Briareos H on 26/6/2012 at 17:32
Mostly on hard after my flatmate had a first go on normal. I don't think the difficulty settings change anything about the enemies though, just the painkiller spawns.
I found shootdodge fine when there was only one enemy left, but if you happen to do it in the middle of a few enemies and don't kill all of them during bullet time, Max takes too much time to get up and ends up dead after two or three hits while he's on the ground. Maybe I'm not used to playing with a gamepad enough and I suck at aiming, but this was a real problem for me and I found snapping out of cover, popping head-shots while in bullet time and going back to cover (ie. coward mode) much more useful.
@Malleus, I didn't notice it slowed down time more than regular bullet time. There are many instances at the beginning of the game where I found it too cumbersome and slow to move to be really useful, I wasn't killing anyone with it while losing my cover so I stuck unhappily with regular bullet time.
SubJeff on 26/6/2012 at 17:47
Ah, your're on a gamepad. Explains it maybe, since during shootdodging, even from the same level as the enemies and not one of those down-the-stairs efforts, I was able to headshot 6 in one go on PC.
gunsmoke on 6/7/2012 at 14:34
Always been an abuser of Shoot-dodge, myself. To the point of comic hilarity. Smacking into trashcans, desks, and whatnot. This game was no exception.
henke on 30/7/2012 at 21:16
Just finished Max Payne 3, and have some very mixed feelings about it. Fleshing out the combat system was a great idea, and I made full use of cover, blindfire, actionroll, going prone, and quickkills whenever the situation called for it. Even so, there's something off about the controls, and the gameplay. Maybe it's that sometimes(quite often on the last mission) when you're doing that "shoot the guy who shot you before you go down"-move the enemy would be out of sight, or Max wouldn't be able to swing his arm around for some reason, or I'd be out of ammo so it didn't matter anyway. Or maybe it was the lack of a more noticable damage-indicator, I rarely knew I was about to die just before I bit the dust. Or maybe it was the way the game just didn't feel optimized from kb+mouse, yanking your view to the center whenever you sprinted, and other little quirks. But worst of all was that I never felt quite comfortable in Max's shoes, not even by the end of the game. I never felt like I was fully in control.
As for the story, it's too muddled and hard to follow, despite an abundance of cutscenes. I normally don't have a problem with a game having a lot of cutscenes, but this one had
too many. Max does have some great lines though.
"If I survived this, it’d be a victory for gross incompetence." I also like the soundtrack, besides Health's score there's some cool stuff like Black Keys on there during cutscenes.
But in the end, I gotta say it's the weakest of the Max Payne games. It's also the first time I've been disappointed by a Rockstar game. Still gotta try the multiplayer, and next time I play it I'll make sure to try using a gamepad instead.
Also, in
the policestation, when you've killed all the cops in the firing range there's a cop that comes out of the back door, drops his weapon and puts his hands up, pleading for mercy. Did anyone else notice him? What was up with that? And does what you do there have any impact on what happens later in the game? I let that guy live anyway.
Screenies:
Inline Image:
http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/3799/2012072700024.jpgThe bad ol' days in NYC.
Inline Image:
http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/4092/2012072700039.jpgI wish stealth was more viable in some of these missions. As it is, you can kill at most 2 guys before you're forced into a more "guns blazing" approach.
Inline Image:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5249/2012073000004.jpgGoing prone on an airport escalator as a homage to Die Hard 2. Yup.
Inline Image:
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/1508/2012072800025.jpgI used shootdodge sparingly. Usually only when an enemy caught me by surprise and I had to throw myself behind cover.
Inline Image:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/8735/2012072700066.jpgThe character animations are wonderful though, and I love the way Max handles guns. Tucking a rifle under his arm while reloading his pistol, or doing an actionroll to pick up a gun of the floor. It just looks awesome.
