Max Payne 3 - Discuss!

I always take the claims made with about a kg of salt. Most have hardly or even not played the game and the rest use hyperbole. Kodex Kool Kredits and all that.

 

I'm not too far into the game but there has been a lot of fucking cutscene vs the amount of gameplay. It kind of breaks it up a bit because in MP1 and MP2 they'd have some inner monologue VO while you're playing to add some exposition and shit but now they throw in these cut scenes. they're VERY well done buit it doesn't flow very well to me, despite the seamless transition back into gameplay.

 

What do you get when you mix Max Payne, GTA 4 and Rebel Assault II? Max Payne 3. A gritty, mature interactive movie with some shooting mixed in between the longest cinematics i've ever experienced in a video game. To be honest, i think there was more gameplay in Rebel Assault II.

Fly in a chopper and pop some moles snipe some poor locos. Enjoy forced slow mo action sequences (which lead to even more cinematics). Shoot incoming RPG rounds out of the sky. It's all there! That's right folks, Max Payne's archaic gameplay just got modernized and improved!

Remedy still makes better shooters. I've had more fun shooting in Alan Wake than in this turd of a game. Almost all the guns feel really weak, the sounds are all the same (i think they used just one sample and messed with it a bit, and i mean, A BIT), bullet time is too damn short to be really enjoyable and, well... you can actually kill everyone form behind cover. Scripts are everywhere, there are even moments where it turns into a rail shooter. When you're actually allowed to play, it plays just like one of the shooting missions from a GTA game.

On the bright side, it runs great. And i mean, really, really good, with almost everything turned on and maxed out. But why shouldn't it, it's a goddamn movie after all.

If you feel like playing a TPS, go do do yourself a favor, and buy Binary Domain instead.

 

I've been looking at some player comments and would it surprise you folks to know that many MP1 and 2 fans are now nostalgics who need to get with the times

 

Finished it.

Weapons
There are few types of weapons in the game and they cannot be modified. At least not in single-player.
The pistol is the most reliable and the end games weapons like grenade launcher or laser mounted machine guns are unusable.

Story
Max was moaning something about justice and shit during the entire game, but this did not stop him from working for some despicable characters.
This dissonance is forced upon the entire narrative from start to end, making it quite unpleasant: Max personal tragedy simply cannot motivate his actions after so much time.
And they dedicated entire chapters to build a credible motivation for Max's actions, but it simply doesn't click. It's not unbearable, but is neither good.

Gameplay
It's weak. For a couple of reasons: it's fragmented by way too many cutscenes, too many enemies and the fact that most of the killing is taking place at distance.
The AI is hyper active and it's seems Marauder Shields has a lot of fans at Rockstar. To be honest, most of the time I was searching for golden weapons parts.

Visuals
This is probably the spot where the game is really good. The Hotel Imperial is quite impressive.

Multiplayer
Tried it. Lame. But is a feature which doesn't make much sense anyway.

Overall, it's a proper sequel. But I was expecting more freedom, which is not the case and neither in the sentiment of the franchise. Silly me.
Now they should make a movie about the white guy who demolished a favela.

 

Just finished it. It's kinda like a Michael Mann film and overall pretty good. When referring to the events of MP2 Max calls it the Mona debacle but doesn't indicate she's dead, retcon avoided. Whew.

 

Pretty good game for action game. Difficulty seems strange though, basicly like 3 shots enemy hit you can cost you life. Some parts have plenty UZI/AKM users. And this is on Normal. Maybe this is because game expects you to use auto-target feature which makes game much easier? I turned it all ofc, since this is feature for console-users.

Also "diving" takes bullet-time but if you dont have bullet-time it still works. So basicly you better of burning all bullet time and after that kill enemies while "diving". Strange design decision.

But overall game is good.

 

Multiplayer is very frenetic, in a bad way. Maybe I just suck. Is there an official codex ROCKSTAR GAMES CREW yet?

 

So, my brother downloaded the game for free from our local digital distributor and gave it a shot. I watched him play and I came to a conclusion: the gameplay feels like Max Payne for the most part. I was surprised at that, I assumed they will fuck this up, but it is pretty good actually. Not having health regen helps to retain the Max Payne feel, even though there is a cover system. Graphics are pretty good too if you play it on the highest settings. By the way, the game only takes 10 GB, if you "buy" the Black Box edition. This edition has every cinematics in 720p instead of 1080p.

That was the good part. BUT. The atmosphere sucks, this is not Max Payne. The fucking seizure inducing color effects and the useless monochrome still-shots in the cinematics look lame and distracting. Rockstar was trying too hard to make something cool, but the guy who came up with these ideas should really come off from LSD. Max's monologues are boring for the most parts, he is self-loathing, a drunk, pathetic guy. This guy is a trainwreck. He had some self pitty in the previous games, but this is too much, I would kick him in the face if I could.

So, if you only care about gameplay, give the game a shot. Just ignore everything else.

 

Eh, I actually liked that a lot while watching the LP on YouTube. Perhaps you saw only a small part of the game and haven't noticed that the color effects are related to Max being drunk? The more he drinks, the more fucked up your vision is. In the second part of the game he lays off the booze and the color effect is pretty much gone.

I thought they captured the feeling of being heavily drunk and yet forced to do something important (like finding your way home and trying to look sober when a cop patrol swings by) spot-on, the only thing I missed was the vision twirling upwards all the fucking time; if they did that I'd brand it my favourite heavy drinking sim. Also, the color effects worked wonders in the club scene near the beginning of the game. It was a real Gilliamesque pleasure to watch the firefights in that club.

