Max Payne 3

[mobias]

By the sounds of things they're well aware of the criticisms of GTAIV. Even watching the trailer for GTAV you can tell they've gone out of their way to show they're addressing them. It all looks much more bright, colourful and open. Incidentally I think Just Cause 2 was more of a game changer for them than anything Saints Row has come up with. A lot of JC2 was pretty rubbish but as an open world play area it gave you a lot to do and it certainly all looked very pretty. It's explosions were good.

Happy to carry on this discussion over on the GTAV thread so we don't derail this one.

[madhair60]

Oh, yeah, San Andreas with its fucking levelling up, that was fucking fun[nb]this is sarcasm i disliked these elements[/nb].  GTA IV is a masterpiece, even without taking the phenomenal multiplayer into account.

[Noodle Lizard]

Oh, yeah, San Andreas with its fucking levelling up, that was fucking fun[nb]this is sarcasm i disliked these elements[/nb].  GTA IV is a masterpiece, even without taking the phenomenal multiplayer into account.

Anyone who doesn't think San Andreas is superior to GTA IV in every way (except graphics) is wrong and a grotesquely ugly freak.

[chand]

Anyone who doesn't think San Andreas is superior to GTA IV in every way (except graphics) is wrong and a grotesquely ugly freak.

The levelling up shit in San Andreas was a relatively minor thing which you could pretty much ignore. As indeed you can with the 'going on dates/out with friends' stuff in IV that everyone soaked their kecks whining about.

[Famous Mortimer]

Does anyone here follow Graham Linehan on twitter?

No, because he's a prick. He's a former critic who can't bear even the slightest criticism of his own work (see many old threads here).

Dark Sky, I thought it was a lot more fun to play than the original - it just perfected all the different things about those sort of games, had humour and a great storyline...

Also, if you beat the game on Hard, Mona survives, which I just loved.

[madhair60]

Anyone who doesn't think San Andreas is superior to GTA IV in every way (except graphics) is wrong and a grotesquely ugly freak.

I won't deny being a grotesquely ugly freak, but I could never get on with San Andreas.  It felt sparse and a bit undercooked, and I wasn't too fond of the setting.  I'm willing to play it again to re-evaluate it, of course.  But I can't :(  Wait, yes I can, because I own it on Steam.  Disregard.

GTA IV is fucking brilliant though, sorry.  It is.  It's just utterly absorbing.  The city felt alive, it was just beautiful.  Also, holy shit the multiplayer.  So much fun.

[Noodle Lizard]

I won't deny being a grotesquely ugly freak, but I could never get on with San Andreas.  It felt sparse and a bit undercooked, and I wasn't too fond of the setting.  I'm willing to play it again to re-evaluate it, of course.  But I can't :(  Wait, yes I can, because I own it on Steam.  Disregard.

GTA IV is fucking brilliant though, sorry.  It is.  It's just utterly absorbing.  The city felt alive, it was just beautiful.  Also, holy shit the multiplayer.  So much fun.

Come on, now.  The multiplayer is rubbish.  It's just full of angry young Americans shouting "n**ger".

[Mister Six]

Oh, yeah, San Andreas with its fucking levelling up, that was fucking fun[nb]this is sarcasm i disliked these elements[/nb].  GTA IV is a masterpiece, even without taking the phenomenal multiplayer into account.

The levelling up was just something that happened in the background. I never bothered with the gyms or any of that, and had no problems with ploughing through the game (except for that shitty flying school, of course). Meanwhile, the fucking tedium that has soaked through every atom of GTAIV means that even without the levelling up, I'm invariably left bored shitless.

(And masterpiece? Come off it. There are about five different kinds of missions, repeated endlessly, and the story's only impressive for a game because most games' plots are laughable fucking shit.)

[mobias]

GTA IV is fucking brilliant though, sorry.  It is.  It's just utterly absorbing.  The city felt alive, it was just beautiful.  Also, holy shit the multiplayer.  So much fun.

