Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Why Rockstar can go wipe their asses with Max Payne 3

I was always a huge fan of the Max Payne franchise. The first two games were beautifully made, and I played them several times in ye olden days. Now, Max Payne 3 came out some time ago, and I never found the time to pick it up until now when it was on a Steam sale for whooping 7,50€, so no real harm to be done. I hoped for a littlebit more of Max' poetry along the way of bullet-time fights, but the actual game is such a stinking pile of shit that I get angry just to write about it. So, forgive me if this turns into a rant, but Max Payne 3 really sucks ass. 
It also sucks his skinhead, I guess.

That's surprising at first, because the production value seems quite high in the beginning. They got nice enough voice actors, there's a ton of cutscenes driving what passes as the story of the flic, and there's the obvious running and shooting that looks well enough. But the gameplay is so broken, I can't begin to describe it. Leaving beside my inability to do so, let's try an approximation. 
CUTSCENE! Look at the bullet!
At first, what freaking moron thought that introducing a cover-system into MAX PAYNE was a good idea? Guys, the asthetic of the game has always been Matrix. That means, jumping and running around in slow-motion and filling bad guys with holes. It's not crouching behind rubble and shooting at bad guys crouching behind rubble, because that's Gears of War. It totally defeats the purpose. I can't even jump in slow-mo from cover to cover, because neither controls nor level-design allow for that. Was this intended to introduce some "realism" into the game? If yes, you failed spectacularily.
Cover, cover, cover...
Next gameplay-breaker: the cutscenes. There's a ton of them, and almost all of them are not only superflous, but an actual nuisance. And I'm not talking about story; that's something I'll cover soon enough. No, the game thinks cutscenes are the medium of choice to keep me from playing, because that's precisely what I want in a game - not being able to play. I run down a corridor in the one moment, and in the other, I see a cutscene in which Max gets some info over his headset. Because, well, I could miss it when the game wouldn't take a break, I guess? 

CUTSCENE! Look at the bullet!
The same is true for doors. Several times I wanted to bullet-jump through a door, Max starts to jump towards it, I'm interrupted for a fucking cutscene in which Max opens the door and then I stand in the next room, facing bad guys with no bullet time left instead of slow-motioning (is this even a word?) in the room and putting bullets in their surprised faces. No surprise, though, because the cutscene interrupted me and now they're all in the cover I hate so much (see a pattern there?). 
CUTSCENE! Look at the headshot!
This wouldn't be half as annoying if it wasn't so superflous. Practically all the information you get in these cutscenes - like Passos screaming in your mic that there are enemies ahead or to show that, yeah, there's another room on the other side of the door you just stepped through - could be delivered in the game without interrupting the actual gameplay. But like this, I'm sometimes allowed to play for a littlebit, and then the game grabs the controls again telling me "haha, no, you're not trustworthy" and shoves my face into the next bit of information. 
CUTSCENE! We rotate the screen so you can see him die.
And then there's the kill-cam. All the coolness they took out of the fighting by constantly breaking it up with cover and cutscenes was to be made good by the killcam, allowing you to watch your bullet kill either the final enemy or the one you just killed with your last drop of health. The latter introduction is actually a nice idea: when you're near dying in a firefight, the game slows down really hard and allows you to try and get the guy before he gets you. If you manage to do so, you survive the encounter, and the game shows the bullet that kills him and how he falls to the floor - in a cutscene. And then, you find yourself most likely in a very awkward position and get shot because the cutscene interrupted your move. 
CUTSCENE! Look at the gun!
The last thing is the story. I can't really judge it because I stopped playing pretty fast because of the nuisances described above. You're in Sao Paolo, which I find an interesting idea, and you're a pretty bad body-guard, which is also nice. All this seems to work pretty well, and they're building up the favelas as kind of a no-man's-land, so I guess you'll go there quick enough. But someone thought it would be great to omit the comics that were so iconic for Max Payne and to introduce cutscenes instead, which isn't that bad once you get used to it, but someone also felt pretty artistic about the cutscenes and let's them shift and blur all the time, giving me heachaches. 
Oh, beloved Exit-Button.
So, sorry Max Payne 3, I hardly knew ya. But what I knew of you doesn't make me want to see the rest of you, so rest in peace in the Steam library. I'm going to mourn my 7,50€, if you'll excuse me.