 

Well I didn't notice that it is connected to Max being drunk. I still don't like the effect, they could have used other techniques, like blur or distortion.

 

Good game, it's fucking Max Payne, don't believe the malcontents. There are too many cinematics though as said. They are very good though. I guess the new gen just doesn't like stills.

I don't have a problem with the rail shooter bits, it's not much different from the sniping section to protect Mona in MP2 only there you could freely move from location to location. Since there really was only one optimal place you could be when facing each wave of goons it was essentially the same thing.

Gunplay is great, don't know why there's the crap about guns seeming weak: they are the same as in the previous two games and in those I would use the pistol for the most part as well(just cooler). Essentially you do the same thing as in the other games, though there is less time to just soak in the atmosphere and take a breather by doing a bit of exploration as in MP1. MP2 actually is a lot closer to this, so I don't understand the rage.

The cover system needs to be explained a bit. Sure it's there, BUT crucially unlike many others you actually get your head shot off very quickly when you stick your head out and you cannot aim precisely while actually in cover. In other games you can cross hair on a target while protected and then the moment you press the button it you shoot exactly there, giving the goon no chance to react. It is a concession to the next gen crowd of course but better than it could have been. Besides, aesthetically it is an improvement over facing a wall next to a doorway and awkwardly run-sliding to the side to get a shot off before sliding back into cover as in the other MP games.

They finally made an engine optimised to the MAX! Looks fucking great on high(can't really go full on very high on my 512 mb ATI 4770) and is smooth as silk. Maybe I could even pump up some of the settings but chose to leave them to guarantee a smooth game when facing a horde of scum. About fucking time. Now if only they learn to have this kind of optimisation in GTAV.


@ Whisper

The difficulty is the best bit, just like in the other games. Obviously you've been brought up on health regen, take 100 bullets to the face shooters. Diving slo-mo has always been separate from bullet time so it's not a strange design decision. The bullet time is meant to be saved up for sections where there are a lot of fuckers while the Divng slo-mo is always there as your extra advantage.


Fuck the hators, MP3 is good enough to stand with the others(MP1 is still the benchmark though).

@ bonescraper

Alan Wake better than this? Nigga please!

 

I loved Rockstar's take on female driving.

 

Speaking of MP1, recently started playing the Steam version and I'm in a bit of a WTF - there's no music, there's no sounds (dialogue, sfx) in cutscenes and comics. Any way of fixing this? Running a Win7 x64 system if that helps.

 

If you did that in MP1 or MP2, you played the games wrong.

 

Why "diving" eats up slow-mo?
If it costs slow-mo to use why it can be used with no slow-mo left?


About difficulty, i doubt most fights in later game can be passed without reload. 1 guy on roof that appears there mid-fight and who is far away from you (so you can only find him if you know he will be on roof and at exact time) - if you unlucky he can 1-shot you in head, you lose around half-hp on normal. So basicly hard fights are supposed to be memorized enemy locations.

 

Game is better than I expected (and of course best parts of the game are the ones set in New York). Bald head move was really unnecessary. Also, if they really wanted move to Europe, they should've chosen France (Paris especially) or Italy. Also, I finished the second New York level and I am a bit beyond the middle of the game, but in terms of story, much of the story feels like a filler, and the plot twist just before the second New York level felt predictable.

Overall not a bad game, but hope that if Max Payne 4 happens it will be back in New York, or at least somewhere with a noir feeling.

 

I'm having a better time with multiplayer now that I've done some testing with loadouts. Lightweight is the way to go.

1911, stitches and intuition.

Unlimited sprinting is worth the dying in one or two shots price, once you get a couple head shots you fill up that adrenaline meter so fast then pop out intuition 2 or 3 and you can run around meleeing the fuck out of everyone on the enemy team.

One thing they need to fix is I'm not getting any of my xp from matches where host migration fails and it happens a lot because people are ragequitting faggots.

 

Diving eats up slo-mo I guess so you have to really pay attention when you use it so that you can refill it by shooting goons if you want the bullet time to not run out and not just use it every 5 seconds just to avoid getting shot at in every encounter. Of course you CAN use it every 5 seconds anyway but then get ready to live with an empty bullet time.That's the trade-off and I think it works because if you never lost bullet time due to diving then there would be no conservation needed.

Getting one shot killed by snipers is par for the course. You have to pay attention when entering rooms and no go all Fags of War style. This is true in every Max Payne game. I'm actually really pleased that the 'normal' difficulty is on a par with those games in the past.

It's not about whether it was right or wrong, it was certainly possible. The normal method of course is just to dive left and right or even forwards into a room. That's just as gamey though as cover, so I don't see the point at raging at having a cover option. Besides, the game can be played just fine without using it which is great, unlike many other games where the encounter design pretty much forces you to use this feature.

 

Yes there is, I had the same problem.

This is the place for the fix: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=848215

 

Incline of MP3?

 

POW, right in the turd cutter.

 

How you are supposed to "pay attention" when in middle of gun-fight with 3-4 enemies who are shooting at you, you are supposed to notice in 1 second time some guy in third window on the second floor? And who often blends in the surrounding? If you keep all attention on searching for hidden guys on roofs while 3-4 enemies attack you, you would die to those 3-4 enemies.

For some fights, you are basicly forced by game to die/remember location of enemies/re-do with gained knowledge.

 

Trial and error is half the fun of the max payne series.