Funny how differently people see things. The biggest single issue I had with GTAIV was that despite all the attention to detail I found Liberty City the most joyless and dull setting of any of the GTA cities thus far. There was so little of it that had any real character or interest. Lots and lots of side and back allies filled with rubbish blowing about in the wind may show an attention to detail but its all total wasted space. Despite Rockstar padding out the things to do list with the DLC chapters none of it really seemed to add up to much, especially when compared to a game like Just Cause 2 which admittedly had sod all attention to detail but was at least packed with stuff to do.

I also thought the multiplayer was utterly half baked. I can count the amount of satisfying multiplayer sessions I ever had with it on one hand. A big part of the problem was that there was no focus to it. Whatever game mode you tried to play pretty much everyone treated it as a death match. The races, which should have been great fun, were a joke. You destroy your car in the first few seconds then get put on a scooter. Fun! It all suffered dreadfully from frame rate issues and lag too which didn't help. Red Dead Redemption on the other hand was fantastic in multiplayer. It was a real model of how open world multiplayer can work. I'm sure they'll learn a lot from that.

Personally I loved San Andreas though I know a lot don't. It had by far the best story arc as you worked your way around the map and the three cities. The missions were far more varied than GTAIV's constant repetion on a single theme packed around the story. The final section of San Andreas were you returned to Los Santos in the midst of a riot was superbly done and the fact you could now bring your Harrier jump jet with you just added to the sense that there was a better balance going on between the serious enough story line and insane fun of playing GTA. Saints Row doesn't come close to that. There was a lot about San Andreas that was actually pushing open world gaming way more than GTAIV did which was just basically one huge experiment in bringing GTA to the current generation of consoles and the detail they're capable of. Beautiful looking game for its time but that's about it.
   

[Famous Mortimer]

Fuck off, relatives and friends! I don't want to stop in the middle of a mission to go and play fucking pool with you!

[madhair60]

Come on, now.  The multiplayer is rubbish.  It's just full of angry young Americans shouting "n**ger".

Maybe on 360.  I play on PC, make my own servers, play with friends and kick the ig'nants.  Shit = cash

[bitesize]

Fuck off, relatives and friends! I don't want to stop in the middle of a mission to go and play fucking pool with you!

  did you try turning your phone off when you didn't want to be disturbed? you know, like you would in real life? amazed by the amount of people who complained about always getting interrupted by Roman wanting to go bowling or something but never actually realised you could just turn your phone off...

[Zetetic]

That is terrible interaction design. It should have at least prompted you the 5th time you tried to fuck off whoever was ringing you this time.

[Famous Mortimer]

  did you try turning your phone off when you didn't want to be disturbed? you know, like you would in real life? amazed by the amount of people who complained about always getting interrupted by Roman wanting to go bowling or something but never actually realised you could just turn your phone off...

I never realised, presumably because the game never told me. I played that game a ton and it never occurred to me to turn my phone off. More fool me, I guess.

[bitesize]

you mean you didn't read the instruction manual before playing?? shocking.

no, i don't think it made it very obvious that the option was there - can't remember whether it was just an option in the phone menu or what. but as soon as i found it, it went off - no more Roman. though i seem to remember i only did that after i'd finished the main story so i don't know how it handles important story phone calls when you've switched it off, i guess you'd have to keep turning it on when you were expecting a call or something.

[Jerzy Bondov]

The story won't progress at all if you turn the phone off. It's just for mucking about.

[Entropy Balsmalch]

I seem to remember you could put it on silent, which meant the story would continue but the social calls were put on hold. I may be wrong though. I certainly did something which put an end to the constant calls.

