Excited for this. I think modern OS and hardware have issues running Max Payne 1. Graphics and controls are still playable, but dated for both titles. Glad to see a remaster of this fantastic...
Excited for this. I think modern OS and hardware have issues running Max Payne 1. Graphics and controls are still playable, but dated for both titles. Glad to see a remaster of this fantastic series.
Perhaps this is a sign that Max Payne 4 is in the cards...
Oh my! The first Max Payne was formative for me. I adore its style with the comic book narrative to this day. But its graphics are painful to look at now. I genuinely can't wait to play a...
Oh my! The first Max Payne was formative for me. I adore its style with the comic book narrative to this day. But its graphics are painful to look at now.
I genuinely can't wait to play a remastered version. Haven't been excited by a remaster in .. uh, ever, actually.
Max Payne 1 came out right before a big leap in GPU technology, mainly support for hardware transformation and lighting. This allowed for a very big leap in visual fidelity over just a couple of...
Max Payne 1 came out right before a big leap in GPU technology, mainly support for hardware transformation and lighting. This allowed for a very big leap in visual fidelity over just a couple of years. Big enough that Max Payne 2 included a joke about how dated the character models and animations in the previous game looked.
I had a permanent constipated grimace on my face. I was revenge personified.
This was a line from the in-game TV show Dick Justice, which was mostly meta-humor about the first game.
I just played Max Payne 1 for the first time and honestly this is sorely needed. As it is, the combat is mostly just a quicksave simulator, and the platforming sections in the dream sequences are...
I just played Max Payne 1 for the first time and honestly this is sorely needed. As it is, the combat is mostly just a quicksave simulator, and the platforming sections in the dream sequences are absolutely unbearable. Might wait for this before I play 2.
MP2 is a big improvement over MP1 because they heavily incorporated Havok physics into the game and improved the movement and level design. A lot less enemies hiding around corners to ambush you...
MP2 is a big improvement over MP1 because they heavily incorporated Havok physics into the game and improved the movement and level design. A lot less enemies hiding around corners to ambush you immediately, and a lot more interesting combat situations and subtle but significant tweaks to bullet time. It was a big jump between the games.
The quicksave scumming thing is par for the course though, that's just how shooters were back then, but it does feel less important than it does in MP1.
It feels weird but my biggest question is if Remedy, probably the most storied and famous third person shooter developers, will have third person shooter gameplay as good or better than Max Payne...
It feels weird but my biggest question is if Remedy, probably the most storied and famous third person shooter developers, will have third person shooter gameplay as good or better than Max Payne 3, the one game they didn't make.
For my money, Max Payne 3 still has the absolute best third person shooting mechanics. No contest. As much as I enjoyed Control, they gunplay was still a few steps behind MP3's. Beyond the amazing collision detecting and animations, Max Payne 3 seemed to use actual bullet trajectories and extremely precise hitboxes to elevate the gameplay to all new levels. I still have yet to even hear about another game where it's possible to shoot between body armour plates on enemies.
I do not think this is a technical limitation of other games, but rather one of making the gameplay more balanced. Without bullet time, this detail would just have the effect of making bullet...
I still have yet to even hear about another game where it's possible to shoot between body armour plates on enemies.
I do not think this is a technical limitation of other games, but rather one of making the gameplay more balanced. Without bullet time, this detail would just have the effect of making bullet damage feel random.
It's available without bullet time and it doesn't feel all that random since the enemies do a great job of covering up their weakpoints. It may not even be not something most players might have...
It's available without bullet time and it doesn't feel all that random since the enemies do a great job of covering up their weakpoints. It may not even be not something most players might have ever even discovered themselves as a result. The first time I found out it even existed was because I was under a heavily armoured enemy and got lucky with a shot straight up between their chest plate and helmet, hitting the exposed sliver of neck.
While it felt like a glitch at first that I took down an enemy in one hit like that, it did not feel random once I realized where I hit them. Then it just became insanely impressive and something that turned out to be repeatable. Hitting these same enemies in the armpits and between the armoured legs and body also became prime target points. It added a whole other level to the already impressive gunplay in the game.
Tech limitation or design choice, it's an incredibly impressive thing for a shooter to have and it's hard to look to other shooters with these stereotypically heavy enemies with unrealistic hitboxes the same way again.
Excited for this. I think modern OS and hardware have issues running Max Payne 1. Graphics and controls are still playable, but dated for both titles. Glad to see a remaster of this fantastic series.
Perhaps this is a sign that Max Payne 4 is in the cards...
Oh my! The first Max Payne was formative for me. I adore its style with the comic book narrative to this day. But its graphics are painful to look at now.
I genuinely can't wait to play a remastered version. Haven't been excited by a remaster in .. uh, ever, actually.
Max Payne 1 came out right before a big leap in GPU technology, mainly support for hardware transformation and lighting. This allowed for a very big leap in visual fidelity over just a couple of years. Big enough that Max Payne 2 included a joke about how dated the character models and animations in the previous game looked.
This was a line from the in-game TV show Dick Justice, which was mostly meta-humor about the first game.
I just played Max Payne 1 for the first time and honestly this is sorely needed. As it is, the combat is mostly just a quicksave simulator, and the platforming sections in the dream sequences are absolutely unbearable. Might wait for this before I play 2.
MP2 is a big improvement over MP1 because they heavily incorporated Havok physics into the game and improved the movement and level design. A lot less enemies hiding around corners to ambush you immediately, and a lot more interesting combat situations and subtle but significant tweaks to bullet time. It was a big jump between the games.
The quicksave scumming thing is par for the course though, that's just how shooters were back then, but it does feel less important than it does in MP1.
If you're interested, I wrote an in-depth writeup of all these games a couple of years ago, one of the things I talk a lot about is how big improvements were between these games.
I would go ahead and give 2 a shot anyways. It is a considerably more polished game than the first, both visually and mechanically.
It feels weird but my biggest question is if Remedy, probably the most storied and famous third person shooter developers, will have third person shooter gameplay as good or better than Max Payne 3, the one game they didn't make.
For my money, Max Payne 3 still has the absolute best third person shooting mechanics. No contest. As much as I enjoyed Control, they gunplay was still a few steps behind MP3's. Beyond the amazing collision detecting and animations, Max Payne 3 seemed to use actual bullet trajectories and extremely precise hitboxes to elevate the gameplay to all new levels. I still have yet to even hear about another game where it's possible to shoot between body armour plates on enemies.
I do not think this is a technical limitation of other games, but rather one of making the gameplay more balanced. Without bullet time, this detail would just have the effect of making bullet damage feel random.
It's available without bullet time and it doesn't feel all that random since the enemies do a great job of covering up their weakpoints. It may not even be not something most players might have ever even discovered themselves as a result. The first time I found out it even existed was because I was under a heavily armoured enemy and got lucky with a shot straight up between their chest plate and helmet, hitting the exposed sliver of neck.
While it felt like a glitch at first that I took down an enemy in one hit like that, it did not feel random once I realized where I hit them. Then it just became insanely impressive and something that turned out to be repeatable. Hitting these same enemies in the armpits and between the armoured legs and body also became prime target points. It added a whole other level to the already impressive gunplay in the game.
Tech limitation or design choice, it's an incredibly impressive thing for a shooter to have and it's hard to look to other shooters with these stereotypically heavy enemies with unrealistic hitboxes the same way again.