Why no Third person game today ever come close to Max Payne 1 and Mafia 1?

B-Cell_v1legacy

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Hello,

So my friends, its been almost 20 years. in a period of 2 decades we have seen enough third person games but none of them came close to Max Payne 1 and Mafia1. I wonder why?

what those games in common are. amazing atmosphere, amazing storyline, excellent gameplay combine with a great gunplay and no wall cover nonsense. you have to crouch. even they ruined max payne 3 by putting stupid cover system.

todays every third person game need cover and shoot. and try hard to be like hollywood movies. I recently played vanquish on PC and it is same crap we have seen. it seem like today every third person shooters are gears clone and every third person action games are batman/AC clone with one button combat.

imo Quantum break apart from shitty live action tv series. its actually pretty good. far better than likes of gears, tomb raider and vanquish and highly underrated.

lets hope next remedy game will be as close to max payne 1.
 

Souplex

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Well now that people have bumped this thread the damage is done.
I guess I'll post.
So... Is this satire? I generally can't tell.
 

Elvis Starburst

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I dunno, many have stood up just fine. But of course, if it isn't filled with the manliest of men, the grittiest of the gritty, and none of those FILTHY FUCKIN FEMININE WOMENZ... then nah, it'll fly under your radar for sure. Try CoD?
 

B-Cell_v1legacy

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Oh cool an opinion thread

I preferred Max Payne over Mafia by quite a bit, but there were some standout parts in Mafia. Approaching the farmhouse/barn for that shootout was amazing even when considering I only first played the game a few years ago. It also had a solid story with a powerful ending, even if it was derivative of films it was based on.

The driving was what really brought the game down for me. Probably the most boring driving I've ever had to tolerate in any game because all the cars were slow jalopies.

Having said that, IMO as good as these games were they don't eclipse every TPS after by any means.
 

Whitbane

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I enjoyed Max Payne 3 more than the first one by a large margin, although 2 and 3 are really close in my opinion. 3 is just so full of good technology moments because of Rockstar's attention to detail, that I can forgive the sorta crappy story-line and cover system.

I do agree though that most TPS games nowadays really suck, since most companies just copy what's popular at the time and it all results in a bunch of generic games no one remembers.
 

B-Cell_v1legacy

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hanselthecaretaker said:
Oh cool an opinion thread

I preferred Max Payne over Mafia by quite a bit, but there were some standout parts in Mafia. Approaching the farmhouse/barn for that shootout was amazing even when considering I only first played the game a few years ago. It also had a solid story with a powerful ending, even if it was derivative of films it was based on.

The driving was what really brought the game down for me. Probably the most boring driving I've ever had to tolerate in any game because all the cars were slow jalopies.

Having said that, IMO as good as these games were they don't eclipse every TPS after by any means.
the problem of todays TPS are. just rely on cover system. ever since Gears of war released. it ruined the entire third person genre. every TPS has to be cover based shooter.
 

B-Cell_v1legacy

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I agree that current TPS games focus too much on cover. It turns gameplay into wack-a-mole too much, and is mostly why I prefer games that use very passive cover as it feels like the gameplay isn't designed around cover. Games like The Last of Us, Horizon: Zero Dawn, even MGSV all still encourage a broader, more aggressive range of movement to where any cover is mostly used only as an aspect of stealth.
 

Rip Van Rabbit

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I think there's enough place in the world for different variations of gameplay mechanics within a certain genre. A cover mechanic is not bad in isolation, it's all about the execution. What works for one game might not work for another.

God forbid we stagnate any further by repeating the limitations of the past.

But this is a B-Cell thread, so in the spirit of things: Mafia's only saving grace was a passable story (At the time) which didn't save itself from the boring gameplay. Max Payne 1 did one gimmick very well and that's all, sadly. Bonus points: Max Payne 3 was more mechanically satisfying to play.
 

Major_Tom

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Max Payne 3 plays better than 1 & 2. I'm not a fan of the story, in fact before I played it I was really upset about it and some of the aesthetic decisions by the developers. But when I actually played it, I thought the gameplay was so goddamn fun that I forgive them.