11 comments:

  1. On a completely unrelated note, Stefan do you play any of the paradox games? I would love to hear your opinion on them if you do play them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You bet I do! I played Hearts of Iron 2 excessively, as well as Victoria, but I didn't like HoI3 or V2 very much. Currently I'm playing Crusader Kings II with the ASOIAF mod.

      Delete
  2. Yep absolute shit, agree 100%.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's your average shooter but the problem is it's meant to be played with 360 and ps3 controllers. This means MP3 will feature a cover system to give you time aiming from behind your cover, OP moves like the shootdodge, Overshoulderview from gears of war to mess with your spatial awarness, aiming down the sights and slowing down at the same time to get 100% accuracy with whatever weapon like in cod, free camera for goons who can't turn the camera fast enough to aim. It's all stuff that doesn't belong to max payne games. I played it merely because there's no good tps exclusive on pc other than old games like Legions Overdrive, some mods, Gunz and the first Max Payne games.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, but my main concern aren't the mechanics. I would have suffered through them if I had gotten a real Max Payne game...

      Delete
  4. Recently purchased this game on winter sale from Steam. Ignoring the fact that I paid for some DLC and Steam announced me they were out of keys for it, Max Payne 3 is a bad game. I really can't give it an average rating.

    I'll start with what pissed me off the most: easy difficulty is not easy at all. When they throw ridiculously armored opponents at you that bounce all over the place when you shoot their helmets it's god damn annoying. The health system is garbage, pills barely heal you and they're scarce. There's also rambo dudes that run and shoot at you at the same time so you if you pop out to shoot back they just riddle you with bullets.
    Also, later on in the game, at the Airport Terminal level, there's literally no checkpoint in like 3 big big waves of armored enemies. That's where I just quit and got pissed off. I kept reaching an area where a gate would open and I thought I'd get a checkpoint but nope I just got shot and back to the beggining again. Rockstar did a bad job of this, feels so unfinished.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I completely agree with you on all points Stefan, I have gotten through the first act but can't bring myself to play it any further. The story line is the only thing that seems to live up to the old Max Payne standards, but when I spend more time watching the game than I do playing the game, it bores the crap out of me. If I wanted to watch something I would turn on a movie, not a game.

    Not only that, but I had a hell of a time getting the game running. After hours of following random support comments on the Steam forums, I figured out that I have to start up Steam in administrator mode in order for the game to launch properly. I've never had this issue with any other Steam game. It's back to the originals for me!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had no such problem, luckily. Thanks for the feedback!

      Delete
  6. here I am at 1:45 AM and I'm glad I ran into your rant, they say misery loves company, and your rant made me feel better about wasting money on this dog.

    I recently restarted Steam after not playing for some time, and decided I'd try Max Payne 3 .. I had fond memories of playing Max Payne 2 way back when, and thought "surely they've made some great improvements" ... wrong!

    I just got his game last night, and I immediately hated it, it pisses me off and that's not what I'm looking for in a game. My gamepad is almost useless for controlling this nightmare and I already loathe it. I hate repeating plays over and over because of lousy controls and this game won't let you forget how much there is to hate. I will not waste any more time with this dog. Rockstar must have snorted too much crystal meth.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow - I'm glad so many other people despise this criminally terrible pseudo-game. I swear, if I hear Max say "I was a mess" or tip a glass during a cutscene one more time, I'm gonna go f***ing ballistic.

    ReplyDelete
  8. awesome! and I thought so few hated this shitty game. God knows why it's got so many good reviews. I had to force myself at every level, every cut scene, every door to keep playing just to see the bludy ending

    ReplyDelete