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Max Payne 3 is like 20+ GB, so I'd rather have cut scenes than loading screens.
Also the multiplayer is very well done. Like Red Dead Redemption, the ranking system is brutal but pays off (ZEBRA DONKEYS FTW). For some odd reason multiplayer is addicting. Maybe its the variety of weapons and game-modes which is by the way the game-modes still have a nice story telling aspect to it.
The collections implemented in the game are pretty nice. (Golden guns are cool and you can use them in multiplayer) But there is, at least for me, replay value to this with custom story modes like Arcade mode and with fan favorites like New York Minutes.
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I couldn't play it more than a few hours, the abundance of cutscenes completely ruined it for me. There's more cutscenes than actual gameplay, while 80% of the cutscenes are ones where they could easily give you control instead. This has been really irking me lately, same with Mass Effect 3- but at least they are skippable.
E: An excellent example of making potential cutscene material be part of the gameplay was Modern Warfare for me. Like the moment the EMP drops and choppers fall from the sky, or when you have to crawl from the nuke and eventually die.
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On June 20 2012 20:13 Morfildur wrote:
I died a lot even on medium, though that might be related to me disabling all the helping stuff in the config (auto-aim, slow down aiming near enemies, etc.)
Max Payne 3 is definitely fun, though i wouldn't put it above MP1&2, i just miss the comic cutscenes and the flair of the previous games too much.
Wait that shit is default on the PC? It only makes it harder to aim lol.
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I think I will rent this game
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Is Mass Effect 2 truly considered the greatest game of this generation?
Just wondering, not judging.
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
On June 21 2012 23:11 Praetorial wrote:
Is Mass Effect 2 truly considered the greatest game of this generation?
Just wondering, not judging.
It's up there, I think. It's one of the few games I know of where the love from critics and users was pretty much universal.
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On June 22 2012 00:28 motbob wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2012 23:11 Praetorial wrote:
Is Mass Effect 2 truly considered the greatest game of this generation?
Just wondering, not judging. It's up there, I think. It's one of the few games I know of where the love from critics and users was pretty much universal.
yeah I think so too
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On June 21 2012 23:11 Praetorial wrote:
Is Mass Effect 2 truly considered the greatest game of this generation?
Just wondering, not judging.
Absolutely yes. ME2 was an AMAZING experience. Aside from the tedious planet-mining minigame, they pretty much nailed everything right. Action was great, characters were meaningful and interesting, and they managed to provide a satisfactory and engaging conclusion to the game. Suicide Mission was so damn exciting, especially with the theme music used for the said mission. I had huge nerd chills playing that level.
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On June 22 2012 02:20 Bleak wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2012 23:11 Praetorial wrote:
Is Mass Effect 2 truly considered the greatest game of this generation?
Just wondering, not judging. Absolutely yes. ME2 was an AMAZING experience. Aside from the tedious planet-mining minigame, they pretty much nailed everything right. Action was great, characters were meaningful and interesting, and they managed to provide a satisfactory and engaging conclusion to the game. Suicide Mission was so damn exciting, especially with the theme music used for the said mission. I had huge nerd chills playing that level.
I just have to post my dissenting view...(also big spoilers if anyone hasn't played ME1!)
Problem with that game is it was a lot smaller than ME1 overall (i.e. maybe its better to say it had less content). There was no sense of exploration on amazing planets with their own atmosphere and views of their unique solar systems (I know the terrain was generally just copy-pasted), which each had their own areas and minor plots to go through. Also while somewhat justified you basically couldn't do anything on the Citadel which was pretty disappointing. ME2 seemed to be a more linear, story driven experience and less of a true open-ended RPG. To add to that they took away weapon modifications, which made the game a lot simpler, which can be a good thing but IMO mostly takes away from the tactical decision making.
I don't know but for me most of the characters were...well kind of generic. I actually had a genuinely heart wrenching moment when I was romancing both Liara and Ashley in ME1 and then they both confronted me asking me to choose which one I wanted (and the most hilarious option was Shephard suggesting they could both be with him  ). And then, at the end of the game, the plot surprises me by forcing me to sacrifice either Ashley or Kaidan. But I feel like Kaidan has a crucial responsibility in making sure the nuke goes off, so I sacrifice Ashley. Never before have I ever felt that level of involvement in a game. I actually felt genuinely sad at the end of the game.
