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Max Payne 3

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Started 11 months ago by DSB
Latest reply from YoungZer0

12 3 Next »

DSB
Member

So I finally got through the 30 gigabyte download.

I don't really have any impression of the game as a whole, but for fuck's sake Rockstar...

So far I've watched something like 10 minutes of cutscenes and video, and actually played for something like 2-3.

The gameplay seems excellent, and quite true to the originals, but holy crap does Rockstar ever need an intervention.

Make movies if that's what you want. Don't make me watch one when I'm trying to play a videogame. I'm sure the Housers can afford to publish a novel or fund an independent film at this point. Please, someone get them some help.

Okay, venting complete.

Back to making grotesque holes in people. Another thing you realize within the first few minutes is how much the game seems to revel in human destruction. It's really pretty perverted.

Posted 11 months ago #
Gekidami
Member

Yes, expect A LOT of cutscenes, and you're going to be seeing them over and over if you want all of the trophies (or whatever), because -at least on PS3- you're required to beat the game at least 5 times to get some of them, not including plays to finish up on the grinds, to which there is also a trophy for doing them all.

Also get to rank 50 in MP, and ranking up is horribly slow.

Posted 11 months ago #
DSB
Member

Someone needs to teach them the difference between "cinematic" and "cineMA".

This is a Max Payne 3 level:

SHOW CUTSCENE ENTERING CLUB

Shoot 7-10 bad guys

Enter door

SHOW CUTSCENE ENTERING BATHROOM

Enter door

SHOW CUTSCENE ENTERING KITCHEN

Shoot three bad guys

Enter door

SHOW CUTSCENE ENTERING RESTAURANT

Shoot six bad guys

Enter door

SHOW CUTSCENE ENTERING BALCONY

What. The. Fuck.

Posted 11 months ago #
Giskard
Member

Sounds like someone should've research what game they bought. Just because Rockstar made it does not mean it will be an Open World Shoot-Whatever-Moves.

I love this version of Max Payne, but then again, I went in knowing what to expect.

Posted 11 months ago #
DSB
Member

Poor little old me. I thought it looked good and I bought it, I'm not crying for my money back.

But I was thinking I was buying a game. Not a movie with a few shooty bits thrown in here and there, to justify labelling it as a videogame.

Personally I think it has very little to do with Max Payne, and everything to do with developers who would apparently rather be making anything but a game.

And that's a shame, because the game part of Max Payne 3 is really pretty great. I'm just not sure gameplay should ever be a sidenote in a videogame.

Posted 11 months ago #
OrbitMonkey
Member

Hmm, kinda glad I picked up Saints Row 3 now... Hate cut-scenes every 5 mins.

Posted 11 months ago #
Phoenixblight
Member

"Sounds like someone should've research what game they bought. Just because Rockstar made it does not mean it will be an Open World Shoot-Whatever-Moves."

Pretty much. There were reviews and such before the PC version release. THe original Max Payne was riff with cutscenes too. Did you miss that DSB?

Posted 11 months ago #
Yoshi
Member

I find the gameplay to cutscene ratio perfectly acceptable. Sure it's no GTA with cutscene, 30 or so mins of gunplay and another cutscene but what can I say. This is Max Payne, they've stripped the comic style scenes which were rather quick here and there. Instead they've gone for a cinematic approach with comic elements. And they've gone for this approach so they can keep the story together very tightly while also showing off their beautiful engine :P

Posted 11 months ago #
DSB
Member

@PB I'd say it's pretty much assured with a Rockstar game. But if GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption were slightly tedious for it at times, Max Payne 3 is pretty much neurotically intent on telling you as little as possible, while wasting as much of your time as possible.

It's taking you out of the game and putting you in a theatre, just to tell you some mundane facts.

There's really no comparison to the earlier games. The pacing actually worked, not to mention the narrative. All good noir movies are about events, not people. Casablanca being the textbook example. It's not about who the actors are, it's about what they're feeling and doing in the moment. I have no idea who any of the people are in that movie, but I love what they do. That's what makes it good.

In the first 30 minutes of Max Payne 3 you're subjected to a never ending string of non-game that basically only serves to establish three things: "Max Payne is tired of his life. Max Payne drinks a lot. Max Paynes employers get attacked a lot".

