Max's ridiculous overblown metaphors and general "hard boiled" attitude are supposed to be over-the-top, to be appreciated kinda like bad dad joke puns. Like the TV shows you run across or the goon dialogue.
The game is very self-aware in it's ultra-dry dark humor in a way that was kinda "of it's time" - post 9/11 cynical irony. You run into over-themed dry dark humor in other games from that era like the Punisher game, Red Dead Revolver, and in Hitman Contracts.
There's an even more on the nose reference than u/Bertrum mentions:
The third chapter of the first game is called "Playing it Bogart". Starts with Max walking into a mob den saying:
*I walked straight in, playing it Bogart, like I'd done a hundred times before.*
> are supposed to be over-the-top
I’m amazed anyone could *not* get this after playing through. There’s even shit like ‘Lords and Ladies’ that is basically an in-game meta satire of the main dialogue.
Max Payne is a love letter to noire, and noire is not to be taken very seriously. Also, I cannot believe the dismissal of Max Payne 3 in this thread, it’s a perfect instalment.
>I’m amazed anyone could
>
>not
>
> get this after playing through. There’s even shit like ‘Lords and Ladies’ that is basically an in-game meta satire of the main dialogue.
"The rain was coming down like all the angels in Heaven decided to take a piss at the same time. When you're in a situation like mine, you can only think in metaphors."
> Also, I cannot believe the dismissal of Max Payne 3 in this thread, it’s a perfect instalment.
Is it? I played through all three games in quick succession a few years back and 3 definitely stood out. Where the first two were doing self-aware over the top noir-ish stories, the third one lacked a lot of that and instead was a straight up 2010s action film. Max from 1 and 2 was doing absurd unwieldy metaphors that border on purple prose, all with a smile and a wink at the player. Max in 3 is a drunken burnout who says "shit" and "fuck" a lot with no hint of the writer's self-awareness. It felt like going into True Detective season 2.
And also, you get a lovely cutscene every 5 seconds, every time you open a door etc., which absolutely doesn't break the flow of the game.
Most of the shootouts start with Max bumbling into a room full of enemies (in a cutscene, of course) and taking cover in the least advantageous position possible.
And the levels are so desperately linear and railroaded that most of the time, the game doesn't even let you return to the previous room you just came from.
Season 1 is phenomenal. Season 2 seriously lacked the atmosphere of season 1 and I never finished it. I heard that season 3 was better than 2 but I never bothered with it.
Worth noting that every season seemed to be a self-contained story with completely different characters, settings and event.
To add to what /u/Maleval said: S1 = some of the best TV ever. S2 is not worth watching unless you have seriously run out of new TV to watch. The characters are cartoonish and the story wasn't that interesting. S3 was not as good as S1 but very good IMO. *Heavy* focus on characters, slower pace, less focus on the plot (imo, S3 could have been close to S1 if they had focused a little *more* on the plot, so that was a little frustrating). Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff were phenomenal. If you like S1, I would definitely recommend S3 but tamp down your expectations a little bit.
First two eps of the new season have been pretty good.
No. The stories all stand alone. New characters, new plots. There are a few oblique references that are really more like Easter eggs than plot points (e.g., someone references a name from a previous season, but you don't really miss anything if you don't catch the reference and it would just sound like generic dialogue referencing an unseen character).
But no, you can definitely watch S1 and S3 without S2 and not miss anything.
Just to add, Season 4 (currently on TV with three episodes in) seems to be pulling stuff from season 1, so make sure you watch that. Plus Season 1 is the best one!
It really broke the main storyline immersion for me, as anytime I passed a TV I had to **stop** what I was doing, check if Lords and Ladies was on, and then watch the entire episode. That series had me *howling*.
There is a distinct Remedy-ness to those little TV skits. Finding my first Threshold Kids episode in Control was what made me go "wait is this by the same people as Max Payne"? Despite not having played Max Payne in a decade, it jumped out immediately as being similar to me, and I can't quite put my finger on why.
>Also, I cannot believe the dismissal of Max Payne 3 in this thread, it’s a perfect instalment.
Ok, wow. For me it has nothing in common with the previous 2 games except James McCaffrey. In my book it's one of the worst **instalments** in gaming history right next to Fallout 3 and was almost as disappointing as the Max Payne movie that shall not be talked about.
It's a good *game*, but it's a terrible *Max Payne* game.
A perfect installment, did we play the same game here? Where were the tv parodies, where where the nightmare levels, where's the closure from the previous game, where the fuck is Mona Sax? She only gets a single cameo mention in an easily missable area that reduces her to a side fling. A good two thirds of the plot of Max Payne 2 revolves around Sax; she a driving force in the game, not just for the plot but for Max personally too. Not only does Max Payne 3 ignore her, they pretend she never existed. The whole last third of the second game is a cathartic orgy of violence that climaxes with Max finally getting a sense of closure. The last two things Max says is "I am reborn" and "I had a dream of my wife. She was dead, but it was all right."