But in ME2...all you have to do is ensure that all your companions are "loyal" and that you outfit the ship properly, then the rest of the endgame requires you to make obvious decisions as to who will do what job. I don't know, but personally I found the experience to be a bit more shallow, and overall the content was significantly reduced and simplified. So all in all I would put ME1 first  . Also apparently I'm part of the like 1% who actually enjoyed driving the Mako armored vehicle. I don't know why I guess I mastered the use of the thrusters, and I love climbing mountains with that thing (its like a goat...in can go so steep up a mountain its crazy). Ah well, fun times. Figures I'm also part of the 1% who enjoyed ME3's open-ended, philosophical ending.
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Yeah, I loved driving the Mako off cliffs over and over again and laughing the whole time.
Besides, in Mass Effect 2, you could selectively choose which characters you didn't like and then kill them. For example, I really hated Zaeed, so I let him burn along with the factory he destroyed. I actually felt angry at his character, for his callous treatment of killing others to accomplish his goals.
Unless I'm mistaken, ME1 really only had four main quests that could be done in a nonlinear fashion, with a whole bunch of minor and boring ones tossed in.
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Fuck TotalBiscuit, the cutscenes were a strong well endowed point of the game for me.
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Enjoying this game alot, hard difficulty is exactly the right difficulty for me. No too hard, so I get frustrated and not too easy. Favorite weapon is just a regular pistol and killing people off with headshots, I love how headshots are a 1 shot kill. The cutscenes are usually a nice break in between the non stop action. You should really turn off all the aim assists, it's only frustrating to deal with.
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On June 22 2012 19:39 John Madden wrote:
Fuck TotalBiscuit, the cutscenes were a strong well endowed point of the game for me.
I couldn't care less about the size of Max Payne's dick, I want to play for more than 2 minutes without being interrupted by a fucking cutscene
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On June 23 2012 07:34 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 19:39 John Madden wrote:
Fuck TotalBiscuit, the cutscenes were a strong well endowed point of the game for me. I couldn't care less about the size of Max Payne's dick, I want to play for more than 2 minutes without being interrupted by a fucking cutscene
On one hand I understand but man, to me the action feels so intense and I have to focus pretty hard to headshot everybody fast enough so I don't die the cutscenes are a welcome break to me but maybe that's because of my playstyle.
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On June 23 2012 07:34 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 19:39 John Madden wrote:
Fuck TotalBiscuit, the cutscenes were a strong well endowed point of the game for me. I couldn't care less about the size of Max Payne's dick, I want to play for more than 2 minutes without being interrupted by a fucking cutscene
I completely agree with you. I love what you're doing. To me, it feels like you're one of the few critics who actually look at the games from the perspective of a consumer rather than from some ivory tower perspective. I think you slightly over-favour novelty, and sometimes recommend games that become bland once the novelty wears off. But it's forgivable since you call it "first impressions" and it's difficult to get deeply into a game while doing the volume that you do. And you're an opinion I trust to declare any conflicts of interest.
I was surprised at just how many glowing reviews this game got, how many people seem to be underplaying its flaws, and I suspect there is something unethical going on behind the scenes.
On June 20 2012 11:36 r.Evo wrote:
Thanks for the review!
I'm still scared to pick it up myself after seeing Total Biscuits review, mostly because I'd love to see Max Payne 3 and not "Generic Awesome Rockstar Game 11" but I think I'll give it a shot soon.
What I think is happening is that you liked Max Payne 1 & 2, and you want to like Max Payne 3. And you really, really want to buy it. But TotalBiscuit is a source you trust and he didn't like it and you found his reasons very convincing. But you still really, really want to buy it.
You have 2 conflicting desires:
- You want to buy Max Payne 3.
- You don't want to make a bad purchasing decision.
If you believe that Max Payne 3 is a good game, there would be no conflict - the decision would be easy and you can satisfy both desires. The fact that you're feeling this conflict means that you feel it is a bad game but still want to satisfy both desires. So you're trying to resolve this internal conflict by looking for evidence to convince yourself that you'll like this game. Emotionally, you don't want to admit that you can only fulfill one of those desires.