[mobias]

Bought San Andreas last night for my iMac on a drunken whim. Played a bit of it this morning, my god we were easily pleased graphically back in 2004. Everything is so angular, there's zig zag's everywhere.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Yeah I played San Andreas recently too and found it quite ugly. At the time I thought it was beautiful but compared to games now it looks very cartoony. I don't have so much of a problem with it with Vice City as it's a lot more humorous and light hearted and suits the gaudy 80s Miami style. My main problems with it were the size, which was fun at first but soon became tiresome, too many driving missions, the soundtrack, which paled in comparison to Vice City, the lead character, and the final map, which was awfully dull. GTAIV isn't without issues and I find the setting a bit too grey and claustrophobic but it's wonderfully immersive.

Anyway, this is the order for GTA greatness and we'll hear no more on the matter:

GTA: Vice City > GTA IV > GTA: San Andreas > GTA III > GTA > GTA II

[Big Jack McBastard]

Yes San Andreas was an ugly muther when I last had a look too, but the jump jet and jetpack were still fun to tool about with.

Back on topic, finished the main story and am restarting on pansyass mode to scoop up the collectables

Anyone tried the multiplayer yet? I may have a jaunt tomorrow if I can drag myself away from Minecraft.

[Entropy Balsmalch]

Fired this up again yesterday after not really being arsed about playing it after dipping my toe in. Watched some fucking interminable cut scenes - shot a couple of people, another cut scene started and I though "Fuck it..." and hit eject.

Won't be playing again. Beautiful and probably made with love, but not for me.

[wasp_f15ting]

I am downloading the PC version as I type. Not a bad price on steam.
Will see how it runs.. 32GB taking the piss a bit.

[Dark Sky]

It's out it's out it's out and it's here!

Played the first five chapters so far.  Found the controls incredibly sluggish at first, and aiming practically impossible.  Ramped the mouselook sensitivity to max, and yet it still was a momentous effort to aim whilst in slow motion.  The whole point of these games is that whilst you're in slow motion you have absolute perfectly free, ultra sensitive control of the mouse.  THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT.  Anyway, turned off some annoying "slow down mouse when enemies are nearby so it's easier to aim at them" function, and it's better.  Not as smooth and silky as the first two games, but better.

Generally, I like the setting, I like the story, and it just looks and sounds gorgeous, aside from the ridiculous Brian De Palma editing (which I guess is meant to mimick comic book panels) and the constant distortion effects...urgh.

Gameplay wise, though...  I wish there was gameplay.  It's so stop and start it's ridiculous.  It's like they only grudgingly give you control of Max a couple of minutes at the time, then quickly revert back to cutscenes so they can carry on making their action movie.  Practically every door you get to triggers a cutscene.  And the way there's "minigames" (like the sniping, or the boat chase sequence) worked in every so often is depressing and reminds me of much cheaper, nastier games trying to create variety for the sake of it, like Duke Nukem Forever.

Overall Max Payne 3 feels like a console port which has been dumbed down for console gamers who don't want anything too strenuous.  I thought the whole "PC franchise ruined by console release" cliché was in the past, but apparently not.  Max Payne used to be an excellent on-rails twitch shooter, but now it feels like a vaguely interactive cutscene.  Boo.

[AsparagusTrevor]

It's out it's out it's out and it's here!

Played the first five chapters so far.  Found the controls incredibly sluggish at first, and aiming practically impossible.  Ramped the mouselook sensitivity to max, and yet it still was a momentous effort to aim whilst in slow motion.  The whole point of these games is that whilst you're in slow motion you have absolute perfectly free, ultra sensitive control of the mouse.  THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT.  Anyway, turned off some annoying "slow down mouse when enemies are nearby so it's easier to aim at them" function, and it's better.  Not as smooth and silky as the first two games, but better.

Generally, I like the setting, I like the story, and it just looks and sounds gorgeous, aside from the ridiculous Brian DePalma editing (which I guess is meant to mimick comic book panels) and the constant distortion effects...urgh.