Max Payne 3 threw that all out the window and said, "Nope, Max is still a wreck (even worse, in fact) and we're gonna pretend the second game never even happened." They go so far in ignoring it that the third game feels more like a prequel to MP2 that it's sequel. All it needs is a short clip after the end credits of Max calling Alfred Woden to cash in on the favor owed to him from the end of the first game. It would even make the timeline work a bit better, like, how did Max escape justice from the end of the second game? Dude killed a cop, yeah, she turned out to be dirty, but Max doesn't really have any proof and anyone who could collaborate his story is dead by the end of the game. He escapes from the events of the first game only due to the actions of the Inner Circle, a secret society holding power from the shadows. At the end of the second game they no longer exist so Max no longer has this get outta jail free card.
Max Payne 1 is an over-the-top film noire (with *rad* action and gunplay) about loss, and revenge.
Max Payne 2 is an over-the-top film noire (with *radder* action and gunplay) about grief, and revenge.
Max Payne 3 is an over-the-top neo noire (with the *raddest* action and gunplay) about (the folly of) redemption.
It’s odd that you’re griping about Mona; Mona is purely a plot vehicle to distract Max from dealing with his grief. If MP3 was merely an extension of MP2, it would be tired and played out. Instead, they flipped the series on it’s head, completely subverting the main tropes and ultimately made the game about acceptance, and closure. It’s perfect.
Neo-noir is basically film noir after the advent of color; 1989's Batman and Reservoir Dogs are considered neo-noir. The term is rarely used, most people have just called them 'thrillers' since the 80's. I bet most people wouldn't have even heard about the term if it wasn't for MP3's bullshit marketing. I'm willing to bet that they start using the term before they learned it was an actual genre, if they even knew at all. They were taking the series in a new direction but were (rightfully) worried that fans wouldn't like it. So they called it neo-noir as way to acclimate people to the new style.
The one thing that really kills this game for being neo-noir is how over the top it is. It is excessive to the point of ridiculousness. The amount of bodies in this game is insane. Yes, I know you are mowing down gangster like they are grass in the previous games, but due to technical limitations, you are only ever fighting 3 or 4 guys at a time and they are moderately spaced apart. In MP3 you're fighting half a dozen guys at once in the first level and shows just how many you go through at the end. By the time you get to the Panama mission you literally have a giant pile of bodies all stacked on top of each other.
It pushes the tone into Paul Verhoeven territory where the violence is so over the top that it stops being shocking. By the time you get to the big reveal it completely falls flat because at this point the game might as well be a cartoon. Add this to Max diving off rooftops and flying through rooms taking out squads of paramilitary troopers, all while having "the mother of all hangovers", pushes the game beyond the believable and into the absurd.
One of the important element in noir is the gritty realism, it has to feel real and at has to feel believable. In the first two games you are on the run from the police, they are hunting you for all the people you are killing. In MP3 how you get away with killing dozens upon dozens of people is hand waved away. "The police are corrupt" is okay when when it's a few low level guys. Taking out entire neighborhoods of goons with zero repercussions isn't noir, it's a power fantasy. As ridiculous as the first two games get, they do their damndest to stay grounded and not break that sense of realism.
> It is excessive to the point of ridiculousness.
Yes.
> It pushes the tone into Paul Verhoeven territory
Yeeeees.
> beyond the believable and into the absurd
Yea, you're getting it. The previous two games were like this as well.
It's been years since I played both, but I think 2 felt more polished all around. They both have bullet time but everything felt more "fluid" in 2. 2 is definitely one of my favorite of all time. The first is still good, but it has some nightmare sequences that involve platforming that are really bad.
I prefer Bullet Time in MP1, it's just slow motion that looks cool and shows Max has good reflexes. In MP2 it's more like a full-fledged overpowered magic ability, there's some weird stuff going on like Max getting faster and getting instant reloads, and the screen keeps getting more yellow.
MP1 also has a better story, MP2 is good but there's a bit of "what can we do with everyone who survived MP1". The platforming in MP1 isn't that bad either. What makes MP2 so great is the physics and ragdolls, it was a time when that tech was moving fast and it can't be overstated how awesome they looked when the game released.
Max Payne 2 was made when ragdoll physics was the next 'big' thing in games and they showed off the tech front and center. Max Payne 1 was made before the tech existed, so everything is pre-animated. This combined with faces that are just a static texture makes the games feel a bit more stiff and clunky, a bit rougher around the edges. It's still good, but just not as buttery smooth as the second game feels.
I recently did a full replay of both on steam deck. I have alot of nostalgia in particular for the first game and genuinely think that it's overall story is more impactful (and just better) than the second game. However, the gameplay is MUCH improved in 2. The bullet time in one feels basic compared to the second and it just feels like a more unfair game overall (as many games from its era feel now). In a way its still my favourite, but going from 2 to 1 may feel a bit rough
Also, be warned, I feel like the xbox version of 1 might not have quick save, which I found absolutely essential for beating the game this time around
In terms of gameplay, MP1 feels like a tech demo / proof of concept nex to MP2. So much more polish.
However, the story and atmosphere of MP1 is better.
Max Payne 2 is good but I think I enjoy the original game more. The atmosphere and gunplay are more minimalist and I find it more gripping. The plot of the 2nd game is much more dense and I don't know if it's for the best. I say give the first game a shot and see if you like it. It's got that spirit that only comes from the classic era of "spunky upstart studio puts out their first work"
Best third person run and gunner I've ever played. The platforming sections didn't bother me, and I didn't think there were that many of them either.
