Max Payne 3

With a tip of the hat to director John Woo and The Matrix, Remedy Entertainment's Max Payne wowed the gaming world in 2001 with its unique slow-mo shooting action. And since Max Payne 2 appeared in 2003, I've been holding my breath in anticipation of the third in the series. Max Payne 3 Squintessential character Although …

[A Known Coward]

That's not Max Payne!

Max Payne looks more (or less) exactly like Sam Lake.

Max Payne was your average looking guy with a lean, even skinny, physique. That was part of the charm of the character, he wasn't the typical muscle bound, square jawed meat head of your typical action hero. The guy pictured in those screenshots looks nothing like Max. That's just lame.

[Lamont Cranston]

Re: That's not Max Payne!

Exactly. Max's permanent "turtling" facial expression was all part of the first game's charm.

On the plus side, he doesn't look like Mark Wahlberg, either.

[jai]

Re: That's not Max Payne!

actually - Max Payne looked like Sam Lake in the first game.

But in MP2 he looks like Timothy Gibbs.

And in MP3 he looks like James McCaffrey.

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Payne_(character)#Character_development

So it's not lame. It's entirely in keeping with the tradition of the game.

[Greg J Preece]

No PC version at release? Did you forget which market gave this game its success? Or are you making sure we don't get another day-1 patch for the game as we did with Max Payne 1? (Which couldn't save games at release - no, really!)

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank Microsoft

They have mountains of cash set aside to gain a foothold in the console market by buying exclusivity.

Of course the braindead retarded gamers that actually condone this behavior by buying their shitty hardware are the ones REALLY to blame.

[auburnman]

It's not quite the same...

I too was excited at the return of Max Payne, but it's just not the same as it used to be. Picking up a rifle or shotgun is almost pointless as you default back to a pistol after every cutscene (and there are many) and it takes an age to let you switch back, usually under fire at the time. The default controls are sufficiently counterintuitive that you frequently pop out of cover instead of reloading. The blurry video effects definitely grate after a while, and although superimposing text from the voiceover onto the scene is a nice touch, it is so overused they might as well be subtitles. Unfortunately the cutscenes are all but unskippable due to long loading times, so if you like to replay the single player campaign be prepared for some frustrating waits.

I found the plot a little hard to follow at times as so many of the characters were not fleshed out at all, I struggled to remember who had done what and why because I just didn't care enough about most of the goodies or baddies to remember.

I really wanted MP3 to be great, but it just didn't deliver for me. Although they have set up one or two good characters and villains who survived, I would be interested if they tried a Max 4 - but they'd have to turf out everything that didn't work and go back to a proper noir setting.

[Jediben]

Re: It's not quite the same...

I assume the load time issues will be suitably expunged when data is read from a hard drive or SSD on PC as opposed to archaic optical media on the aging consoles.

[auburnman]

Re: It's not quite the same...

Consoles have had hard drives for half a decade now, no excuse. If you do buy it for PC I sincerely hope it is better, but I wouldn't hold out much hope.

[SpaMster]

Re: It's not quite the same...

Load time issues? the only time you have issues with load times are when your trying to skip the cutscenes, which if you've bought the game, your probably going to watch. If your not getting this game for the story your going to be bitterly disapointed

[Caleb Cox]

Re: Re: It's not quite the same...

I second that. I had no problems with load times, only when trying to skip cutscenes, and I only did that when trying to replay levels I'd already done. You'd be a fool to skip them otherwise.

[auburnman]

Re: It's not quite the same...

I'm not sure why you guys are disagreeing with me, when the end of your posts seem to agree? I didn't have issues on the first playthrough, but by now I have watched all the cutscenes and want to keep playing the campaign without being forced to watch them again; unfortunately they are effectively unskippable. Most other games manage skippable cutscenes in this day and age and it irks me to see Rockstar making negative progress.

[tony72]

Looking forward to the PC version

I pre-ordered the PC version on Steam last weekend, since they're throwing in MP1 and 2 as well, all for £29.99. I haven't played the first two in ages, so I think that will make a nice appetizer while we wait for 3. Hopefully the PC version will be even better than the console version.

