Max Payne 3 Cutscenes

[Amaror]

I may be a little late to the party here, but anyway here i go.
I bought max payne 3 at the steam sale recently. I had no major interest in the game, since i don't buy many games that just drag me through a boring campaign but i loved the other installments of Max Payne and hey, 75% discount.
After getting the game to f***ing load after hitting enter on the start screen. (You may laugh but that actually takes severals restarts in this horrible pc port) i found myself having quite some fun with the game with one big exception.
cutscenes.
I love myself some good story and i don't mind cutscenes really but max payne 3 just makes it so rediculous.
"Yeah, game, i know how to walk through a f***ing door, you don't have to do it for me!"
I always find myself having some fun and get immediatly slapped out of it, so the game can show max walking a meter before giving me the control again.
I don't see any good reason to do this. It feels like i am not truly controlling max, but i am just assisting him. I am there for killing all the badies, before the game can finally take control again and move on with the story for me.
Oh and you may consider not loading the game with collectibles when you're character tells you to move on every 5 seconds, while you run around each room hitting e, because there's no other way to find the hints.

 

[josemlopes]

Yeah, the game is different. Its like an action movie but everytime the shooting comes the viewer is the one on control, because honestly all that you do in it is shoot

 

[Zhukov]

Yeah, I've been having the same problem. It feels like they used a cutscene every damn time Max opens a door or climbs a ladder.

To make it worse, the cutscenes are blurry, bright, flickery and apparently designed specifically to induce a headache.

As the final kicker, I found the story being told in these cutscenes to be pretty damn dull. I couldn't give less of a shit about any of the characters if I tired, Max least of all.

 

[Cavan]

People seem to be a bit ungrateful, yes there are a lot of cutscenes in the game but the whole point is that a fairly large chunk of them mask loading screens. Do you want a game as pretty as Max Payne 3 to be full of loading screens and then still shove cutscenes at you ontop of those loading screens to get that story in somehow?

I personally found the amount of time spent in cut scenes fine. It was no worse than the amount of comic strips and bad cutscenes in the other two(bar some of those nightmare camera filters, but even those had a purpose they served), it complimented the feel of a Max Payne games. They have always been very inner dialogue heavy. Occasionally in the previous games you'd just be stuck listening to people monologue at you retardedly while you couldn't do anything but stand there anyway. I HAVE JUST BEEN REMINDED OF THE DRUG/DREAM SEQUENCES THEY HAD AND NOW I AM FILLED WITH TOWERING RAGE.

Having played the previous two max payne games through again directly before Max Payne 3's release I am going to venture that Max Payne 3 did it better, and part of the reason was those cutscenes. The first two had plenty of slowdowns and stupidly walking around while almost nothing happened or Max whined at himself, and their stories were actually more bizarre. Max Payne stories have always been following a trail of breadcrumbs and killing every vaguely connected dude in the way to get the next one, excepting the occasional cult or clown town stupidity.

edit:
I do a lot of editing of my posts whenever I post, it's a bad habit. If you quote me could you try to quote me after this and not before.

 

[dyre]

People seem to be a bit ungrateful, yes there are a lot of cutscenes in the game but the whole point is that a fairly large chunk of them mask loading screens. Do you want a game as pretty as Max Payne 3 to be full of loading screens and then still shove cutscenes at you ontop of those loading screens to get that story in somehow?

I honestly think if the game told us when it was masking load screens, most of us would feel better about it. For example, the elevators in Mass Effect annoyed the hell out of me, until I realized they were just hidden load screens.

It's a matter of expectations, I guess. If I'm expecting to shoot things, and I get stuck watching a guy open a door, that annoys me. If I'm expecting to see a load screen, and I end up watching a guy open a door, I feel a little better about it.

 

[Cavan]

People seem to be a bit ungrateful, yes there are a lot of cutscenes in the game but the whole point is that a fairly large chunk of them mask loading screens. Do you want a game as pretty as Max Payne 3 to be full of loading screens and then still shove cutscenes at you ontop of those loading screens to get that story in somehow?