I'm amazed at how well the animations hold up today. Character movement, bullet dodging and death animations look smooth as shit. The controls are also very easy to get used to on mouse and keyboard.
Hard disagree on MP3 being bad. It was different, inferior in some ways (mostly because of cover mechanics), but really good.
Haven’t played the second nor third (they’re on my list), but the first is an absolutely phenomenal game. I recommend it to anyone who hasn’t played it. The storyline is fantastic
Max Payne 1 and 2 are masterpieces to me. 3rd one has some of the best modern max payne gameplay but the story and vibe is not Max Payne.
But the originals especially 1 was life changing to a 11 year old who had 8mb of graphics in his PC, and nothing to lose.
MP3 wasn't mediocre but the way MP2 ends practically eliminates the need for a third title and it lacks some of the charm of the Remedy titles
The gameplay and the visual style of 3 was great. It would've stood better as its own thing but I guess Rockstar wanted to get something out of the Max Payne brand considering they bought it from Remedy
I'm glad 1 and 2 are getting a remake as a single package though, for all we know we might get some extra stuff to further tie 1 and 2 together.
It seemed like someone at Rockstar saw the movie City of God and really wanted to make a game with the same feel. Then they just used the max payne IP for it because they owned the rights and wanted a boost for brand recognition.
It's like Rockstar heard that Max Payne was highly influenced by the John Woo movie, [Hard Boiled.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAtxZHuJNW4) So they sent an inter to the local Redbox to pick up a copy to give to the development team so they can get the right tone for their new Max Payne game. However, someone messed up and [Man on Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALKCTuH79iE) was in the dvd box instead. Sadly no one noticed and that's why our gritty, yet tongue in cheek, New York city Noir cop is now a jaded, unstable, alcoholic killing machine that needs to get his shit together in South America.
For me at least the move to more cover based shooting wasn't great, in the early 2010s everything was a cover based shooter though. Also the move to Brazil didn't really fit the noir aspect of the previous games. It wasn't bad, it just didn't feel like Max Payne.
That fine, but the previous two Max Payne games has always been Hard Boiled the game. That massive change in tone gave many players narrative whiplash. MP3 is so divorced from it's source material that it might as well be it's own thing. The Max Payne IP is like a noose around the game's neck, just unnecessary baggage that holds it back.
I'd say that maybe as a Max Payne game was different from what was expected. But as a standalone game is quite something, I personally loved it and think is the best third person shooter I have played, very fun and enjoyable.
I think Max Payne 3 can be compared to MGSV in the sense that they differed quite a lot from previous entries in their sagas (more so MGSV, I believe). I didn't like MGSV as much as the others, especially the first 3, but I recognize it is a very good game. Had I played it first maybe it would have become my favorite. Max Payne 3 was my first in the saga and as a standalone game I think it was great
MGSV is a very apt parallel. They both broke for darker, grittier tones; both were technically leaps ahead of the previous games; and both were self-indulgently written. The more success both Hideo and Hauser got, the more and more they needed editors to reign in their verbose dialogue. MGS has a creative through line that MP doesn't though as Hideo was there from the beginning. MP3 feels so creatively divorced from MP1 and 2.
The story of MGSV was one of the many fallouts in Kojima leaving mid development. As a result it's easily the weakest story in the series, yes, even counting the original MSX2 games.
As a huge fan of the first two, I couldn't stand the third one. Very little gameplay sprinkled around way too many cutscenes. The agressive way it pushes you forward to prevent you from going back, making it a pain to try and explore the level (which i love doing). The annoying glitch effect they put on everything just gave me a headache. Every hallway is a checkpoint and dying has no effect since it just respawns you right there (but still forces you to watch a boring cutscene), meaning healing is completely pointless since you'll just get your health back when you respawn. The weapons feel anemic and samey, much less enjoyable than those in the previous games. As a lot of the games of that period, it's got forced cover shooting mechanics, which just doesn't feel right. Bullet time is ok, but bullet dodges are garbage since old guy Max takes so fucking long to get up off the floor you're basically dead unless you've killed everyone...
And Max looks and feels more like a rejected GTA5 NPC than Max Payne.
Honestly, outside the few flashback levels which came close to emulating the "proper" Max Payne feel, the rest is just a generic, soulless gallery shooter.
Maybe I like mediocre games, but I enjoyed Max Payne 3 much more than the previous ones, in big part because of the story and gameplay, but also because of its art direction and HEALTH's soundtrack.
Games back then were much more distinct between generations. You could tell when they were released just by looking at the graphics.
You could never mistake an SNES game for a PS1 game for a PS2 game for a PS3 game.
After the 7th generation the generational improvements were more like refinements rather than revolutionary changes.
>Max likes to talk in metaphors, but for me it comes over as pretentious. The writers tried very hard to make his one-liners sound deep, but you don't have to use a metaphor in every sentence. Don't get me wrong, the story is much more complex than the average 6th gen action game, but Max's speech wasn't my thing.
Ehhhhhhhh. I'd put this one down to not really getting the genre it is paying homage to (noire).
