When I got the achievement for getting a thousand kills, my initial reaction was something like "Jesus Christ, really?!?". For a game that's grounded in reality, that does not shy away from social commentary and real world issues, and despite of this is still having this middle aged, pill popping alcoholic gun down over a thousand heavily armed gunmen, most of which are wearing body armor, kinda put me off the whole thing.

It's the nature of the beast....I mean, what did I expect? It's a fucking action game. But with the scene set so perfectly, I just kinda wish they'd dialed it back a little and maybe tried to make each encounter count for more, instead of the whole endless wave of bad guys like so many sheep to the slaughter (behind a waist-high wall) , which frankly, got very old. Am I alone in this?

is it kinda crazy?yeah. does it make the game bad? fuck no.

it wouldnt be max payne if you only killed six or seven guys and people would just complain that it doesnt stay true to the francise.

at the end of the day,its just a video game. games are interactive by nature.you need to have all those targets to shoot or the game gets old.

Max Payne 3 was a victim of some of the worse aspects of modern game design.

If you want a more realistic game and action more in line with what the story and social commentary within are, even if they were to cut back 80% of the killing it would still feel ridiculous (and boring). L.A. Noire is perhaps the closest if can gets and even then you ended killing about a hundred people by the end of that game and that was pushing it.

Either the game limits itself to maybe 10-20 kills across a 10h story campaign or goes all the way like it does in Max Payne. People have to accept that it will never be possible whatsoever to have a game with a serious and realistic story without having this huge clash if the game goes on to have you gun down 50 people between each cutscenes. If you are looking for something more serious you'll have to find it in other kinds of games. Shooters simply can't deliver both aspects if you start analyzing the gameplay within the context of the story.

Based off the conventions of film noir combined with the visual effects showing the aesthetic of someone in an unstable mental state under an adrenaline/drug/alcohol fueled rage it isn't hard to accept that Max is an unreliable narrator to his own story.

In his head he could be fighting way more dudes then in reality. You are playing Max's exaggerated memories.

@Pr1mus: agreed. the closest thing ive seen to this is the metal gear games. nut they sacrifice alot of things to have a very "cinematic" story.

when it comes to max payne,i think it adds to it. max is a bad man. he does ALOT of bad things.killing all of those people is kind of just a exaggeration of that fact. people complain about the weird filter for that games cinematics. i think it's supposed to look like that. that kind of,sick green and hazy look. thats how max feels.

@nomorehalfmeasures said:

Max Payne 3 was a victim of some of the worse aspects of modern game design.

Do you think so? I think he did a bunch of things differently, things I wasn't expecting and took me a while to appreciate, but I ended loving them.

Not going for regenerating health, the frailty of Max and the tension it generates, the focus on headshots, the need to be smart and strategic and not be jumping around like on the other two games and the fact that all of it reflects his physical and mental state through the story.

@billyhoush said:

In his head he could be fighting way more dudes then in reality. You are playing Max's exaggerated memories.

That's a REALLY cool way of looking at it! Wish I'd had that perspective while playing it..

A thousand kills makes much more sense across one and a half playthroughs. I believe I hit that same milestone about halfway through my second game.

@Napalm said:

A thousand kills makes much more sense across one and a half playthroughs. I believe I hit that same milestone about halfway through my second game.

It's not like I went out of my way to kill bad guys. 90% of the time you can't even advance to the next area before killing off every single person in your immediate vicinity, so I have no idea how you didn't kill a thousand on your first playthrough..?

The same thing can be said for pretty much every single game out there which involves you killing things.

You probably died a lot and restarted a bunch because there is no other way to get a thousand kills on one play through. Also it's a goddamn action game focused on shooting people with guns, not LA Noire or some thought provoking piece/social commentary.

@nomorehalfmeasures said:

Max Payne 3 was a victim of some of the worse aspects of modern game design.

Oh you mean regenerating health and terrible writing?

Don't worry, Brazilians are not people like us.

@Maajin: You make some good points. I was referring more to the fact that in MP3 you would walk into a room/area and wave after wave of dudes would come in each time. I found it annoying and tedious because the game did it all the time. There was basically no reprieve from this. Other games do it too but they evenly spread it out between different activities or only do it a few times in their respective games.

