out and the crazy plot twist towards the end of the game. I loved how the game felt control wise, I was getting headshots in big beautifully animated shoot dives like a mad man.

All I wanted from a sequel to Max Payne 1 and Max Payne 2 was that the gameplay that makes the series is there, Max's personality is there, and that there was an evolution of what is already there and making it pretty. That's what Rockstar gave me, as a fan in my opinion, and like most I also wish they could optimize and fix the loading and cutscene issue somehow. In my experience on PC it can vary from terrible to okay.

I mean overall I loved Max Payne 3 and I loved the ending, and the gunplay I feel satisfied but part of me still yearns for such finality for Half-Life, another series I love dearly.

Still, the amount of hate this game gets on GAF surprises me a lot sometimes, I thought it was an amazing game.

You know what they say about fans, sometimes you just can't win with them either way.

I knew you were a good person, I just knew it.
 

Andrew.

Banned
I don't know if it's ever been pointed out, but the picture of Fabiana on Rodrigos office desk is the same picture that is on the desk of the film producer/director that Michael works for in GTAV.
 

Fezan

Member
Was Ok game. shooting was fantastic but otherwise it had tons of problems. Max Payne 2 was also lot more interesting story and dialogue wise.
 
I just completed it again for the 20th time, as a big fan of the series I am always amazed by how much the euphoria physics and animation systems work in this game and help enhance replayability.

I also managed to get into several MP matches which was surprising and I have to say the Multiplayer is just as frenetic and awesome as I remember it.

I knew you were a good person, I just knew it.

My milkshake brings everyone to the yard.
 
A great game, as others have said it's one of the best third person shooters of all time but the biggest mistake R* made was changing the setting. Max should've stayed in New Jersey.
 

Screaming Meat

Unconfirmed Member
A great game, as others have said it's one of the best third person shooters of all time but the biggest mistake R* made was changing the setting. Max should've stayed in New Jersey.

It was an inspired choice. Noir York City had always been Max's ally of sorts. In Brazil, he's alienated and overwhelmed on every conceivable level (and so is the player if they don't speak Portuguese).

A lot of Noir has the main character traveling through the seedier underground and the rich high-life to draw comparisons between the two, and São Paulo gave R* a literally visible class divide between it's towering skyscrapers and vast favelas, which they used to great effect. Thematically, it tied in with the game's preoccupation with American interference on foreign soil and the whole "White Man's Burden"/post-Colonial commentary.

It's also visually distinct from the other games in the series, owing debts to the more Latin flavoured crime and Neo-noir of films like Elite Squad, Man on Fire and City of God etc rather than the old-school classic Noir we're more comfortable with.
 

Andrew.

Banned
That new HEALTH song posted is fucking awesome and now has me hardcore fiending for a sequel I know will probably never come. I need that album.

30 bucks on Amazon?! Daaaaaaamn

Still buying it.
 
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