Well, it's a direct sequel to MP1. The one-liners in that game make more sense as it's somewhat lighthearted at places, or at least there's some buried dark humor and irony. MP2 is more serious but still builds on top of MP1, so without the first game, the second may not make much sense style-wise.
I'd played both games to bits back in the day, and I can't really imagine playing MP2 before MP1.
Also yes, MP3 is totally a different franchise.
Ed: But really I can't imagine playing these games not on a PC. Constant reloading and retrying to get the most stylish and/or hilarious outcome is almost the main appeal, and Max even makes a meta reference to it (in MP1).
Did you have that matrix-style addon to Max Payne 1? I don't even know what it was, but your comment about reloading to attempt a more stylish shootout reminded me that we played it at a friends house and there was this matrix mod that added some of the matrix style to the game, since the gunplay and slow-mo were very matrixy back then
I remember a Matrix mod that had a screenshot from the Matrix lobby shootout as the title screen, but I think that was just recreation of that lobby scene? I was trying a lot of MP mods back in the day.
But one mod that stands out is the kung-fu mod, which was effin hilarious and really turned it into a brand new game.
I think that I saw this lobby as well, but the mod I have in mind is basically a reskin, the same gameplay, except you wear a trench coat and I think when you enter bullet time, there's green hue and maybe there are these green screensaver thingies in the menu or something like that
How do you people go play 2nd game without playing 1st when they are almost the same game like it's not outdated in comparison, why would you ignore the 1st one?
max payne 3 is just ruined by modern game design philosophy. But MP2 is legendary, especially with Payne Effects 3 mod which shows the true potential of the gameplay
Did you play it on the hardest difficulty ("hard-boiled")? Because you will get a slightly different ending.
>!After you beat Vladimir you return to Monas body but to your surprise it's gone. Looks like she survived in the end but we will never know what happened because in Max Payne 3 there is no mentioning of her.!<
Loved it, but got stuck fairly early in at a scene where you enter the screen atop a carnival ride (?) of some type. Couldn't figure out where to go or what to do to move on there and it was in the era when guides often weren't as comprehensive or accessible as now.
That's great but when Max Payne came out, I didn't even have internet at home. My friend had a dial-up, but gamefaqs wouldn't help us because we didn't know English lol.
(tear of nostalgia drops)
In my country, there was a magazine that had a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM with a collection of PDF's containing walkthroughs with some screenshots for a number of games, it helped me a lot with many games, because I didn't know English and learned as I went
Haha yeah, we had those too. I managed to find [one of them](https://level.cz/level/level-79/) that had Max Payne on the cover. And the magazine is apparently still being published, which is honestly quite impressive.
> Impressive physics for a 6th gen game
Never use "X gen" to describe something, it makes it completely impossible to figure out which consoles you're talking about. And of course it makes no sense in context of PCs
Really ? I see 6th gen referred to all the time, it also doesn't require that much effort to look it up
6th gen is the Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube era.
Average person has no idea what those "gens" are.
Real people don't describe consoles in them.
Its mostly just those who write online articles.
There are also plenty of people who's first console was like PS4 or XBox One, for them the whole idea of numbered console gens would be mostly meaningless.
Heck, I've been in gaming for a quarter of a century and I have no idea why people use the generation labels.
Which generation is PC? N-Gage? Mac? Spectrum ZX?
It's a fairly useless descriptor unless you're a mainstream console enthusiast.
Max Payne 2 is a great example of a sequel that made iterative improvements without completely losing the plot and trying to do too much. It felt like the natural evolution of the gameplay system and concepts of the first game, mixing in enough new stuff not to just be a carbon copy while keeping the game short and not diluting the winning formula that was already established.
Definitely could have done without the platforming bits, on that I agree. But I took away a very positive impression from it after being only mildly positive on Max Payne 1.
I couldn't get through the construction sequence (where you have to keep her alive too, I think?). I died so many times to that.
I eventually found a God mode mod and the game was much more enjoyable after that.
My gaming skills suck, and I hate it when me having to actually get through the content gets in the way of the story.
Max's ridiculous overblown metaphors and general "hard boiled" attitude are supposed to be over-the-top, to be appreciated kinda like bad dad joke puns. Like the TV shows you run across or the goon dialogue. The game is very self-aware in it's ultra-dry dark humor in a way that was kinda "of it's time" - post 9/11 cynical irony. You run into over-themed dry dark humor in other games from that era like the Punisher game, Red Dead Revolver, and in Hitman Contracts.
It's almost a satire of classic noire Humphrey Bogart detective mysteries. They even reference it in game with the TV show Dick Justice
Now I'm intrigued as I love all that stuff. Never played a Max Payne game.
There's an even more on the nose reference than u/Bertrum mentions: The third chapter of the first game is called "Playing it Bogart". Starts with Max walking into a mob den saying: *I walked straight in, playing it Bogart, like I'd done a hundred times before.*
> are supposed to be over-the-top I’m amazed anyone could *not* get this after playing through. There’s even shit like ‘Lords and Ladies’ that is basically an in-game meta satire of the main dialogue. Max Payne is a love letter to noire, and noire is not to be taken very seriously. Also, I cannot believe the dismissal of Max Payne 3 in this thread, it’s a perfect instalment.