Inline Image:
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2017/2012072700060.jpgsNeaksieGarrett on 31/7/2012 at 00:06
I enjoyed it, but I admit the controls seemed a bit off to me too. There were some ridiculous shoot dodging movements that while kinda funny were annoying. For example, one time I jumped backwards into a crate and got stuck in the laying down animation on the ground and had to wiggle around until i could get myself out of it. I noticed the lack of jumping which bugged me... I've used shootdodge in multiplayer just to get over a ledge rather than just walk around.
I think Rockstar did a pretty good job, considering they aren't the original developers of the Max Payne series. I'm really happy they were able to get Max's voice actor again, which I hope is the same case for thief 4.
Also, I didn't really have a problem with the cutscenes. I was a bit disappointed they didn't do the comic style of the first two max paynes, but I did notice a piece of the comic style used in the newer cutscenes with the on-screen text and lines in the screen.
SubJeff on 31/7/2012 at 00:22
How odd. I felt like I was fully in control pretty early on, at the nightclub I think. But yeah, not up until then and certainly not at the start despite knowing what to expect having played 1 and 2. I did notice that sometimes during the "guy who shot you is here, shoot him to survive" bits I ran out of ammo but I just thought that was, well, just life.
Am I bad for wishing someone would redo 1 and 2 in this engine?
Phatose on 31/7/2012 at 01:32
Does this game not save your progress if you start from level select instead of continue or something?
I've had to redo the Jersey level 3 damn times now, and it just never updates my saves. If I have to start from the beginning completely, because continue became inexplicably greyed out, I'm shelving it. Too damn many functionally unskippable cutscenes.
Malleus on 31/7/2012 at 10:39
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Am I bad for wishing someone would redo 1 and 2 in this engine?
That's what crossed my mind too while playing it. The combat system is just much better than in the previous ones IMO.
Sulphur on 31/7/2012 at 20:26
Quote Posted by henke
Just finished Max Payne 3, and have some very mixed feelings about it. Fleshing out the combat system was a great idea, and I made full use of cover, blindfire, actionroll, going prone, and quickkills whenever the situation called for it. Even so, there's something off about the controls, and the gameplay. Maybe it's that sometimes(quite often on the last mission) when you're doing that "shoot the guy who shot you before you go down"-move the enemy would be out of sight, or Max wouldn't be able to swing his arm around for some reason, or I'd be out of ammo so it didn't matter anyway. Or maybe it was the lack of a more noticable damage-indicator, I rarely knew I was about to die just before I bit the dust. Or maybe it was the way the game just didn't feel optimized from kb+mouse, yanking your view to the center whenever you sprinted, and other little quirks. But worst of all was that I never felt quite comfortable in Max's shoes, not even by the end of the game. I never felt like I was fully in control.
I think I know why: there's a sort of weightiness to controlling Max with this iteration, where everything is just that bit slower because he's got to adjust or compensate for the weight of his weapon, his walk cycle isn't an immediate start/stop, things like that. It's the Euphoria Natural Motion tech, basically.
It was quite evident the game had some obtrusive third-person controls when I went back and played MP2 the day before - Max moves like greased lightning there, and everything's slick, fast, and responsive. I'm not saying MP3's controls are bad; they're definitely more realistic, but as a result of this they're also a bit harder to get in sync with.
Quote:
As for the story, it's too muddled and hard to follow, despite an abundance of cutscenes.
Really? I felt it was quite clearly plotted and narrated, almost disappointingly so, especially compared to MP2's wide-reaching webs of lies and intrigue.
henke on 31/7/2012 at 20:51
Dunno if it was more or less complex than the plots of the earlier games. I think I mostly had a hard time keeping up because I didn't really care about what was going on. Do I really give a shit if any of the members of the family I've been hired to protect dies? Not really. And a lot of the characters just weren't very memorable. So, for instance, when Serano shows up later in the game and Max recognizes him, I'm like "Who?". Was he the boss of that gang in the docks? How did the end up in the slaughterhouse exactly? You know what, I don't really care.
Tried the multiplayer today though. Pretty fun.