The earlier MP games also didn't do this as often and they were better for it in my opinion. They changed so much in the combat and level design(not to mention tone/story) from the old games that it was just too much for me. My opinion of course.

@Getz: The writing wasn't terrible but it wasn't Max Payne either. I wanted a Remedy developed proper sequel to MP1 and 2. What we got was a Rockstar interpretation of a character that happened to be named Max Payne.

Wasn't it the same for the first two max payne games?

@SharkEthic: I haven't played the game yet but I read an interesting article about this very topic a few weeks ago. Might be worth reading.

@Vinny_Says said:

You probably died a lot and restarted a bunch because there is no other way to get a thousand kills on one play through. Also it's a goddamn action game focused on shooting people with guns, not LA Noire or some thought provoking piece/social commentary.

Played it on normal, didn't really die all that much. Nobody else got a thousand kills on their first play through?

Also, I know it's a a goddamn action game, even mention it in my description. But my hope was that Rockstar - of all companies - would have made more of a thinking-mans-shooter. It's not a bad game by any standard, it's just not anything we haven't seen before.

I got a thousand+ kills on Normal - and I didn't die that much at all. You really do kill about 1000 people throughout the course of the game.

Most shooters will do that. In real life even Nathan Drake would be a target of some UN geneva crimes against humanity trial..the sheer numbers!

But I am halfway through Max Payne 3. I like it, in fact like it a whole lot but...Rockstar sure did put their bloody brutal stamp on it., and it is wearing on me. I saw some threads sort of lauding the brutal action of MP 3 before the release, and right there I became leery. All I can say is Rockstar made their pointed effort, and I all the more miss Remedy. Not all of it is overdone mind you, Max Paynes life is violent and sad, but what gets me was the origonal Max Payne wasn't about a loser, it was about a man who incredibly bad things happened to. Though I guess I understand, Max is down the road now, alcoholic and chasing pills with whiskey. still, that is how Rockstar paints him, even though at one point it acknowleges Max's high grades at the academy.. And oh Pain pills, don't need so much whiskey, they work better without, and you just make yourself physically sick doing that instead of, for bad or good.. feeling better/high. Hey But it looks the part, right?.

Violent game with some fair amount of substance as oppossed to a substance game with a fair amount of violence.

@AuthenticM said:

Wasn't it the same for the first two max payne games?

In Max Payne 1 you kill about half as many dudes as in the third...

@Vestigial_Man: I've heard 'the uncanny valley of narrative' mentioned before, and it's something I think about in just about every game I play.

Well, it's Max Payne. Let Max answer you, he does a better job than I do: (from the new game)

"Another dark rainy night. Another police station. Another futile crusade for amends. Time moves forward, and nothing changes."

@nomorehalfmeasures said:

Max Payne 3 was a victim of some of the worse aspects of modern game design.

And is also a victim of some of the best aspects of modern film.

@SharkEthic: Im with you 100% dont get me wrong its a very fun game and i like it a lot but there is too much non stop killing parts that could have been toned down a bit.

Downloading the game now, but I'm going to assume you can never kill enough dudes.

I got to 1000 kills on my first playthrough, died a reasonable number of times but nothing crazy. It is a hell of a lot of people and maybe fewer enemies could've meant more shootdodging as the game reaches its conclusion, at the expense of some of the intensity.

I don't have a huge problem with the number of guys I killed, outside of the fact that the tight corridors and Max's low hps meant that you couldn't handle them in very creative ways. But I do think that the game's narrative is disconnected from that number. It's not so much that I can't deal with an old has been being able to do all that - though that's certainly illogical - but it's that no one really acknowledges that it should have been hard for you to do that. There's that one point in the game where a guy says "you killed SO MANY of us" and that's really about it. Even the narrative treats the cannon fodder bad guys like they don't really count as people or serious threats. I guess they couldn't have Max treated like an ignorant stooge if they'd acknowledged that he was a walking god of death . Whatever their reason though, I rarely felt like the shooting I was doing was a part of the same game I was watching in the cutscenes.

despite not being so much like the other 2 games in the series I still really enjoyed it.