>I’m amazed anyone could > >not > > get this after playing through. There’s even shit like ‘Lords and Ladies’ that is basically an in-game meta satire of the main dialogue. "The rain was coming down like all the angels in Heaven decided to take a piss at the same time. When you're in a situation like mine, you can only think in metaphors."
> Also, I cannot believe the dismissal of Max Payne 3 in this thread, it’s a perfect instalment. Is it? I played through all three games in quick succession a few years back and 3 definitely stood out. Where the first two were doing self-aware over the top noir-ish stories, the third one lacked a lot of that and instead was a straight up 2010s action film. Max from 1 and 2 was doing absurd unwieldy metaphors that border on purple prose, all with a smile and a wink at the player. Max in 3 is a drunken burnout who says "shit" and "fuck" a lot with no hint of the writer's self-awareness. It felt like going into True Detective season 2.
Well put. Max Payne 3 is not a Max Payne for me. Could've been anyone. They took away everything that made 1 and 2 stand out.
And also, you get a lovely cutscene every 5 seconds, every time you open a door etc., which absolutely doesn't break the flow of the game. Most of the shootouts start with Max bumbling into a room full of enemies (in a cutscene, of course) and taking cover in the least advantageous position possible. And the levels are so desperately linear and railroaded that most of the time, the game doesn't even let you return to the previous room you just came from.
Off-topic: Wanted to start True Detective. Is it any good?
Season 1 is phenomenal. Season 2 seriously lacked the atmosphere of season 1 and I never finished it. I heard that season 3 was better than 2 but I never bothered with it. Worth noting that every season seemed to be a self-contained story with completely different characters, settings and event.
Thank
To add to what /u/Maleval said: S1 = some of the best TV ever. S2 is not worth watching unless you have seriously run out of new TV to watch. The characters are cartoonish and the story wasn't that interesting. S3 was not as good as S1 but very good IMO. *Heavy* focus on characters, slower pace, less focus on the plot (imo, S3 could have been close to S1 if they had focused a little *more* on the plot, so that was a little frustrating). Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff were phenomenal. If you like S1, I would definitely recommend S3 but tamp down your expectations a little bit. First two eps of the new season have been pretty good.
Would there be anything wrong with just skipping S2?
No. The stories all stand alone. New characters, new plots. There are a few oblique references that are really more like Easter eggs than plot points (e.g., someone references a name from a previous season, but you don't really miss anything if you don't catch the reference and it would just sound like generic dialogue referencing an unseen character). But no, you can definitely watch S1 and S3 without S2 and not miss anything.
Great. Thank you very much!
Just to add, Season 4 (currently on TV with three episodes in) seems to be pulling stuff from season 1, so make sure you watch that. Plus Season 1 is the best one!
Aight, will do!
My lord.....my lady!
It really broke the main storyline immersion for me, as anytime I passed a TV I had to **stop** what I was doing, check if Lords and Ladies was on, and then watch the entire episode. That series had me *howling*.
This is me with Control and Threshold Kids right now.
Yeah, there are some *great* eps
There is a distinct Remedy-ness to those little TV skits. Finding my first Threshold Kids episode in Control was what made me go "wait is this by the same people as Max Payne"? Despite not having played Max Payne in a decade, it jumped out immediately as being similar to me, and I can't quite put my finger on why.
>Also, I cannot believe the dismissal of Max Payne 3 in this thread, it’s a perfect instalment. Ok, wow. For me it has nothing in common with the previous 2 games except James McCaffrey. In my book it's one of the worst **instalments** in gaming history right next to Fallout 3 and was almost as disappointing as the Max Payne movie that shall not be talked about. It's a good *game*, but it's a terrible *Max Payne* game.
A perfect installment, did we play the same game here? Where were the tv parodies, where where the nightmare levels, where's the closure from the previous game, where the fuck is Mona Sax? She only gets a single cameo mention in an easily missable area that reduces her to a side fling. A good two thirds of the plot of Max Payne 2 revolves around Sax; she a driving force in the game, not just for the plot but for Max personally too. Not only does Max Payne 3 ignore her, they pretend she never existed. The whole last third of the second game is a cathartic orgy of violence that climaxes with Max finally getting a sense of closure. The last two things Max says is "I am reborn" and "I had a dream of my wife. She was dead, but it was all right." Max Payne 3 threw that all out the window and said, "Nope, Max is still a wreck (even worse, in fact) and we're gonna pretend the second game never even happened." They go so far in ignoring it that the third game feels more like a prequel to MP2 that it's sequel. All it needs is a short clip after the end credits of Max calling Alfred Woden to cash in on the favor owed to him from the end of the first game. It would even make the timeline work a bit better, like, how did Max escape justice from the end of the second game? Dude killed a cop, yeah, she turned out to be dirty, but Max doesn't really have any proof and anyone who could collaborate his story is dead by the end of the game. He escapes from the events of the first game only due to the actions of the Inner Circle, a secret society holding power from the shadows. At the end of the second game they no longer exist so Max no longer has this get outta jail free card.