If you aren't enough of a game designer to tell me those things without actually removing me from the game, and taking away any semblance of interactivity, then I think it's time for some soul searching.

It's completely and utterly useless. It's a writer/designer admiring his own mediocre reflection, while wasting your time. I didn't need to spend 20 minutes finding those things out, and the originals would certainly never waste 5 minutes telling me something that obvious.

I don't mind exposition, or cutscenes in moderation, but I do mind mediocre writers abusing my attention just so they can feel like they're a Hollywood big shot.

@Yoshi It's not really cinematic though, it's just cineMA. Call of Duty is cinematic, but that actually lets you play while you watch. This has you shoot a few bad guys in between watching the movie.

I think the distinction is neccesary. A game is supposed to be interactive no? Failing that, it's really just a movie.

Posted 11 months ago #
Phoenixblight
Member

I had played and beaten the game multiple times don't need to tell me about it. I enjoyed the game with all its "cineMA". ANd I thought it did a great job for those that had played the originals.

I definitely enjoyed the whole Man on Fire similarities. If you were expecting open world shoot em up it wasn't going to happen and you would know this prior to all the reviews with the websites doing playthroughs of the game as it was being developed.
I also think you are exaggerating the amount of cut scenes to be honest. I had gotten 12 hours of game play with the campaign and from what I had counted it was maybe 2 hours of cutscenes. Its not like MGS4 with an hour long movie of cut scenes or 10 mins of talking. I thought it was well balanced between the gameplay and cut scenes. The intro and the ending are the longest in cut scenes btw.

Posted 11 months ago #
DSB
Member

When was Max Payne ever an open world shoot 'em up?

I know what it is, I'm satisfied with the core gameplay, and I believe I've already stated that that bit is true to the original. I just think it's ruined by poor writing that's applied to poor design, in making the player watch movies when there's absolutely no reason why he would ever have to.

There's really no exageration. I would love it if someone made a video that actually timed the gameplay compared to the cutscenes. It is truly ridiculous.

It goes without saying that I can only judge what I've played, and that's roughly an hour of the game so far. That hour has been every bit as bad as an MGS game though.

Posted 11 months ago #
Phoenixblight
Member

The original Max Payne games by Remedy did the same thing. You completed a sequence you get a cutscene. Are you mad that Rockstar took that same formula and applied it?

Posted 11 months ago #
DSB
Member

I can see you'd love for that to be true, but those games have nowhere near the same proportionality in terms of time spent not playing the game.

In the original Max Paynes, you could push a button and just skim over the story like you would a comic book. That's a great feature, with a convenient design that kept the focus on the action. You also had the actual cutscenes, but I'm kinda hoping you'd recognize that they were a lot shorter, and never aimed at exposition.

If not, then we've obviously been playing different Max Paynes. It wouldn't take long to install one of those games, and compare the time they spend making you watch a movie.

Ironically I think it may be down to hiding a few technical limitations. Looks like all the drawn out cutscenes are actually just hiding drawn out loading screens.

It might not be bad design by choice, but by neccesity.

Posted 11 months ago #
Phoenixblight
Member

"If not, then we've obviously been playing different Max Paynes. It wouldn't take long to install one of those games, and compare the time they spend making you watch a movie."

I played them both prior to the release of the game. You are right that they don't take long to install and play. Infact both games combined were shorter than Max Payne 3. I clocked about 4-5 hours each.

I liked the game and thought Rockstar went in the right direction with the game. I always wanted Man on Fire for a game and Rockstar delivered.

Posted 11 months ago #
Gekidami
Member

I've got nothing against cut scenes, i think they help the game have a really decent plot and well paced story. But it does get annoying when it comes to multiple playthroughs, especially seeing as most of them dont appear to be skipable.

Posted 11 months ago #
DSB
Member

@PB Well, good for you I guess.

I'd prefer it if a videogame stuck to being a videogame, rather than being a movie.

The originals were never based on Man on Fire, they were based on general American pulp fiction and noir movies, and they pulled that off splendidly. Max Payne 3 is little more than a parody of that.

@Geki When that's the case, I don't mind cutscenes, but in this case I think it does a lot more to ruin the pacing. As soon as your pulse goes up from killing bad guys, you're stuck watching a movie. Why can't I climb a ladder on my own? Or enter a kitchen on my own?

