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dkirschner's Max Payne (PC)

[March 25, 2013 02:22:55 PM]

Max Payne...Watched a roommate play it years and years ago, tried to play it myself on PS2 last year but the framerate and controls were horrible (as I tend to think about most older Rockstar games), and finally now trying it on PC since I bought MP1 & 2 on Steam a while back. My verdict: controls are much better on PC, but still doesn't feel great. Bullet time and whatnot are sweet, but I don't like the huge delay on the bullets reaching their targets (even though it makes some sense). Bullet time isn't as game-changing as I thought it would be, probably because since Max Payne 10 or 12 years ago, I've played plenty of games with time slowdown mechanics. But yeah, still cool, but Max Payne is *hard.*

At the end of Act 1 when you fight Lupine in his bondage/occult night club, I had no painkillers and no life left. I kept having to restart over and over and do it pretty much without getting hit, which was frustrating, but felt great when I finally did it. In between chapters, you don't get a health refill, so I then began Act 2 Chapter 1 with only a baseball bat, no painkillers, and no health left, and had to face like 4 enemies, some with submachine guns. Brutal. Finally got past that part, then I made it through a couple chapters of Act 2, to the shipyard, before I had the bright idea to find cheat codes. Put it in developer mode and turned on god mode and infinite ammo. That was fun for a while until I broke the game over and over because this forklift is supposed to speed toward you (you move outta the way) and crash into some crates, opening a path. If you're invulnerable though it hits you like a wall and stops, thus not crashing into the crates. That happened a couple times, then if you shoot its driver, it'll just stop. It might have gotten stuck on the driver, who fell from its cockpit and may have stopped its treads. Anyway, I had to play up to that point a bunch of times and finally got frustrated.

In the end, I said screw it because I just didn't have the painkillers and I kept having to do everything perfectly, and then I kept breaking the game with god mode, which I didn't feel like turning off. So I went to YouTube just to get the story, and lo and behold, there are some great videos that just feature the story via the game's graphic novel. They're like 45 minutes to 1 hour long and a totally worthy substitute to playing the game. I knew, but really found out how bad it was, that the game's sound was screwed up while I was playing. I had no music or narration during the graphic novel parts, had no idea I was supposed to have that til I watched YouTube and was like WHAT?! Major cut scenes, like in the beginning of the game, also had no sound whatsoever. Gunfire, opening things, and so on occasionally made horrendous noises. I assume this is a compatibility issue with my computer. I figured I would deal with it, but compared with the general difficulty and whatever else I didn't like, nah, I couldn't be bothered. YouTube graphic novel videos are seriously the way to go!

Tonight reminded me one reason why I love (PC) gaming. Game too hard? Don't like the gameplay but want the story? Great, try cheat codes to play faster. Or some fan(s) has probably made a video just telling the story. Go find it. Play/watch story how you like it. Players have the ability to customize how they interact with Max Payne, with more options than say a TV show (since it's interactive and there are an arguably larger range of ways to deal with Max Payne's character).

Anyway, I was very pleased that YouTube came through for me. Max Payne was clearly exceptional for its time, but it feels old now. I do like his hallucinations of being a character in a graphic novel and in a video game. Storytelling is excellent. I started Max Payne 2 afterward, and I do like it better so far (I'm at the beginning of Act 2). I would like to grab Max Payne 3 from eBay when I'm back in the states in a month or two, which is why I'm playing through the first 2 now.