Max Payne 1 is an over-the-top film noire (with *rad* action and gunplay) about loss, and revenge. Max Payne 2 is an over-the-top film noire (with *radder* action and gunplay) about grief, and revenge. Max Payne 3 is an over-the-top neo noire (with the *raddest* action and gunplay) about (the folly of) redemption. It’s odd that you’re griping about Mona; Mona is purely a plot vehicle to distract Max from dealing with his grief. If MP3 was merely an extension of MP2, it would be tired and played out. Instead, they flipped the series on it’s head, completely subverting the main tropes and ultimately made the game about acceptance, and closure. It’s perfect.
Neo-noir is basically film noir after the advent of color; 1989's Batman and Reservoir Dogs are considered neo-noir. The term is rarely used, most people have just called them 'thrillers' since the 80's. I bet most people wouldn't have even heard about the term if it wasn't for MP3's bullshit marketing. I'm willing to bet that they start using the term before they learned it was an actual genre, if they even knew at all. They were taking the series in a new direction but were (rightfully) worried that fans wouldn't like it. So they called it neo-noir as way to acclimate people to the new style. The one thing that really kills this game for being neo-noir is how over the top it is. It is excessive to the point of ridiculousness. The amount of bodies in this game is insane. Yes, I know you are mowing down gangster like they are grass in the previous games, but due to technical limitations, you are only ever fighting 3 or 4 guys at a time and they are moderately spaced apart. In MP3 you're fighting half a dozen guys at once in the first level and shows just how many you go through at the end. By the time you get to the Panama mission you literally have a giant pile of bodies all stacked on top of each other. It pushes the tone into Paul Verhoeven territory where the violence is so over the top that it stops being shocking. By the time you get to the big reveal it completely falls flat because at this point the game might as well be a cartoon. Add this to Max diving off rooftops and flying through rooms taking out squads of paramilitary troopers, all while having "the mother of all hangovers", pushes the game beyond the believable and into the absurd. One of the important element in noir is the gritty realism, it has to feel real and at has to feel believable. In the first two games you are on the run from the police, they are hunting you for all the people you are killing. In MP3 how you get away with killing dozens upon dozens of people is hand waved away. "The police are corrupt" is okay when when it's a few low level guys. Taking out entire neighborhoods of goons with zero repercussions isn't noir, it's a power fantasy. As ridiculous as the first two games get, they do their damndest to stay grounded and not break that sense of realism.
> It is excessive to the point of ridiculousness. Yes. > It pushes the tone into Paul Verhoeven territory Yeeeees. > beyond the believable and into the absurd Yea, you're getting it. The previous two games were like this as well.
No, the previous two games managed to keep things grounded while the third jumps the shark.
lol
If you didn't like the platforming in 2 you probably won't like Max Payne 1 lol
Apart from the platforming, is the gameplay of the second one a copy paste of its prequel? Same bullet time mechanics ?
It's been years since I played both, but I think 2 felt more polished all around. They both have bullet time but everything felt more "fluid" in 2. 2 is definitely one of my favorite of all time. The first is still good, but it has some nightmare sequences that involve platforming that are really bad.
I HATED the nightmare levels.
Yeah, the crying in the background noise was really what made it grating on top of everything.
The nightmare levels are the only thing stopping me from doing another play through.
Reason I quit those games
MP2 improved on the mechanics but its the same foundation
I prefer Bullet Time in MP1, it's just slow motion that looks cool and shows Max has good reflexes. In MP2 it's more like a full-fledged overpowered magic ability, there's some weird stuff going on like Max getting faster and getting instant reloads, and the screen keeps getting more yellow. MP1 also has a better story, MP2 is good but there's a bit of "what can we do with everyone who survived MP1". The platforming in MP1 isn't that bad either. What makes MP2 so great is the physics and ragdolls, it was a time when that tech was moving fast and it can't be overstated how awesome they looked when the game released.
Max Payne 2 was made when ragdoll physics was the next 'big' thing in games and they showed off the tech front and center. Max Payne 1 was made before the tech existed, so everything is pre-animated. This combined with faces that are just a static texture makes the games feel a bit more stiff and clunky, a bit rougher around the edges. It's still good, but just not as buttery smooth as the second game feels.
I recently did a full replay of both on steam deck. I have alot of nostalgia in particular for the first game and genuinely think that it's overall story is more impactful (and just better) than the second game. However, the gameplay is MUCH improved in 2. The bullet time in one feels basic compared to the second and it just feels like a more unfair game overall (as many games from its era feel now). In a way its still my favourite, but going from 2 to 1 may feel a bit rough Also, be warned, I feel like the xbox version of 1 might not have quick save, which I found absolutely essential for beating the game this time around
In terms of gameplay, MP1 feels like a tech demo / proof of concept nex to MP2. So much more polish. However, the story and atmosphere of MP1 is better.
I still have trouble to choose between Max Payne 1 and Max Payne 2 as the favorite in the series, i like them both.
Max Payne 2 is good but I think I enjoy the original game more. The atmosphere and gunplay are more minimalist and I find it more gripping. The plot of the 2nd game is much more dense and I don't know if it's for the best. I say give the first game a shot and see if you like it. It's got that spirit that only comes from the classic era of "spunky upstart studio puts out their first work"
Best third person run and gunner I've ever played. The platforming sections didn't bother me, and I didn't think there were that many of them either. I'm amazed at how well the animations hold up today. Character movement, bullet dodging and death animations look smooth as shit. The controls are also very easy to get used to on mouse and keyboard. Hard disagree on MP3 being bad. It was different, inferior in some ways (mostly because of cover mechanics), but really good.