Gameplay wise, though...  I wish there was gameplay.  It's so stop and start it's ridiculous.  It's like they only grudgingly give you control of Max a couple of minutes at the time, then quickly revert back to cutscenes so they can carry on making their action movie.  Practically every door you get to triggers a cutscene.  And the way there's "minigames" (like the sniping, or the boat chase sequence) worked in every so often is depressing and reminds me of much cheaper, nastier games trying to create variety for the sake of it, like Duke Nukem Forever.

Overall Max Payne 3 feels like a console port which has been dumped down for console gamers who don't want anything too strenuous.  I thought the whole "PC franchise ruined by console release" cliché was in the past, but apparently not.  Max Payne used to be an excellent on-rails twitch shooter, but now it feels like a vaguely interactive cutscene.  Boo.

My copy of the PC version arrived yesterday, I've played through the first three chapters and sadly I agree with all of this. I was a massive fan of 1 & 2, played through the second game quite recently too. The game plays well enough, when you have control that is, although I had to make some allowances for differences in controls (e.g. bullet-time and shoot-dodge have to be mapped to separate buttons now, and it won't let me map anything to Enter).

I was pleasantly surprised at how well it runs on high settings as well as looking spectacular. I just wish they'd fuck off with all the daft, seemingly random distortion effects on the cinematics, completely ruins the numerous cutscenes for me.

[Famous Mortimer]

I just bought the game via Steam, and it doesn't fucking work. A quick look at the forums for the game reveals the problem is with the filename having spaces in it, although I've just tried to change the things that need changing and it still doesn't work for me. I guess I'm still amazed that something can get this far down the release pipe and still have such a massive glaring error - did no-one check this, at all?

[Dark Sky]

That sucks massively.  Apparently a similar problem has plagued some people with retail versions as well...I - very luckily - didn't experience that.

Reading through the thread on the Steam website, it seems that renaming the folders allows the game to start, there's just then a problem with Steam's DRM which causes the game to crash during the copyright information.  Did you make it that far, even?

There's a lot to be said for waiting a month or two (or sometimes even longer!) after a game has been released before playing it, so they can iron out all the various kinks.  I appreciate it's so hard with PC games to allow for such variety of hardware and software setups, but sometimes you do wonder if they can't do more rigorous testing.

[AsparagusTrevor]

This game is fucking bastard hard, I don't think I have every died so much and so regularly on any game before since Eagle Empire on the Commodore 64. I finished Max Payne 1 & 2 on the hardest difficulties, but this is just something else.

Unfortunately it's hard in a scummy way rather than a fair way, the enemies' accuracy, especially with grenades is just daft. For example on one section I was in cover under a window in a small room, enemies outside, and on several occasions grenades magically managed to land wedged in the window-jamb right above me. Another time, I was hiding back in a roofed-off section, waiting to pick them off and a grenade landed next to my feet, I looked up and the only way in through the roof was a 1 sq. ft hole. Also, the checkpoints are in some really bad places and often before voice-overs which end up getting repetitive.

I played for about three hours yesterday and progressed very little in that time. I feel dirty even thinking it, but I may have to drop the difficulty down a notch.

[Dark Sky]

I have to say, I'm terrible at games so I've been playing it on Easy, and I'm still finding it quite difficult.  But so saying, I haven't had to replay any section more than three times, whereas there were bits in the first two games I would have to have 10+ goes on.

Then again, in Max Payne 1 and 2 you could save where you liked, none of this bollocksy console "checkpoint" nonsense.

Gonna go finish off the game now.

[Steve Lampkins]

Heh, I still remember playing MP1 with my wife - whoever was not playing would have their finger on the quick save button. And the moment we got past a frantic section, we'd be screaming 'SAVE, SAVE'. Then a ninja or something dropped from a hole in the roof, the missus shrieked in my ear, and I badly bruised my knee on the bottom of the desk. Good times.

[Dark Sky]

Aw so romantic :)

MP1 and 2 had a brilliant quick save system, and it was an instant reload when you died.  Good ol' Remedy, wonder what they're up to nowadays.  Oh yeah, that Alan Wake stuff.  Hmm.