I honestly think if the game told us when it was masking load screens, most of us would feel better about it. For example, the elevators in Mass Effect annoyed the hell out of me, until I realized they were just hidden load screens.

It's a matter of expectations, I guess. If I'm expecting to shoot things, and I get stuck watching a guy open a door, that annoys me. If I'm expecting to see a load screen, and I end up watching a guy open a door, I feel a little better about it.

That's a fair point.
I guess because I knew going in to it that almost all of those cutscenes were strategically placed loading screens it seemed a lot better to me.

I apologise if my previous post seems a bit all over the place, i'm having a little difficulty keeping my thoughts straight atm and occasionally come off as hostile. If anybody wants me to try and elaborate something I will.

 

[hazabaza1]

Hell, I enjoyed them.
The story gets a bit silly with just how fucking dark it can get and just how miserable Max's life has gotten over the years, but they're well acted and give a good atmosphere. They're also a welcome relief from the constant deaths on Hard Mode, and can fairly often lead into some pretty cool (mostly) scripted shooting sequences.

 

[Korzack]

Payne 3 completely misses the point of the first two - that is, to do a pretty good parody of hard-boiled, Over-The-Top action films, but remembering to do a pretty damn good OTT action film as the basis of the parody. In the first game, even Max himself was ripping the piss out of the situation he was in - "You're in a video game, Max" springs to mind as an example, and while not as good a story, the second one still had its moments of self-satire. The newest one just didn't get it and just wound up been an underwhelming, heavily scripted bad action film with very little of note to me, which is odd as Rockstar actually made Payne 2 to start with, it seemed like they needed something to scrape some cash in between GTA games, and had Max as a spare IP to exploit, especially as I don't think Manhunt 2 would go down well.

 

[ThriKreen]

I love myself some good story and i don't mind cutscenes really but max payne 3 just makes it so rediculous.

As stated earlier, it's there to mask loading of the next level. The problem is that the game's visual design has it so the graphics level is just so high for the consoles, that they probably have difficulty streaming it on the fly. You'd notice that you can't skip said cutscenes either. The PC/Steam port suffers too, despite being able to have more RAM available to even preload the next area.

Payne 3 completely misses the point of the first two.

I found the same thing, in fact I had no fun with it at all. I don't understand how it got rated as high as it did. I mean, you have to give the story a pass, as the previous 2 also were in the same vein, really, just poking fun at the film noir style of over the top drama and such.

But for me, I found they basically focused too much on graphics than gameplay, and made some really iffy design decisions. After a cutscene ended, I'd find myself in a completely different location or out in the open and had to immediately dodge - but still got hit a couple of times. Part of the appeal of Max Payne was the bullet time, and doing the gun ballet you'd see from movies like Hard Boiled. But in MP3, it felt like bullet time was pointless: over too quickly, you couldn't extend it, the areas were too small to effectively jump around. You spent more time as a cover shooter, seeing Max take his sweet ass time playing the lengthy animations to recover from a jump dodge, while he's being shot at, etc.

It's been the only game in recent years that I wanted to get a refund on - not even Duke Nukem Forever made me feel that way.

 

[Cavan]

I'd like to say that people seem to have forgotten exactly how vague and inaccurate the shooting was in the original Max Payne, there's this hideous delay on your bullets hitting anything you shoot at and the enemies are stupid and very rigid in their placement. The gameplay was actually very bad, with random sections having almost unavoidable grenade throws round corners, horrible chase sequences(and that fire sequence) and platforming and those unforgivable drug sequences. That bit where you're on weird rails that sucks. Running down streets with no idea where to go because everything is square and looks exactly the same, having to run up and down and back through endless doors in apartments and so on. The 'boss' fights were all horrible in every way.

Saying the gameplay in Max Payne 3 is worse than the original genuinely baffles me, go back and play it.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Actually, what I hate most about the cut scenes are the fact they dropped the "graphic novel" approach to them. I can't imagine why they did it, it's not like having fully rendered cut-scenes added anything to them.