So this game isn't rainbow six: rogue spear?

That's kinda funny, considering my first playthrough I feel like I didn't kill enough dudes.

First the games don't have enough gameplay. Now they have too much.

Fickle, even for gamers.

It does sound pretty crazy, when you think about it.

I have to agree. I shot so many dudes. So many dudes! I had a similar problem with Uncharted 3. It felt like the guys never stopped coming and fights went on for longer than I wanted them to. I really liked the story and I wanted to see what was going to happen next. I liked the gunplay and how everything worked. I just wish it was paced a bit differently. I kept getting burnt out on playing it and had to put it down, despite the fact that part of me really wanted to keep on going.

@SharkEthic said:

Also, I know it's a a goddamn action game, even mention it in my description. But my hope was that Rockstar - of all companies - would have made more of a thinking-mans-shooter. It's not a bad game by any standard, it's just not anything we haven't seen before.

Have you played GTA and Red Dead Redemption? You kill alot of dudes...

I think I've just passed the 6,000 kills mark.

Figure I might as well just hand myself into the police.

@nail1080 said:

@SharkEthic said:

Also, I know it's a a goddamn action game, even mention it in my description. But my hope was that Rockstar - of all companies - would have made more of a thinking-mans-shooter. It's not a bad game by any standard, it's just not anything we haven't seen before.

Have you played GTA and Red Dead Redemption? You kill alot of dudes...

Have you played L.A. Noire? Not that many dudes...

This game was awesome.

I agree with you I killed more than a thousand guys already, it's way too much.

@SharkEthic said:

@nail1080 said:

@SharkEthic said:

Also, I know it's a a goddamn action game, even mention it in my description. But my hope was that Rockstar - of all companies - would have made more of a thinking-mans-shooter. It's not a bad game by any standard, it's just not anything we haven't seen before.

Have you played GTA and Red Dead Redemption? You kill alot of dudes...

Have you played L.A. Noire? Not that many dudes...

No, but people don't expect to be killing a lot of dudes in an adventure game.

@SharkEthic said:

@nail1080 said:

@SharkEthic said:

Also, I know it's a a goddamn action game, even mention it in my description. But my hope was that Rockstar - of all companies - would have made more of a thinking-mans-shooter. It's not a bad game by any standard, it's just not anything we haven't seen before.

Have you played GTA and Red Dead Redemption? You kill alot of dudes...

Have you played L.A. Noire? Not that many dudes...

Rockstar didn't make that game, dude.

@nomorehalfmeasures said:

Max Payne 3 was a victim of some of the worse aspects of modern game design.

Elaborate, please.

It's impolite to walk into a room, drop a grenade and leave without so much as a howdy-doo.

Dude, Max Payne 3 is beyond awesome. The little bits of social commentary are so tasty. Like in the final fight against Becker if you take your time mowing down the hordes of troops Becker shouts, "You know Max, you're just another gringo trying to impose his will on our world." "Look what you've become, Mr. Payne. Another fucking terrorist."

That's such an accurate portrayal of the world's resentment towards the US military and it's involvement in recent wars such as Iraq. Max's PTSD has made him into a war torn soldier that just knows to kill. Max and the veteran who was his neighbour back in Jersey were kindred souls because they both went through the same thing.

God I love Rockstar.

@Sooty said:

The same thing can be said for pretty much every single game out there which involves you killing things.

Pretty much. It almost makes no sense to complain about this if the game you are playing is a shooter which Max Payne has always been. The game's single gameplay hook is the shooting and thus you shoot lots of things. Thanks to the bullet time I also happen to want to shoot lots of things.

Now, if you start talking about that issue in relation to something like the Uncharted games, that's when it becomes more reasonable to find an issue with that since these games are also heavily built around navigating, climbing scenery and the wonder and awe that the locations inspire. You could easily dial back the shooting aspects in those games (they'd probably be better for it!).

But Max Payne is made for shooting dudes. A lot of them. Slowly.