It's called cognitive dissonance, and everybody experiences it. And it often leads people to rationalise bad decisions. Every time you hear someone say, "I'm not a racist, but..." it's the result of cognitive dissonance - they hold racist views, but also don't want to label themselves as racist, so they come up with a non-racist "explanation" for why they hold those views.
Let's have a look at the 2 pieces of evidence in front of us.
TotalBiscuit's review in a nutshell:
- Max Payne 3 did a lot of things well.
- The cutscenes minimise actual gameplay and being unskippable turned him off.
Here's motbob's review in a nutshell:
- Max Payne 3 did a lot of things well given the circumstances.
- The bad features are there because of these reasons.
I found motbob's review excessively apologetic - from a consumer's perspective, I don't care why a bad feature is there - all that matters is that it's there.
I also don't think cutscenes are a big thing for him - and that's fine. Different people have different tastes. He doesnt mind the cutscenes, so he can buy and enjoy the game. TotalBiscuit and I don't like the cutscenes, so we don't like the game.
So for your decision, it comes down to:
- If the cutscenes a deal breaker for you, then it will be a bad purchasing decision.
- If the cutscenes are not a deal breaker for you, then it's possible you'll enjoy the game.
And you know what? They're just preferences. There's no right or wrong. Rockstar put in these cutscenes, so clearly their target market are not people like me, for whom these cutscenes are a deal breaker. It just means I shouldn't buy the game. I'm disappointed, of course, since I enjoyed Max Payne 1 & 2 and was looking forward to Max Payne 3, but Rockstar is well in their right to target a difference audience.
Or maybe I am part of their target audience, and they just made really bad design decisions - so both parties have lost as a result. But this is how a free market works - I shouldn't buy anything that's not good for me, and they should lose out on revenue as a result of their bad decisions.
Either way, I can spend the money on a different game that does want me as a customer and does make good design decisions.
So how do you tell if these cutscenes are a deal breaker for you? I can tell you why it's a deal breaker for me and you can make your own decision:
- I like to replay my games, and unskippable cutscenes will make that painful to the point where I will avoid replaying it - effectively killing all replayability for me.
- They reduce the actual gameplay time. If they claim the game takes 5 hours to finish, then after taking out the cutscenes out (if they later made them skippable), we might expect 2 hours of actual gameplay.
- I feel that design decisions do not stand alone - the people who made this decision also made other decisions about the game. That means they will have made other decisions that I don't like.
These cutscenes weren't the only things that turned me off, but by themselves they would have been sufficient.
I would also question motbob's claim that these cutscenes were necessary to mask the loading times. Some flaws with this claim:
- Other comparably sized games load within seconds on my HDD. If you watch TotalBiscuit's video review, those cutscenes were unskippable for minutes on his SSD, much longer than should have been necessary for mere loading.
- Presumably consoles with 512 MB RAM require the entire duration of the cutscenes to load the next chapter. A high end PC with, say, 8 GB RAM should load much faster, yet the cutscenes remain unskippable for almost their entire duration.
- If you try loading a chapter from the main menu, I bet it would load much faster than the cutscenes let you skip.
If you decide to buy the game, that's fine. It's your money. Maybe you'll find the game worth your money.
If you decide not to buy the game, that's also fine. You now have some money you can spend on a different game to support developers who make games that you enjoy. It is by buying games that we enjoy and not buying games that we don't enjoy that lets developers know what their customers want.
You might have other reasons for buying - maybe you want to support the franchise. And that's fine too. But you should be aware that in doing so you're letting them get away with poor business practices.
And it's tough because you have to make the purchasing decision based on how you would feel owning the game before you actually know how you will feel owning the game.
In general, I would pay attention to cognitive dissonance - because cognitive dissonance means we're trying to disagree with reality.
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Max Payne 3 is a great game , do not let random people get you off the game because they say cutscenes ruin it. Cutscenes make the game better if anything .
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On June 23 2012 07:34 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 19:39 John Madden wrote:
Fuck TotalBiscuit, the cutscenes were a strong well endowed point of the game for me. I couldn't care less about the size of Max Payne's dick, I want to play for more than 2 minutes without being interrupted by a fucking cutscene
I couldn't care less about watching cutscenes, I just want to play with the ability to QUICK SAVE!
