The Exhausting Violence of Max Payne 3

[Dennis Scimeca]

The Exhausting Violence of Max Payne 3

Max Payne 3 might be one of the most important games of this console generation.

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[PureIrony]

One of the things that are going to hold games back narrative-wise is that they need to justify and support the gameplay.

That limits what kind of setting we can use and themes we can explore. I mean, once we've really rung the analysis of violence dry, we're going to have to find ways of making alternate kinds of gameplay to support different scenarios, and still make them fun. The closest thing we have right now are long strings of QTEs and adventure games, and those will get boring fast.

 

[Evil Smurf]

this is why I play TF2 the violence is not exhausting. It just goes to show how much good Max Pane is if it makes you feel like that.

 

[halobolola]

Once photorealism kicks in, i can see violence affecting people alot more, than it does normaly games.

Max payne is quite violent, however, it is only because of the graphical level that the violence hits you.

with gta, you can mow down hundreds of people, yet it not affect you, yet after a couple of brutal kills in MP, it can.

Maybe the story is portrayed better, and you feel like max, i dont know, but i think its down to the increase in graphics, and what the can show, e.g. blood dripping and flowing from a bullet wound, or the slow motion shooting.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Even the best movies about Vietnam and World War II, with the most gruesome and brutal depictions of violence aren't mostly about firefights and death. Do we think a videogame audience would put up with the same proportion of action-to-narrative that war movies usually present?

That entirely depends on what you mean by 'videogame audience'. Would it have broad based appeal in the mainstream gaming market? No, certainly not. Would it, if it was handled well, become a cult classic amongst certain niche groups? I have no doubt it would.

Can you imagine an eight-hour campaign of some of the most brutal, horrific, psychologically-taxing violence we've ever seen in a videogame?

Yes, I can imagine that...

[crotchetty old gamer] and I'd still be disappointed that the campaign was only 8 hours long.[/crotchetty old gamer]

Would any of us actually want to play that?

If it was any good, I would.

Maybe the argument "Movies can tackle serious issues about war, so why can't videogames?" doesn't make as much sense as I thought it did. Maybe the difference in mediums, specifically the length of the experience and the pacing that each medium requires in order to be successful, really does make a tremendous difference here.

I don't think so... the problem is that you're equating all of cinema's audience to a specific, albeit (possibly the most) numerous, set of gamers and stacking every genre of film against one genre of game. In short, you've created a false equivalency.

If we took the form and formula of the Shooter's film equivalent, the Action Blockbuster, and used that instead we'd get pretty much the same results - making a serious war film would seem to be impossible.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

I've not played MP3, but I can appreciate that realistic violence (even if it isn't real) could be "psychologically exhausting" as you put it. But is the violence in MP3 really that realistic? Most video games (even the ones that claim to be realistic) feature stylised violence that I see as little more than the modern equivalent of a boulder landing on the head of Wile E. Coyote. If MP3 is so different then my (morbid) curiosity is piqued.

 

[Wyes]

I've not played MP3, but I can appreciate that realistic violence (even if it isn't real) could be "psychologically exhausting" as you put it. But is the violence in MP3 really that realistic? Most video games (even the ones that claim to be realistic) feature stylised violence that I see as little more than the modern equivalent of a boulder landing on the head of Wile E. Coyote. If MP3 is so different then my (morbid) curiosity is piqued.

The violence in MP3 isn't 'super-realistic', but it's visceral without being over the top. Shooting someone gives them actually looks like it puts a bloody hole in them (where here bloody is actually an adjective ), because the game bothers with exit wounds which is a really nice touch. It doesn't really do dismemberment or anything like that (outside of scripted events), and there aren't huge sprays of blood, but there IS blood and it doesn't look like red paint. Otherwise there are moments in cutscenes where you see people being burnt alive or suffering from wounds from explosions where there skin is charred, hair is melted off, limbs are severed etc.

It's a very nasty affair, and it makes you feel it.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Thanks for the clarification Wyse. Also...

I would definitely recommend Spec Ops: The Line if you want violence that makes you think about what it is you're doing.

There's one point where I was hiding behind cover and these two enemy units hadn't seen me yet, so they were just chatting about gum. It was very human, very friendly conversation, which made them seem very real to me.

As they started heading in my direction, I remember thinking; "Please, just go the other way." I genuinely did not want to kill these people. The game is filled with moments like that. Fantastic game.

That's a neat touch.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I've not played MP3, but I can appreciate that realistic violence (even if it isn't real) could be "psychologically exhausting" as you put it. But is the violence in MP3 really that realistic? Most video games (even the ones that claim to be realistic) feature stylised violence that I see as little more than the modern equivalent of a boulder landing on the head of Wile E. Coyote. If MP3 is so different then my (morbid) curiosity is piqued.