I'd like to say that people seem to have forgotten exactly how vague and inaccurate the shooting was in the original Max Payne, there's this hideous delay on your bullets hitting anything you shoot at and the enemies are stupid and very rigid in their placement. The gameplay was actually very bad, with random sections having almost unavoidable grenade throws round corners, horrible chase sequences(and that fire sequence) and platforming and those unforgivable drug sequences. That bit where you're on weird rails that sucks. Running down streets with no idea where to go because everything is square and looks exactly the same, having to run up and down and back through endless doors in apartments and so on. The 'boss' fights were all horrible in every way.

Saying the gameplay in Max Payne 3 is worse than the original genuinely baffles me, go back and play it.

Actually replayed it a couple months ago... I can see what your saying but it's not that bad it just hasn't aged very well. Playing it now feels like a really bare bones 3rd person shooter.

The dream sequences though..... >.< especially the 2nd one with the baby that gives off that hideous wail EVERY FUCKING TIME YOU FUCK UP! I Gamesharked past that when I played as a kid. Last time though, I beat it with the help of YouTube.

 

[daveman247]

snip

I missed the graphic novels too ;_;


OT: I liked 3 more than 2, and enjoyed the story very much. Despite it losing its sense of humour. As someone else pointed out it was basically an action film where you played out the fights. Plus the actual gameplay was VERY VERY good. Im glad rockstar finally fixed the clumsy movement (which plagued gta4 and red dead) ^_^

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I loved the first two games. Hell, the original Max Payne is one of the very first video games where I was eagerly awaiting and counting down the days until release after having played the demo. I still use the mousepad that came with the game. Seriously.

I picked up Max Payne 3 during the Steam sale as well. I would have bought it on release, but at the time I was working through a backlog of games, and figured it'd be smarter to wait and potentially get it cheaper once my backlog was completed. My patience certainly paid off... because I wouldn't have paid $60 for this game if I knew what I was going to get.

Pretty much the only thing I'm really liking about the game so far is Max himself. Though the game is pretty bleak, I'm kinda glad they decided to show Max as a broken shell of a man. Given what's happened to him leading up to this point, can anyone blame him for his addictions and self-loathing? I'm glad they didn't try to make his character into some kind of Superman figure.

Everything else though... ugh. I hate the cutscenes. Part of what gave Max Payne its charm was its very film noir/1940's detective comic meets John Wu style. The comic panel cutscenes were really what made that game special for me. Max Payne 3's cutscenes just feel super generic. Not to mention, the constant flashes and distortions are freaking annoying. I get what they were going for, and I applaud them for trying, but good lord does it make the game frustrating to play at times.

The bullet time also feels pretty lackluster this time around. Most of the environments are so incredibly small and cluttered that more often than not it's actually easier to not use it. When not using it, the game just feels like kind of a crappy cover-based shooter. Hell, there's a bug where half the time I end up getting stuck behind cover with Max not responding to any keyboard/mouse input at all until either someone rushes forward and kills me or I just reload at the previous checkpoint.

If I look past the bugs, sure, the gameplay is objectively better than the original games. The graphics are too, but frankly, I don't really give a shit about graphics; they don't make or break a game for me and have no bearing on my opinion of a game. The thing is, when pretty much everything else other than gameplay is sub-par for me within the series... that doesn't make it a particularly good sequel. I'm glad I'm playing the game, because I like the Max Payne character, but I doubt I'll ever play it again. Meanwhile, I can see myself going back to play the original game until the day comes that it's no longer supported by new hardware.

 

[Amaror]

What really bothers me, though is when the cutscenes are making the story just more stupid.
I mean there are a lot of situations were i thought.
"Damnit, Max, don't just stand there clutching your pistol, while you listen to the bad guys getting away! Let me take control and shot them!"

 

[NewYork_Comedian]

What really bothers me, though is when the cutscenes are making the story just more stupid.
I mean there are a lot of situations were i thought.
"Damnit, Max, don't just stand there clutching your pistol, while you listen to the bad guys getting away! Let me take control and shot them!"