I liked Mafia 1 because of its story, characters and slower pacing which was rather uncommon at the time. I liked the realistic driving model (suck it, LA Noire), weapon limits and magazines, but the actual TPS mechanics weren't anything special, even at the time.
 

Loop Stricken

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I tell thee what; you want a third person shooter, try Warframe [https://www.warframe.com/signup?referrerId=50eb16b51a4d80b677000000].
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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Sounds to me you played Vanquish wrong and you need to git gud because if you played it right, you wouldn't have even used cover:

Just about every game has shitty writing because just about all the writing talent works in different mediums like literature, film, TV, etc.
 

chozo_hybrid

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B-Cell said:
hanselthecaretaker said:
Oh cool an opinion thread

I preferred Max Payne over Mafia by quite a bit, but there were some standout parts in Mafia. Approaching the farmhouse/barn for that shootout was amazing even when considering I only first played the game a few years ago. It also had a solid story with a powerful ending, even if it was derivative of films it was based on.

The driving was what really brought the game down for me. Probably the most boring driving I've ever had to tolerate in any game because all the cars were slow jalopies.

Having said that, IMO as good as these games were they don't eclipse every TPS after by any means.
the problem of todays TPS are. just rely on cover system. ever since Gears of war released. it ruined the entire third person genre. every TPS has to be cover based shooter.
You ever play the Transformers Cybertron games? They didn't rely on sticking to cover, characters had cool abilities and they came after Gears of War.

If you look for cover based ones, you will find them. The opposite is true too.
 

BrawlMan

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Phoenixmgs said:
Thanks, stole the words right from my mouth. I am always glad to see another fan of the best cover shooter ever made.

B-Cell said:
Hello,

So my friends, its been almost 20 years. in a period of 2 decades we have seen enough third person games but none of them came close to Max Payne 1 and Mafia1. I wonder why?

what those games in common are. amazing atmosphere, amazing storyline, excellent gameplay combine with a great gunplay and no wall cover nonsense. you have to crouch. even they ruined max payne 3 by putting stupid cover system.

todays every third person game need cover and shoot. and try hard to be like hollywood movies. I recently played vanquish on PC and it is same crap we have seen. it seem like today every third person shooters are gears clone and every third person action games are batman/AC clone with one button combat.

imo Quantum break apart from shitty live action tv series. its actually pretty good. far better than likes of gears, tomb raider and vanquish and highly underrated.

lets hope next remedy game will be as close to max payne 1.
As for you:

1. 90% of everything is crap, so not every game is going to be MP or Mafia. Even back during the 6th generation of consoles, all of the TPS were doing different things. Once RE4 and Gears got poplular, there were only two ways do a TPS: RE4 style or Gears. Sometimes a weird combination of the two. That's life unfortunately. Remember when then were a LOT of SF II and MK clones during the 90s? Most of them were not good or just plain shit.

2. I never cared for any of the Mafia games, and MP 1 I find too frustrating to play nowadays. 2 & 3 are better mechanically, though that still does not save the latter for a very mediocre story. MP3 was just a weak sauce Man on Fire set in the Brazil, instead of Mexico The original 1989 film and the novel takes place in Italy.. Though I found the end scene heartwarming.

3. There are other bullet time TPS games just as good, or sometimes better than MP1 at least. If you gave me a choice between the entire Max Payne trilogy and other shooters such as Stranglehold, Gungrave, or Vanquish; I 'd happily take any of the individual titles over trilogy. I know that is blasphemous for some people, but that is a personal preference on my part.

4. Quantum Break was okay. It's main problem was in addition to the shitty live-action segments no one asked for, the game lacked enemy variety. Had Remedy spent more time on adding enemy types and some actual bosses or mini-bosses, instead of the live-action segments, the game would have gone from painfully, over-hyped average to actually Max Payne 2 great. QB just felt like a cover-based MP (ironic) with time freezing, instead of slowing down. The visuals are nice, but they will age in the next year or so, just like The Order: 1886. Vanquish and Gears kills Quantum Break easily. And I don't like Gears. Vanquish had variety in enemies, challenge, more content to offer, better difficulty, and just straight up crazy action. QB might have a "better" story, but that is not saying much.