[FlameButt]

Was looking forward to it but the hype has put me off...

I really enjoyed both Max Payne 1 & 2 but ever since Rockstar have have the code ready to run we've been bombarded by how good 3 is going to be, what it looks like and what the new story is about... And why Max is now bald!

Perhaps they never saw the mistake Warner Brothers made with Matrix Reloaded - I'd seen most of the film already from all the trailers and clips they kept putting on the website, when I watched the actual film all I thought was "Is that it?"

What puts me off most though (and this review commented on it as well) is why is there so much focus on the gore in these games now? Syndicate was bad enough (hey I can get the enemy to blow his own head off) but now you can watch the final bad-guy die in slo-mo! Even slow it down more, Wow!! I remember the slo-mo in the first game and I always felt it was about celebrating managing to survive the firefight rather than seeing how much blood you can get out of the enemy.

And who else feels inadequate after watching the trailers where whoever is playing is easily getting EVERY single enemy with a headshot? That's gonna make me feel a whole lot better towards the game when the 'new and improved' AI keeps killing me because I don't nail them perfectly first shot...

[Jediben]

Re: Was looking forward to it but the hype has put me off...

The consoles (and unfortunately I believe PC) have controller-friendly aim assist, for those whose dexterity befits a couch-dweller. Naturally this abomination wasn't available on PC only MP1 and 2, and will be swiftly disabled as soon as I get playing next Friday!

[jai]

Re: Was looking forward to it but the hype has put me off...

the aim-assist locks you on for a body shot, you still have to manually aim to get the headshot. and bodyshots use up a ton of ammo, so headshots are the only real option, making the aim-assist quite redundant anyway.

[Caleb Cox]

Re: Re: Was looking forward to it but the hype has put me off...

Aim assist is so lame. Berated my brother for even trying to play with that switched on.

[jai]

The /real/ problem with this game...

...is that I've been playing it for an hour each night since Tuesday, and so far I haven't seen a single TV showing me the on-going Adventures Of Captain Baseball Bat Boy damnit!

These are the small touches that are missing from the game so far that means it's almost, but not quite, as good as the original. It'd be like playing a GTA game without Lazlo on a radio station.

(unless, of course, they have an episode of Lords & Ladies playing on a radio later on in the game, in which case please ignore this whole post)

[Greg J Preece]

Re: The /real/ problem with this game...

Fuck yeah, Captain Baseball Bat Boy! That show was the shit.

[toadwarrior]

Re: The /real/ problem with this game...

Captain baseball bat boy is there. You either haven't played that much at all or are shooting all the TVs.

[Pascal Monett]

Yet another game made for console and badly ported to a much better platform - the PC

Almost every single game made for console and ported to PC has kept all the lame parts of console UI and taken none of the good parts of PC performance.

The exceptions to that rule can be counted on the fingers of one hand, so don't go thinking that your favorite is one of them - it probably isn't.

Oh, the AI is better at flushing you out now ? Gosh, they've almost reached the performance of Half-Life circa 2004. Congratulations !

No, sorry. Doesn't wash with me. I don't care about the pretty effects or the bullet-time, if a game cannot code its AI as good as something made close to a decade ago, I feel like I'm wasting my time.

[Brenda McViking]

Re: Yet another game made for console and badly ported to a much better platform - the PC

Really? And you'd know, would you? Seeing as it isn't even available on PC yet?

I COMPLETELY agree that console ports are akin to squeezing out your eyeballs and crushing them in a nutcracker before putting them back in your face when it comes to playing them on a PC, but I'm hoping that the game's PC roots are going to remain in MP#3, otherwise Rockstar will join EA in the list of developers/publishers from which I will never buy another game.

However, Rockstar have categorically stated that the PC version will *NOT* be a console port (google it). I'll make up my own mind when I play the game when it is available. Until then, excuse me while I ignore your argument, unless of course you've already had early access to the PC version. If so, let me know, and I'll cancel my pre-order.

(I know Rockstar's GTA4 was a bad console port to PC, but the GTA series have generally been console games first and foremost. Not so with the Max Payne series.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Come back Nathan Drake, all is forgiven

It's like Uncharted, but without the puzzles.