In creative writing you have the idea of the "invisible author", which is basically a standard of immersion, using various methods to hide the fact that you're being dictated a story by another individual. In this case, whenever the game starts doing actions for you, it's like the designer jumping out and going "Here I am!".

I get the sense that it's not the way they would've made it if they had a choice. It does seem to be covering up an obscene amount of loading screens.

I guess the fact that they aren't very original in how they do the exposition makes it a bit more annoying for me. The "squares" effect is very "24" and I kinda feel that if you're gonna splash words from a sentence on the screen, they should at least be interesting.

Posted 11 months ago #
Yoshi
Member

Just finished it and it's awesomely amazing :)

Feels a little easier on normal than the first two on normal but that's fine as it's meant to be normal :P So if you liked the hardcore'esc of the first two play it on a harder difficulty.

The story isn't absolutely amazing however it's not bad either, it definitely kept me interested throughout and I never felt bored at all or that it was dragging on like I do with a lot of singleplayer games these days.
I also liked how it had a somewhat of arc for Max's past. I won't go into details but it definitely felt like he got rid of a few demons at the end.

Overall, awesome game. If you enjoyed the first two you should definitely get it, if you haven't played them go buy them and then get Max Payne 3.

Posted 11 months ago #
absolutezero
Member

I would'nt mind the constant cut-scenes all that much is they were'nt so fucking hideous to look at.

Ok I get it Max has hit rock bottom stop with the artifacts and ghosting Jesus Christ.

Also the default mouse controls are fucked beyond belief. Im not even sure how they managed to do that. Also its 35GB with no obvious reason the textures are'nt all that impressive and the audio is standard.

Posted 11 months ago #
Giskard
Member

Absolutezero: I have no idea what you're talking about. My mouse controls are tight as hell, have been headshotting my way through hard with ease.

The 35 GB install size starts to show when you put everything on the highest option. My PC gets by at 20-30 FPS, so I've put it down a bit, but it looks great.

Also, the multiplayer in this game is extremely fun, and addictive as hell.

Posted 11 months ago #
absolutezero
Member

The only thing thats not maxed for me is Shadows which I doubt is going to make all that much difference. Im also running beyond 1080p, I just do not see why the game needed to be 35GB.

Maybe its just me with the mouse controls then, its sitting at "10" at the moment and it still feels slightly off.

Posted 11 months ago #
Phoenixblight
Member

@absolutezero

THe game may not have the best looking textures but what it does have is a lot of art assets more than any game to date and that is where the size comes from along with all the music,voice data, animations.

Posted 11 months ago #
ItsFade
Member

It's pretty much how I felt playing through the game, the first 6 chapters of the game revolves around 5 minute cut-scene, 3-5 minute room full of bad guys to kill where you actually play the game, 5 minute cut-scene and it goes on and on and on like this for around half the game. It opens a bit more up around the jungle level but it's still pretty bad some places after that.

I can't speak on the PC version but when I played the console version it pissed me off like no other that I couldn't skip these trivial cut-scenes either.

Max Payne 1 and 2 had cut-scenes as well but the never forced them on the player to such an extent, they made sense in context of the story and they didn't just shove a cut-scene down your throat because you needed to climb a damn ladder. Not to mention the fact that they were all skip-able in previous Max Payne games.

The game plays fine and it's a great shooter from a gameplay perspective but Rockstar you are not making movies here. I was surprised at how little mention there were on this in various reviews. Most of them mentioned at mediocre story but damn this game is like an interactive movie first, stylistic shooter second.

Posted 11 months ago #
absolutezero
Member

I figured as much PB. Im guessing alot of those assets are also uncompressed for whatever reason.

Playing more what I also realised is that its lost all of the slightly off-kilter moments from the previous games, theres no shit one-liners theres nothing like the nightmare level from the first game, or the junkies.

Apart from Max himself its not really in the same World as the previous games. Like you could replace Max with someone new and it would make no real difference.

Posted 11 months ago #
Phoenixblight
Member

They don't compress data on the PC. Its the nature of the beast.

Posted 11 months ago #
DSB
Member

Yeah. To be fair, once it cuts back to New York it also cuts back a bit on the exposition. I'm roughly halfway, and there's definitely more action and less babble, even if the babble is still terribly contrived.