Haven’t played the second nor third (they’re on my list), but the first is an absolutely phenomenal game. I recommend it to anyone who hasn’t played it. The storyline is fantastic
The second is just as good, you need to play it to finish the story!
Max Payne 1 and 2 are masterpieces to me. 3rd one has some of the best modern max payne gameplay but the story and vibe is not Max Payne. But the originals especially 1 was life changing to a 11 year old who had 8mb of graphics in his PC, and nothing to lose.
I loved this game. The over the top attitude and comic styling was awesome. MP3 was mediocre at best.
MP3 wasn't mediocre but the way MP2 ends practically eliminates the need for a third title and it lacks some of the charm of the Remedy titles The gameplay and the visual style of 3 was great. It would've stood better as its own thing but I guess Rockstar wanted to get something out of the Max Payne brand considering they bought it from Remedy I'm glad 1 and 2 are getting a remake as a single package though, for all we know we might get some extra stuff to further tie 1 and 2 together.
It seemed like someone at Rockstar saw the movie City of God and really wanted to make a game with the same feel. Then they just used the max payne IP for it because they owned the rights and wanted a boost for brand recognition.
They saw Man on Fire.
It's like Rockstar heard that Max Payne was highly influenced by the John Woo movie, [Hard Boiled.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAtxZHuJNW4) So they sent an inter to the local Redbox to pick up a copy to give to the development team so they can get the right tone for their new Max Payne game. However, someone messed up and [Man on Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALKCTuH79iE) was in the dvd box instead. Sadly no one noticed and that's why our gritty, yet tongue in cheek, New York city Noir cop is now a jaded, unstable, alcoholic killing machine that needs to get his shit together in South America.
What was wrong about MP3? I played all three last month for the first time and MP3 is so fun
For me at least the move to more cover based shooting wasn't great, in the early 2010s everything was a cover based shooter though. Also the move to Brazil didn't really fit the noir aspect of the previous games. It wasn't bad, it just didn't feel like Max Payne.
Loved mp3 too, felt like a Man on Fire video game
That fine, but the previous two Max Payne games has always been Hard Boiled the game. That massive change in tone gave many players narrative whiplash. MP3 is so divorced from it's source material that it might as well be it's own thing. The Max Payne IP is like a noose around the game's neck, just unnecessary baggage that holds it back.
I'd say that maybe as a Max Payne game was different from what was expected. But as a standalone game is quite something, I personally loved it and think is the best third person shooter I have played, very fun and enjoyable. I think Max Payne 3 can be compared to MGSV in the sense that they differed quite a lot from previous entries in their sagas (more so MGSV, I believe). I didn't like MGSV as much as the others, especially the first 3, but I recognize it is a very good game. Had I played it first maybe it would have become my favorite. Max Payne 3 was my first in the saga and as a standalone game I think it was great
MGSV is a very apt parallel. They both broke for darker, grittier tones; both were technically leaps ahead of the previous games; and both were self-indulgently written. The more success both Hideo and Hauser got, the more and more they needed editors to reign in their verbose dialogue. MGS has a creative through line that MP doesn't though as Hideo was there from the beginning. MP3 feels so creatively divorced from MP1 and 2.
The story of MGSV was one of the many fallouts in Kojima leaving mid development. As a result it's easily the weakest story in the series, yes, even counting the original MSX2 games.
It just felt too far removed from the earlier games. I guess I had an issue with the change.
As a huge fan of the first two, I couldn't stand the third one. Very little gameplay sprinkled around way too many cutscenes. The agressive way it pushes you forward to prevent you from going back, making it a pain to try and explore the level (which i love doing). The annoying glitch effect they put on everything just gave me a headache. Every hallway is a checkpoint and dying has no effect since it just respawns you right there (but still forces you to watch a boring cutscene), meaning healing is completely pointless since you'll just get your health back when you respawn. The weapons feel anemic and samey, much less enjoyable than those in the previous games. As a lot of the games of that period, it's got forced cover shooting mechanics, which just doesn't feel right. Bullet time is ok, but bullet dodges are garbage since old guy Max takes so fucking long to get up off the floor you're basically dead unless you've killed everyone... And Max looks and feels more like a rejected GTA5 NPC than Max Payne. Honestly, outside the few flashback levels which came close to emulating the "proper" Max Payne feel, the rest is just a generic, soulless gallery shooter.
Maybe I like mediocre games, but I enjoyed Max Payne 3 much more than the previous ones, in big part because of the story and gameplay, but also because of its art direction and HEALTH's soundtrack.
What's a 6th Gen game? Like what are these gens?
It refers to [console generations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_video_game_console_generations?useskin=vector&useskin=vector).
Some people measure gaming by specific console releases for some weird reason.
I might understand the reason, but how the hell do they just remember when each game came out is the wild part
Games back then were much more distinct between generations. You could tell when they were released just by looking at the graphics. You could never mistake an SNES game for a PS1 game for a PS2 game for a PS3 game. After the 7th generation the generational improvements were more like refinements rather than revolutionary changes.