The violence in MP3 isn't 'super-realistic', but it's visceral without being over the top. Shooting someone gives them actually looks like it puts a bloody hole in them (where here bloody is actually an adjective ), because the game bothers with exit wounds which is a really nice touch. It doesn't really do dismemberment or anything like that (outside of scripted events), and there aren't huge sprays of blood, but there IS blood and it doesn't look like red paint. Otherwise there are moments in cutscenes where you see people being burnt alive or suffering from wounds from explosions where there skin is charred, hair is melted off, limbs are severed etc.

It's a very nasty affair, and it makes you feel it.

A part of it is also the amount of detail that goes into the bad guys reactions to being shot. They shout, fall over, grasp their wounds and in general act as if you just put them in the world of hurt that you expect a gunshot wound to create. It is just not the purely visual cues of the wounds but the victims reactions to said wounds that make it so unnerving.

 

[ThatDarnCoyote]

I agree that Max Payne 3 is a terrific game. I too found it exhausting, though not primarily for the violence, but for the unrelenting bleakness of the narrative. Innocent people die horribly, guilty people escape death, and in the center of it is one of the most convincingly broken men ever to be the protagonist of a game.

But again with Six Days in Fallujah. Seriously, Six Days in Fallujah may be the most over-praised canceled game in history. Not that it necessarily would have been bad, but it seems like everyone projects their wishful thinking onto it with very little foundation. It was going to be the most mature wargame ever. It was going to be a searing antiwar statement. It was going to single-handedly deflate American militarism. It was going to be sharply political, and of course it would line up precisely with the political prejudices of the person praising it.

Do I wish it had been finished and released? Yes. Would I have played it? Absolutely. But there's really no way it could have lived up to the legendary levels of hype that "serious" thinkers and writers about games put on it.

 

[Black Arrow Officer]

"Psychologically exhausting" really? I found the violence to be more realistic and satisfying then disturbing. One of the things that keeps me replaying the game is the dramatic close-up kill of the final on-screen enemy. I love just how much detail was put into everything from the blood spray, to the limb movements, to the bullet traveling, to the exit wound being shown. Not because I'm a sadistic person who likes to watch people day, but because it makes each gunfight feel satisfying to conclude.

 

[sneakypenguin]

For me the violence was exausting onlybecause of how much there was. Just non stop gameplay of slow mo, headshot headshot headshot headshot reload, head shot headshot. repeat until done. It wasn't the graphic violence just the gameplay that exausted.

 

[crazyrabbits]

Loved this article, and I agree, the violence was unlike anything I had seen in some time. The way it cuts to, when you get killed, three different angles of the bullet entering your body. The tire burning scene (which reminded me of The Shield's second-season premiere). The way Max's character model retains most of the gunshot wounds throughout the level. Hearing the enemies screaming when you cripple them.

 

[Xenocides]

I haven't played MP3 but a similarly violent game is God of War 3. I enjoyed the game but, after playing it for more than 45 minutes I was exhausted. Part of that was the pacing in the game. Wave after wave of mobs coming at you with little time to catch a breath but, another part of the amount of gore being splattered everywhere. After 45 minutes I just needed a break from the intensity.

 

[Nouw]

Does this apply to the Darkness 2?

 

[TwiZtah]

Like if Fox News would care about violence, however, show quarter of a nipple and they flip their shit.

 

[Shocksplicer]

I absolutely agree. Max Payne 3 is one of the best examples of "Immersion" that I have ever encountered in a game. By the end of my Hardcore playthrough of the game I was still having a great time, but emotionally I was devestated. Having Max be every bit as fragile as the men I was killing destroyed any illusion that Max was the hero of the game. He was simply another bad guy; he just happened to be putting holes in other bad guys, as Max himself put it.

When Max defeated Becker at the end I felt just as drained and exhausted as Max himself. There was no point in wasting the bullet. I had killed so many already, there was no point in anything anymore. There was precious little satisfaction in bringing down the plane and bringing an end to this sordid affair. So much suffering had already occured, how could this victory really make anything better?

Max Payne 3 is so brilliantly affecting and emotional, it turns you into just as much of a Nihilist as Max himself.

But that's what makes it so magnificent.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

But again with Six Days in Fallujah. Seriously, Six Days in Fallujah may be the most over-praised canceled game in history. Not that it necessarily would have been bad, but it seems like everyone projects their wishful thinking onto it with very little foundation. It was going to be the most mature wargame ever. It was going to be a searing antiwar statement. It was going to single-handedly deflate American militarism. It was going to be sharply political, and of course it would line up precisely with the political prejudices of the person praising it.

Do I wish it had been finished and released? Yes. Would I have played it? Absolutely. But there's really no way it could have lived up to the legendary levels of hype that "serious" thinkers and writers about games put on it.

That praise was what was used to convince people that it should be released, its intention was not to revolutionize games but to tell the stories of the soldiers that worked with Atomic before they were on tour and participated in the Battle of Fallujah. If they had told their story any other way, book or movie, only those who already know what they have been through would know the details of their story. It was a video game biography and if it lived up to the hype then it may have been one of the most important games ever made. But it would be successful in its's purpose by just getting a release.