Feel like i watched way to many cutscenes.....

@nomorehalfmeasures said:

Max Payne 3 was a victim of some of the worse aspects of modern game design.

which ones?

@Twiggy199 said:

Feel like i watched way to many cutscenes.....

I didn't feel that way until my second playthrough. Sometimes a cutscene will play after every shootout and direct you to the next room. And you can't skip all of them. Very frustrating, although I did enjoy the flow the first time.

Despite loving the gameplay, I'm finding it hard to go through sections again as I keep being subjected to the same dialogue and videos.

@TMThomsen said:

@SharkEthic said:

@nail1080 said:

@SharkEthic said:

Also, I know it's a a goddamn action game, even mention it in my description. But my hope was that Rockstar - of all companies - would have made more of a thinking-mans-shooter. It's not a bad game by any standard, it's just not anything we haven't seen before.

Have you played GTA and Red Dead Redemption? You kill alot of dudes...

Have you played L.A. Noire? Not that many dudes...

No, but people don't expect to be killing a lot of dudes in an adventure game.

You really should...guessing it's pretty cheap by now! Though Rockstar only produced it (@Artemesia) it's - if nothing else - different.

Listen, I'm not saying I'd hoped for a Max Payne game with a bodycount of 4 - but over a fucking thousand? In a game where you for the majority of the time only really have 2 gameplay mechanics: cover and bullet-time/shoot-dodging? @Veektarius said it very well: "tight corridors and Max's low hps meant that you couldn't handle them in very creative ways"...it's just not that interesting.

I feel like there's some wasted potential here, that's all.

@doobie: @GetEveryone: @nomorehalfmeasures said:

@Maajin: You make some good points. I was referring more to the fact that in MP3 you would walk into a room/area and wave after wave of dudes would come in each time. I found it annoying and tedious because the game did it all the time. There was basically no reprieve from this. Other games do it too but they evenly spread it out between different activities or only do it a few times in their respective games.

The earlier MP games also didn't do this as often and they were better for it in my opinion. They changed so much in the combat and level design(not to mention tone/story) from the old games that it was just too much for me. My opinion of course.

@nomorehalfmeasures said:

@Getz: The writing wasn't terrible but it wasn't Max Payne either. I wanted a Remedy developed proper sequel to MP1 and 2. What we got was a Rockstar interpretation of a character that happened to be named Max Payne.

Some other people have brought up good things that it does right but at the time I had just finished the game and I was a bit angry. It's not a bad game it's just not the Max Payne 3 I wanted. It felt like a imposter or a what if alternate universe scenario developed with Rockstar sensibilities. Here are some things I didn't like:

The cover system. I think the cover system is overused and became more than just a moment to catch your breath but a necessity to survive. (I've also heard I played the game wrong.)

The shooting felt off and just not right. I've enjoyed the shooting in Infamous and Alan wake immensely because they reminded me of MP1 and 2 because of how fluid and responsive the controls were. It could also be I played this game with a controller and not a mouse but that's no excuse.

The cut-scenes. Seriously you know what I'm talking about. The way they were implemented felt unnatural and were a detriment to the flow of the game.

Level design with combat design. These two things are the biggest offenders(and what I was referring to with my hyperbolic statement) and coupled with the cover system made me hate the game at times. The combat arenas and all the waves of enemies were just too much. The original MP games did it too but only when the story called for it and only a few times. The uncharted games do this but it is interspersed with everything else going on in those games. Stupid pointless mini cutscene after wave after wave of enemies the entire game was the worst. I didn't enjoy it and I didn't really enjoy the story either.

So to be fair I'm not the best guy to be asking if this game is any good or not as it's not my first time playing the series and I wanted a sequel to the original games and not what we ended up getting. This is all coming from someone who loves Rockstar games despite all the flaws they have in their games. I think Red Dead Redemption is one of the top 10 games of this generation. It just really showed to me at-least that this was their first time making a straight up action game. I just don't think they were the right fit for Max Payne 3.

Hope that clears things up from my perspective and once again it is just my opinion.

When you are Max Payne, you can never kill too many guys.