Max Payne 3

[Jobey]

Best game I've played in a hot minute.

[Noodle Lizard]

Good ol' Remedy, wonder what they're up to nowadays.  Oh yeah, that Alan Wake stuff.  Hmm.

Alan Wake was really bollocks for bollocks - although you could be forgiven (as I have done myself) for thinking it's one of the best things ever after the first half an hour or so.  But once you realise that it's just long levels of doing the same exact thing again and again with quite literally no variance, it becomes apparent that it's ... bad.

It does look great though, and the premise itself was fine, but for five years of development you'd think they could come up with some real gameplay.

[Dark Sky]

They've finally ported Alan Wake to PC and I do mean to give it a go once the price drops to a disgustingly cheap amount (as it always does).

Should've done the same thing with Max Payne 3, really.  I did indeed finish it this afternoon...some of the final few levels were really good and reminded me a lot of the first two games.  I dunno if it finally let you play for a bit longer at a time, or if I just stopped noticing the cutscenes, too, which was nice.  But wow, I mean, it's such a slickly made game, such great graphics and animation and sound...  So much to admire in it, though little to really love.

[AsparagusTrevor]

I dropped the difficulty and played for about an hour and half yesterday evening and actually managed to flow throw the story dying only a couple of times. I've just got to the part where Max morphs into Walter White.

[wasp_f15ting]

Wow. stunning game, story was so so but the action was epic. I loved the bullet time so much.
Shame that the naff die cam always ended up leaning towards walls etc.. but overall great PC game really enjoyed that

[Default to the negative]

Just got this for the PC today and I'm really enjoying it so far. On paper, it's hard to put across what makes it good. There aren't really any new gameplay features. There was a (not great) John Woo-endorsed game called Stranglehold which cloned Max Payne and attempted to expand on it by adding a repertoire of tricks and acrobatics to the bullet-time. There's nothing like that here, it's just the same old slo-mo with a jump, and people could be put off by the lack of progress in that department. But for those who think Max has been away for too long, here's it's a slick and lavish return with top-notch animations. I don't know about replay value - it's tightly scripted and the cutscenes could get annoying on repeat viewings - but I'm getting a good first-time adrenaline rush from the set-pieces.

There are a few reasonably funny lines in there, if you like that sort of thing. "This place was like Baghdad with G-strings."

One little complaint: The bullet damage looks great on NPCs, but the wounds on Max himself look like B-movie ketchup blood. They're too bright and cartoonish. Only really noticable in cutscenes though.

[AsparagusTrevor]

I'd prefer if Max's wounds didn't show up on cutscenes altogether , it's a bit daft having Max stumble about complaining about a story-inflicted shoulder wound while his torso is perforated with in-game bullet hits.

[wheatgod]

In my imagination, if you never get hit by enemy bullets then Max's shirt stays clear of blood in the cut scenes.

But I wouldn't know, I always get shot to shit. Played it on hard with no aim assist, nails!

[surreal]

"A day in the life of Max Payne"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU0dgjon10U

[Mister Six]

Finally completed this today, and thought it got better and better as it went along - the sprawling story and the attention to detail (I wonder how many character models they made for Max in the end?) was tremendous.

I was a little disappointed by the tone of the thing, though. All the GRR UBER REALISM stuff was kind of at odds with the earlier games, which always had a slightly anarchic, surreal streak and a devilish sense of humour. Running into organ thieves for all of a single cutscene is nowhere near as gloriously OTT as raiding a paramilitary stronghold that's cranking out a crazy-making drug because a guy named after a Norse god told you about it. Or shooting up a haunted house ride full of gangsters. Or having a hooker and and old guy watch your back as the mob come for you.

The scene in one of the flashbacks where your crazy neighbour takes out some crims was a little flash of that kind of spirit, but it wasn't enough.

Ah well - it was a cracking game, and felt suitably meaty. I hope they have MP4 cued up.

[Dark Sky]

Did it really feel meaty to you?  My main problem with MP3 was how little actual game there seemed to be.

Dunno about a fourth one...apparently MP3 sold surprisingly poorly.  Which is odd considering it's a popular franchise, people love Rockstar's games, and there was a massive marketing blitz for it.

[Mister Six]

I meant in terms of the overall experience, although I'm not sure it was as thin on action as people say. But I probably won't play it again to find out.

[madhair60]

Which is odd considering it's a popular franchise

I dunno.  It was popular like, almost a decade ago when Max Payne 2 came out.  Then the movie was released to mass apathy.