But even if the game isn't wasting your time teaching you about characters that really aren't important to anything you're doing, you're still being forced to watch the action rather than play it.

PB's claim that it wasn't so bad made me do a little snooping.

Yoshi spent less than 10 hours completing it. Based on the running time of the cutscenes, that means 40% of the game is spent watching a movie.

It's 250 minutes of non-game. In comparison, Metal Gear Solid 3 had 216 minutes of non-game.

For the sake of full disclosure, Metal Gear Solid 4 had twice that amount.

No matter which way you swing it though, spending four hours and ten minutes out of a nine hour game watching movies is just taking the piss. Fair enough if people like that sort of thing, but I buy videogames to play them, not to watch them.

I've been doing a bit of multiplayer, and it seems the tech is really what's weighing the game down. The time it takes to load a basic match is so long that most people seem to ragequit before they get in. I've tried to get a match three times, I've gotten in once, and by then we were three guys left in the lobby, out of eight.

It has a game mode called gang wars where you do 5 different game modes on the same map, and I'm pretty sure that made it in there because they knew people wouldn't put up with those load times.

Like the actual gameplay though, it's really quite good. Sadly, like the game itself, it seems to be held back by things that have nothing to do with actually playing it.

Posted 11 months ago #
Sadismek
Member

I've got my hands on it aswell, and have some good things and bad things to say. Here I go!

Okay, so first of all, I knew that this game will have a lot of cut-scenes, which weren't quite a big problem until I realised I have to watch movies for climbing a ladder or opening a Goddamn door! And the fact that they're not skipable is complete nuts.

Graphically, this game looks good. Really good. But it's pretty funny to see Max after a serious fight, completely holed up, and still standing :D.

Bullet time is AWE-SOME! I had some really memorable sequences with it, which will probably stay with me a long time. Let me quickly explain them. Ok, so I'm at the stadium level, and I see a flashlight coming right towards me. I dive straight to it, only to find myself in front of about 10 baddies. Still in slow-motion, I quickly headshot all of them, only possible because underneath me was a staircase and I had the slo-mo bar full. When I finally land, I see them falling one by one. Mission acomplished.

The other one was in Chapter 7, I think, when I see two ugly bastards taking cover, as they've noticed me. I dive and shoot one of them, but, to my surprise, the other one hid in a ditch (I noticed that because of the bullet trajectories that flew beside me), so, still in mid-air, I make an almost 360 rotation and shot the poor guy straight in the head. Again, amazed.

The game is challenging, and I can't imagine playing this on a console, which would make it 20 times harder (because I suck at shooters with a controller). The only game which was this challenging, but not leading to rage or frustration, was Uncharted 3, at the ship cemetery and desert levels, when I died a few times.

I liked Max's monologue aswell. He throwed some interesting sayings there and there, so that's never a bad thing. The story is average, and the fact that I still have few ideas about who the hell might be the one behind all the things going on is a good thing.

I might come back after I finish the game with more impressions. Until now, I'm impressed again by what Rockstar managed to pull. The gameplay really takes the top spot, and the dodging mechanic never grows old!

Posted 11 months ago #
Phoenixblight
Member

@DSB

Again exagerating on the amount of cutscenes its not 4 hours worth of cutscens and definitely not more than MGS4.

http://www.youtube.com/user/R3DPlaystationFilmer/videos?query=max+payne+3

3 hours and 20 mins.

Now MGS4:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8F9CDABC3496F038&feature=plcp

69 videos with a supposed 8.5 hours of cutscenes.

Posted 11 months ago #
DSB
Member

@PB Luckily you don't have to take my word for it. Or that of random people on YouTube.

MGS 3

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ADM227536/

Max Payne 3

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ADM283991/

Like I clearly stated above, for the sake of being totally fair and honest, Metal Gear Solid 4 has cutscenes totalling twice that of Max Payne 3.

But that's not really saying a lot. This is still 4 hours and 10 minutes out of a 9 to 10 hour game.

Posted 11 months ago #
Phoenixblight
Member

Oh you are comparing a PS2 game to a next gen game genius Oh wait....

Posted 11 months ago #
DSB
Member

I think I'll pass on the schoolyard argument building there, and just let the obvious speak for itself.

Posted 11 months ago #

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