Was it Good? - Max Payne

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I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings.

Max Payne is the gritty film noir adventure of a broken man infiltrating the mob and taking down a government conspiracy, it's fondly remembered and spawned 2 sequels and a major Hollywood film, but...was it any good?

Max Payne is a great example of the memory of the entire event condensed to 'just the best bits' being a lot more enjoyable than the process of actually playing through it, which is buggy, simplistic and often frustrating.

Max Payne is an incredible experience told through a slightly above average gameplay vehicle.

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[ErwinHolland.]

Without watching I can confidently say yes. Max Payne was very good.

[samacvuk]

It is impossible to describe how mind blowing this game was at the time

[CasepbX]

What they lacked in budget they made up for with style and they nailed it... There's just nothing else like this game.

[MrSnake]

Rest in peace James McCaffrey one of the most iconic voices in gaming.

[nat]

I gotta say the voice actor for Max is perfect for this kind of cop story. And those one-liners are often damn good. "He was trying to buy sand for his hourglass. I wasn't selling any" goes pretty hard.

[bones]

A lot of the gameplay issues are because of the framerate. All the footage you used it seemed you didn't install the win10/11 fixes. I'd say that if you played it in the early 2000s or if you apply all the fixes so it runs normal on modern hardware, most of the "clunkiness" you describe is gone. Obviously not all since it's like a 20 years old game, but it's not as bad as you said at the start. I replayed it around Christmas (with all the fixes) and had tons of fun. There's a "allinone" fix in the steam guides for the game that works perfectly if anyone's wondering. Also, also if you decide to play it, don't go all out with the shoot dodge. Actually slowing down the time and moving and shooting is surprisingly effective. As a kid when I played it I used to just gun people down with the shoot-dodge, but with just the regular bullet time you can wipe out whole rooms with little effort (bullet time restores as you kill people so you won't run out until a room is cleared).

[AnimatorDemon]

The Max Payne series is a testament to Sam Lake's talent as a writer. This game's story simultaneously takes itself very seriously and not seriously at all, and usually that would be like trying to mix water and oil. However, Max Payne 1 manages to do that impossible task. The story starts off with us, the player, experiencing a father's worst nightmare and it plays it straight up until we get to Roscoe Street Station. It begins to ease us into the dark comedy with Max's ridiculous metaphors that you'd see in film noir parody, and then we get the goofy dialogue between the goons which also borders on parody - the part where Max starts up the maintenance train to smash through the tunnel barricade, and he says "so much for being subtle" after breaking through, like did he expect to quietly smash through xD. Sam Lake knows that the entire story is ridiculous but he has fun with it whilst reminding the player why we continue with Max's warpath - "nothing is a cliche when it's happening to you".

[Palmieres]

While some of the complaints are valid, some are a fundamental misunderstanding of how game engines, optimization and basic technical limitations work, especially at the time this game was being made. This wasn't 2015, this was at a time where game physics were largely dedicated to move player characters and NPCs. Having a case full of bank notes explode and spread like a cloud just for a two second quip does not justify the weeks of development, disk space and processing power it would require, when so much else in the game was probably already such a big demand from the developing team. It brings me to a point where I'm standing here just waiting for the criticism about how none of the characters' mouths move...

[conanmaolcheann]

It drives me absolutely nuts how everyone I’ve seen make videos on this game points out that the name Woden is “close to Odin” when Woden is the Anglo-Saxon name for Odin just as Wotan is the south Germanic name for him. Great video btw I just had to get that out

[katanalevygames]

I have to totally disagree with you on all of the little interaction points you made. Sure some of your suggestions might have been fun, but extremely hard for them to implement and wouldn't have made it in at all. I think we are lucky they put all these fun simple interactions in, even if there is no gameplay purpose. I miss the era of games that did stuff like this.

[glumsulk]

This game is a masterpiece.

Its hard to explain how innovative the game was. Bullet time, dual analog aiming, the mature story.

Game is incredible.

[dkstudios]

The constant focus on making interactables have a purpose i genuinely have to disagree on- having a purpose is cool and by no means bad but having them just be a pleasant surprise to the player is just as good because there was no reason to add the detail. It just adds to the experience.

[armed_but_blind]

The part where the baby is crying and you've gotta follow the red trail stays with me to this day

[oversellingpartsunknown]

Max's drug induced nightmare had me shook as a child. Running along that blood trial with his daughter crying was stuck in my head for weeks.

[scottbuck]

Dear god Josh; the coding alone for the cigarette to be able to do that would MELT a PS2

[._Murphy]

It was not just good, it was one of the best things ever happened to gaming industry! The series deserves to be remastered!

[stevesparkes]

As a games developer I started to collapse into myself when you suggested that the player should be able to shoot a cigarette out of an ash tray to set someone on fire

[ijnkako]

The stick to the wall glitch is related to launching it on modern harware, it definitely wasn't an issue back in 2001

[atp]

I played this in 2012, 11 years after release and I was blown away. Could only imagine what it must have been like in 2001.

[CinnamonToastKing]

That nightmare level was pure agony and will never forget it. The platforming the constant baby god!