Max Payne 3 Catch All

I hope they're doing a machinima app for this one like they did for GTA. A friend of mine uses it to do pre-visualization work for his movies and he loves it. The improvements in visuals -- particularly the human models -- I see here would make him a very happy camper.

Grenn wrote:

I'm just pissed that Mona is apparently dead or gone. I worked my ass off to keep her alive.

If they wanted to continue the series without crapping on Max's character they could have just made a Mona Sax game. It was possible to get her through the game alive. Make that ending canon and continue her story.

I would have been more interested.

I hope that it has a trippy self-referential aspect to the game (like when Max goes through the fun-ride area that is making reference to some of the things in his past)-- the feeling of reality warping around him was a wonderful thing.

stevenmack wrote:

Silly Max, you're supposed to shave that stupid beard off, not your hair.

Bleuch. Not enthused by that trailer at all - apart from the music, which is probably just the music from 2 pasted clumsily on the front and back of the trailer so that people know what game this is.

Going to assume it's just a bad teaser trailer until more info is revealed though.

Same feelings here. I'm usually gaga over Rockstar's trailers, but this did nothing besides disinterest me in the title.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Sxij0.jpg)

Clever!
(BTW: was that in MP1 or MP2?)

"Time slowing down to help console gamers aim better"? Seriously? Did I play the weirdo PC version that was marketed around having bullet time?

UCRC wrote:

Clever!
(BTW: was that in MP1 or MP2?)

That's MP1 I do believe.

And yeah, I think the whole "slowing time thing" was sort of MP's schtick, regardless of platform Can't argue with the rest though...

ClockworkHouse wrote:

"Time slowing down to help console gamers aim better"? Seriously? Did I play the weirdo PC version that was marketed around having bullet time?

Yes, I linked it more because it was funny than accurate. The sudden and unexpected 4th wall breaking in MP1 was quite good and funny because of it.

I went to youtube looking for that and ended up watching some video which recaps all story elements from MP1. I forgot how preposterously cliche-filled the writing is, even for its genre.

COLLECTING EVIDENCE HAS GOTTEN OLD A FEW HUNDRED BULLETS BACK

edit: MP2 is a huge improvement in that regard, though, it has to be said

The thing was, you just had to look at the facial expressions of the people in the MP1 comic/cut scenes to know they were playing for laughs, not taking it completely seriously. MP2 was a different deal, it managed to show Max had moved on and progressed and it showed in the way the story was told too.

I always thought that was intentional. I remember 1up saying MP 1&2 had terrible writing when Alan Wake came out, but I think it had great writing, you just weren't meant to take it seriously. It's overwrought as hell and I love it for that.

What I liked about MP2 was that it had a completely character driven story. Few games have that, usually the story is about some grand thing and you have characters as a part of the story, but in MP2 the relations and motivations of the characters are the story.

Remedy games are really well-written. Overdoing it is intentional in my opinion, they're quite aware of what they're saying and how.

stevenmack wrote:
UCRC wrote:

Clever!
(BTW: was that in MP1 or MP2?)

That's MP1 I do believe.

And yeah, I think the whole "slowing time thing" was sort of MP's schtick, regardless of platform Can't argue with the rest though...

It was MP1. You can tell because Max is being played by Sam Lake, one of the writers. They didn't have the money to actually hire an actor to stand in for Max until MP2.

Of course, the money spent on an actor for MP2 could have been better invested in figuring out how to clone Sam Lake.

Heads up!

Quintin, you might want to rename the thread.

While it's a little sad they changed his face, I think it's cool they're modelling him after James McCaffrey, the voice actor.

Oh, and that RPS article made me ridiculously excited for the game.

Edit: And some of the comments made me ridiculously sad for the internet.

Yes, as much as some websites like to sell themselves as havens for polite conversation, in RPS' case for PC gaming, it does still seem to attract the usual bad manners (trolls, zealots, flame wars, insults) who just don't believe they're being rude and not having a good intelligent discussion just because of where they're doing it, as though that was the only requirement.

Honestly, I don't think RPS is as bad as other gaming-related forums of discussion. Not by any means exempt, of course, as you point out. What makes me sad, really, is the diehard "fans" that will not accept any change *whatsoever*. This isn't new, I know, and I'll confess that on occasion, I too resist change, but when the article is as glowing, and as overwhelmingly positive as that one was, I find it really hard to be a Female Doggoy little Female Doggo.