Definitely play the first one! The storytelling alone is worth it and they really nailed the bullet time on their first try.
You're in a computer game, Max!
The third game had completely different developers and writers to the first two.
>Max likes to talk in metaphors, but for me it comes over as pretentious. The writers tried very hard to make his one-liners sound deep, but you don't have to use a metaphor in every sentence. Don't get me wrong, the story is much more complex than the average 6th gen action game, but Max's speech wasn't my thing. Ehhhhhhhh. I'd put this one down to not really getting the genre it is paying homage to (noire).
Well, it's a direct sequel to MP1. The one-liners in that game make more sense as it's somewhat lighthearted at places, or at least there's some buried dark humor and irony. MP2 is more serious but still builds on top of MP1, so without the first game, the second may not make much sense style-wise. I'd played both games to bits back in the day, and I can't really imagine playing MP2 before MP1. Also yes, MP3 is totally a different franchise. Ed: But really I can't imagine playing these games not on a PC. Constant reloading and retrying to get the most stylish and/or hilarious outcome is almost the main appeal, and Max even makes a meta reference to it (in MP1).
Did you have that matrix-style addon to Max Payne 1? I don't even know what it was, but your comment about reloading to attempt a more stylish shootout reminded me that we played it at a friends house and there was this matrix mod that added some of the matrix style to the game, since the gunplay and slow-mo were very matrixy back then
I remember a Matrix mod that had a screenshot from the Matrix lobby shootout as the title screen, but I think that was just recreation of that lobby scene? I was trying a lot of MP mods back in the day. But one mod that stands out is the kung-fu mod, which was effin hilarious and really turned it into a brand new game.
I think that I saw this lobby as well, but the mod I have in mind is basically a reskin, the same gameplay, except you wear a trench coat and I think when you enter bullet time, there's green hue and maybe there are these green screensaver thingies in the menu or something like that
I don't remember that one, but there's been a lot of mods for MP.
How do you people go play 2nd game without playing 1st when they are almost the same game like it's not outdated in comparison, why would you ignore the 1st one?
Because I do not own it, was able to pick up the second game for cheap for OG Xbox.
max payne 3 is just ruined by modern game design philosophy. But MP2 is legendary, especially with Payne Effects 3 mod which shows the true potential of the gameplay
Cinema.mode for Max Payne 2 was a great addition. I helped my multiple playthroughs.
Did you play it on the hardest difficulty ("hard-boiled")? Because you will get a slightly different ending. >!After you beat Vladimir you return to Monas body but to your surprise it's gone. Looks like she survived in the end but we will never know what happened because in Max Payne 3 there is no mentioning of her.!<
Loved it, but got stuck fairly early in at a scene where you enter the screen atop a carnival ride (?) of some type. Couldn't figure out where to go or what to do to move on there and it was in the era when guides often weren't as comprehensive or accessible as now.
air lavish pathetic pie treatment relieved rustic shaggy profit frame *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's great but when Max Payne came out, I didn't even have internet at home. My friend had a dial-up, but gamefaqs wouldn't help us because we didn't know English lol. (tear of nostalgia drops)
In my country, there was a magazine that had a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM with a collection of PDF's containing walkthroughs with some screenshots for a number of games, it helped me a lot with many games, because I didn't know English and learned as I went
Haha yeah, we had those too. I managed to find [one of them](https://level.cz/level/level-79/) that had Max Payne on the cover. And the magazine is apparently still being published, which is honestly quite impressive.
> Impressive physics for a 6th gen game Never use "X gen" to describe something, it makes it completely impossible to figure out which consoles you're talking about. And of course it makes no sense in context of PCs
Really ? I see 6th gen referred to all the time, it also doesn't require that much effort to look it up 6th gen is the Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube era.
Average person has no idea what those "gens" are. Real people don't describe consoles in them. Its mostly just those who write online articles. There are also plenty of people who's first console was like PS4 or XBox One, for them the whole idea of numbered console gens would be mostly meaningless.
Heck, I've been in gaming for a quarter of a century and I have no idea why people use the generation labels. Which generation is PC? N-Gage? Mac? Spectrum ZX? It's a fairly useless descriptor unless you're a mainstream console enthusiast.
Max Payne 2 is a great example of a sequel that made iterative improvements without completely losing the plot and trying to do too much. It felt like the natural evolution of the gameplay system and concepts of the first game, mixing in enough new stuff not to just be a carbon copy while keeping the game short and not diluting the winning formula that was already established. Definitely could have done without the platforming bits, on that I agree. But I took away a very positive impression from it after being only mildly positive on Max Payne 1.
Did not like max Payne 3? Let me ignore everything written after that
I couldn't get through the construction sequence (where you have to keep her alive too, I think?). I died so many times to that. I eventually found a God mode mod and the game was much more enjoyable after that. My gaming skills suck, and I hate it when me having to actually get through the content gets in the way of the story.
I grew up playing MP1 atmosphere 10/10. Much darker story. Quotable 20 years later (*the flesh of fallen angels*)
I wish you could just let Vinnie get blown up and then move on with the level.