This. It's kinda jarring when in every other cutscene Max has a gun pointed at him by one or two people which he surrenders to and drops his weapon, and then when you take control he is going around killing 20 guys to a room.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

People seem to be a bit ungrateful, yes there are a lot of cutscenes in the game but the whole point is that a fairly large chunk of them mask loading screens. Do you want a game as pretty as Max Payne 3 to be full of loading screens and then still shove cutscenes at you ontop of those loading screens to get that story in somehow?

I personally found the amount of time spent in cut scenes fine. It was no worse than the amount of comic strips and bad cutscenes in the other two(bar some of those nightmare camera filters, but even those had a purpose they served), it complimented the feel of a Max Payne games. They have always been very inner dialogue heavy. Occasionally in the previous games you'd just be stuck listening to people monologue at you retardedly while you couldn't do anything but stand there anyway. I HAVE JUST BEEN REMINDED OF THE DRUG/DREAM SEQUENCES THEY HAD AND NOW I AM FILLED WITH TOWERING RAGE.

Having played the previous two max payne games through again directly before Max Payne 3's release I am going to venture that Max Payne 3 did it better, and part of the reason was those cutscenes. The first two had plenty of slowdowns and stupidly walking around while almost nothing happened or Max whined at himself, and their stories were actually more bizarre. Max Payne stories have always been following a trail of breadcrumbs and killing every vaguely connected dude in the way to get the next one, excepting the occasional cult or clown town stupidity.

edit:
I do a lot of editing of my posts whenever I post, it's a bad habit. If you quote me could you try to quote me after this and not before.

Two things: if the game loaded slow that was console issues that shouldn't make a difference on my PC. And the comic strips in the first two games? Yea, you could skip those by pressing Stop. And they were entertaining and well written in contrast to the dreck that was Max Payne 3.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

People seem to be a bit ungrateful, yes there are a lot of cutscenes in the game but the whole point is that a fairly large chunk of them mask loading screens. Do you want a game as pretty as Max Payne 3 to be full of loading screens and then still shove cutscenes at you ontop of those loading screens to get that story in somehow?

If the graphics were the cause, then they should have made the game uglier. When I pop in a game, I want to play, not watch their badly written and badly directed CGI movie.

And ungrateful? It's a commercial product, we have nothing to be grateful for.

 

[HaraDaya]

What really really makes the cutscenes bad is when you're just trying to play the game, and the game won't let you skip past them. Yes I know they're covering up loading times, but I usually end up having watched 80% of the cutscene anyway when it lets me skip. I doubt it's my PC that's slow at loading, there's something else behind this. For what small areas it loads it shouldn't take over 2 minutes.
Really infuriating when you love the shooting, but the game uses every excuse to prevent you from playing with it so it can look like a movie.

 

[Nomanslander]

It feels like i am not truly controlling max, but i am just assisting him. I am there for killing all the badies, before the game can finally take control again and move on with the story for me.

Well, yeah! I mean it sounds like what you're asking for is if the game had some RPG role playing elements like moral choice or or anything to do with making choices. Well, MP3 is a bit old school and has none of that. It's just a straight up 3rd person shooter.

Personally, I thought it was the best 3rd person shooter I had ever played. It got rid of the whole necessity of shooting behind cover (even though it's still available) and allowed me to run and gun.

So it's all about what you want from the game.

As for the cut-scenes...? Well, okay! They do suck. But the developers felt like the story was THAT important so what can you do?

 

[ThriKreen]

I doubt it's my PC that's slow at loading, there's something else behind this. For what small areas it loads it shouldn't take over 2 minutes. Really infuriating when you love the shooting, but the game uses every excuse to prevent you from playing with it so it can look like a movie.

That's a side effect of it being a console port, it's timed for console hardware, loading off the optical disc, and after the port, it was not updated to deal with a PC with a much faster HDD.

And yeah, it ended up being like Uncharted where it was so saturated with cutscenes, it was preferable to just sit back and watch it for the story.

But at least Uncharted had an entertaining story with the various characters, Max Payne's bad film noir on the otherhand... it's a situation when art took the forefront over gameplay.