As an example: The new cover system. It amazes me how many have forgotten the need for cover in both Max Payne games, except whenever you needed to take cover in those, you went to one knee or stood behind a corner in a most precarious manner (facing the wall, looking like an idiot), hoping you were out of the AI's line of sight. Clunky as that was, that was *actually* a cover system. The only difference being that now you can do that in a fluid, immersive way (I'm assuming). And best of all, because you have the ability to SLOW DOWN TIME, it's completely optional most of the time, and will probably only be necessary the same amount as before!

Rant over. I think it sounds great.

I don't get annoyed so much that the usual discussion forum problems happen at a site like RPS, it's that they're seen as 'elite' because they're a bit better than say, IGN, kotaku, etc, and that equates somehow to immune to those problems, but people will be people wherever they comment. I'm probably rambling and confusing the issue for myself now.

Kind of going off-topic/taking a scenic route now.

"Cover systems" make me laugh. I think I've said before that just because there's no 'system' associated with it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just put something solid between you and the thing throwing pain at you. That kind of thing has existed as long as there's been collision detection, heck you could even say the Gorilla artillery game from QBasic had a cover system if you wanted.

I guess it's a little like achievements, where people wouldn't do things or think they weren't important unless they put up that message and gave you points. It's not that it's wrong to acknowledge it, I mainly think it's a massive failing in the game messaging and communicating to the player that something is happening, and making something satisfying to do if you have to give external points to get people to do it (if it's not fun, why is it in the game?). External tracking and comparison I can see the point in, but within a game itself is worrying.

Yeah, the only tangible difference being that your character acts like cover is cover. I suppose part of the reason that people get angry is because there's a cover system, the entire game is, by necessity, designed to cater to the player taking cover. A prime example of this is Mass Effect 2. Or the big daddy of cover-based shooters itself, Gears of War. But what that article suggests is that this an additional feature, streamlining something we were already doing, and not the only way to play the game.

I hope.

Thinking about it, one plus from cover systems is that the player character looks like they're part of the environment and interacting with it, rather than skating around on top of it. I wouldn't mind an animation system that gave the appearance of taking cover, but didn't interfere with movement or other actions.

Hey, you two, having a good time over there?

Ha, I was just playing Rage and I was reminded why I generally like cover systems: as a sensible step to get rid of all twitchiness and, um, exploitness of the way shooting over obstacles games in olde days: strafing left, firing, strafing right; exploiting game geometry and so on - things you could hardly label as skillful, realistic or exciting.
Not that cover systems are less prone to stupid exploits.

BTW: Was there ever FPS game with realistic cover system which would make you face the other way?

RPS used to have much better comment threads, but it's gotten worse as the site's grown in popularity.

UCRC wrote:

Heads up!

Quintin, you might want to rename the thread.

Done.

:*

Scratched wrote:

Yes, as much as some websites like to sell themselves as havens for polite conversation, in RPS' case for PC gaming, it does still seem to attract the usual bad manners (trolls, zealots, flame wars, insults) who just don't believe they're being rude and not having a good intelligent discussion just because of where they're doing it, as though that was the only requirement.

And yet you post a comic trolling console users. Hmmmm... ;p

Hyetal wrote:

What makes me sad, really, is the diehard "fans" that will not accept any change *whatsoever*.

I have my own special word for folks like this: fascists

UCRC wrote:

BTW: Was there ever FPS game with realistic cover system which would make you face the other way?

Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 had a pretty cool cover system for an FPS. I hesitate to critique it as 'clunky', but it felt that way, mainly because I went back and played it after having played Gears 1 & 2 for a couple of years, and the control scheme is totally different than 90% of FPSes out there, but is actually quite elegant when you get used to it. The shift from first to 3rd person took a while to get used too.

nel e nel wrote:

And yet you post a comic trolling console users. Hmmmm... ;p

Really?

Scratched wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

And yet you post a comic trolling console users. Hmmmm... ;p

Really?

You don't see the irony of talking about the bad manners, trolling and insults on RPS right after you post a comic strip that bemoans the changing of a franchise to 'help console gamers aim better...so that the console gamers won't be bored'? That the main character in that comic thinks being in a console game is 'the most horrible thing he can think of'?

I also meant that lightheartedly, just as you did posting that comic.