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On June 22 2012 07:38 radscorpion9 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 02:20 Bleak wrote:On June 21 2012 23:11 Praetorial wrote:
Is Mass Effect 2 truly considered the greatest game of this generation?
Just wondering, not judging. Absolutely yes. ME2 was an AMAZING experience. Aside from the tedious planet-mining minigame, they pretty much nailed everything right. Action was great, characters were meaningful and interesting, and they managed to provide a satisfactory and engaging conclusion to the game. Suicide Mission was so damn exciting, especially with the theme music used for the said mission. I had huge nerd chills playing that level. I just have to post my dissenting view...(also big spoilers if anyone hasn't played ME1!) Problem with that game is it was a lot smaller than ME1 overall (i.e. maybe its better to say it had less content). There was no sense of exploration on amazing planets with their own atmosphere and views of their unique solar systems (I know the terrain was generally just copy-pasted), which each had their own areas and minor plots to go through. Also while somewhat justified you basically couldn't do anything on the Citadel which was pretty disappointing. ME2 seemed to be a more linear, story driven experience and less of a true open-ended RPG. To add to that they took away weapon modifications, which made the game a lot simpler, which can be a good thing but IMO mostly takes away from the tactical decision making. I don't know but for me most of the characters were...well kind of generic. I actually had a genuinely heart wrenching moment when I was romancing both Liara and Ashley in ME1 and then they both confronted me asking me to choose which one I wanted (and the most hilarious option was Shephard suggesting they could both be with him ). And then, at the end of the game, the plot surprises me by forcing me to sacrifice either Ashley or Kaidan. But I feel like Kaidan has a crucial responsibility in making sure the nuke goes off, so I sacrifice Ashley. Never before have I ever felt that level of involvement in a game. I actually felt genuinely sad at the end of the game. But in ME2...all you have to do is ensure that all your companions are "loyal" and that you outfit the ship properly, then the rest of the endgame requires you to make obvious decisions as to who will do what job. I don't know, but personally I found the experience to be a bit more shallow, and overall the content was significantly reduced and simplified. So all in all I would put ME1 first . Also apparently I'm part of the like 1% who actually enjoyed driving the Mako armored vehicle. I don't know why I guess I mastered the use of the thrusters, and I love climbing mountains with that thing (its like a goat...in can go so steep up a mountain its crazy). Ah well, fun times. Figures I'm also part of the 1% who enjoyed ME3's open-ended, philosophical ending.
ME1 might have been bigger and had more planets, but that part of the game for me wasn't that interesting. Yeah it was cool while playing, but the planets weren't that interesting because we were there just for the side-quests, which for the most time were pretty boring. The main mission planets were pretty nice but not as detailed and engorging as the ME2 ones imo. The Mako made me fucking go insane, and I'm glad they removed that.
I actually liked ME2 being more story-driven, because it had an amazing storytelling. The "mission" aspect was much more engaging and stronger than ME1. I loved recruiting people. I loved the big picture of the fight against the Collectors. I was so excited during the mission speeches of the last mission and assigning people to specific jobs. It really felt like watching an amazing sci-fi movie to me, but instead I was playing it. Weapon mods were extremely tedious for me, after a while they did nothing but fill my inventory with useless junk that I had to remove all the time for making space.
I don't know how you can enjoy ME3 endings. ME3 endings completely take control away from the player, introduces a completely new character in the last 15 minutes of the game and gives you three colours as an option to end this whole trilogy without enough or about any explanation to what the fuck is actually happening and whether any of this makes sense (it does not) I didn't touch ME3 yet after finishing it once, and if Extended Cut doesn't change the ending in a significant way (and it won't...it will be the same shitty ending with a little more explanation) then I can just congratulate Bioware's "artistic vision" for ruining this damn good sci-fi franchise. I felt epic when ME2 and ME1 ended, I felt like the whole game was a joke when ME3 ended. I actually thought I picked the wrong choice, and then Youtube-d the rest of the endings and found out that the colour of explosion was the only one different, with no explanation to what the hell actually happens in any of the three colour picks.
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EPT
