411 replies to this topic

[Werthead]

Early thoughts on Max Payne 3 (PC):

Amazing production values. Every second of the game feels like it's had an army of programmers and artists working on it for months. In terms of visuals, cinematography and art assets, the game is astounding.

Ridiculous numbers of cut scenes. Max Payne 1+2 were actually the first games where the modern problem of the action being interrupted a lot by cut scenes really kicked in, but even then they'd still have long periods without any cut scenes at all, particularly in the middle of missions. Max Payne 3 is absolutely ridiculous. So far, having gone through several dozen doors in the game, only one of them did not trigger a cut scene (the cut scene invariably showing Max going through a door, spotting some bad guys and combat erupting; why does that need a cut scene?). Even worse, the game ignores whatever you were doing when the cut scene triggered. So I'm flying through a door in bullet time, guns outstretched and ready to fire and wipe out everyone in the room with one move, and the cut scene suddenly shows Max sauntering through the door and cowering behind a pillar. What the heck?

Also, the weapons selection method is moronic. You can only carry 4 weapons and you run out of ammo too easily. Because dual-wielding means sacrificing another weapon slot and minimising the variety of ammo you can use, there is no reason ever to dual-wield, despite it being one of Max's signature moves. I don't care how fricking zeitgeisty it is to have a 'realistic' number of weapons you can use, this is a game about a guy who can magically slow down time at will. Letting him carry the same arsenal as in the first two games would be mild by comparison. Oh yeah, and I'm still puzzled about why the game is telling me I should look around locations for clues as to what's going on, but then instantly contradicting that by having Max yell at me if I spend more than 5 seconds in a location without moving on. What?

Best news is that the cover system (seriously, a cover system in a Max Payne game? Why?) is totally pointless. The classic shootdodging works about ten times better for actually taking out enemies in an efficient manner, especially now that headshots count. Slightly idiotic that bullet time now slows down your reaction time as well (your aiming speed drops by about 20%) since that seems to be going against the point of it, but it's bearable.

Summary: when the game actually lets you control it, it's pretty good. The writing, characterisation and attitude are all more or less continued from the first two games and the design choices do make sense. The frequency of cut scenes verges on the preposterous, however, and the weapon selection system is unnecessarily restrictive.

[Fez]

ICE CROW, on 01 June 2012 - 07:48 AM, said:

Holy Shit, i just watched the new trailer for the new Tomb Raider game. Tomb Raider is now officially my most aniticipated game of 2013 hands down after this trailer.

Tomb Raider E3 Trailer

Change the trailer to HD on the player to really see how good it looks, i just linked the Standrad def trailer

Not sure I've ever seen a game trailer where the main character was that abused, but wow does that look good. And to think this was completely off my radar.

Sad King Billy, on 01 June 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

http://www.rockpaper...much-much-more/

Minecraft eat your heart out.

Oh my.

[Werthead]

The new Tomb Raider seems to start off well - the free-roaming, hunting-deer, wilderness-survival stuff looks good - but then degenerates into violence circling around Lara's status as a woman. Dull, cliched and predictable.

[Fez]

Okay, I didn't even know that there was a game called Dishonored coming out, but that looks amazing; like some sort of unholy cross between Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, and Thief. The lead designer has some pretty impressive credits too (and which make those comparisons seem even more apt), but I don't know how large a role he had in those since I don't follow that kind of thing too closely.

Edited by Fez, 02 June 2012 - 04:15 PM.

[Shryke]

Fez, on 02 June 2012 - 04:15 PM, said:

Okay, I didn't even know that there was a game called Dishonored coming out, but that looks amazing; like some sort of unholy cross between Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, and Thief. The lead designer has some pretty impressive credits too (and which make those comparisons seem even more apt), but I don't know how large a role he had in those since I don't follow that kind of thing too closely.

Haha, he did Cybermage: Darklight Awakening too!


I'm interested in Dishonored, but still a little disappointed with how actiony it looks cause originally I was hoping for a new Thief-type game.

[Kosciuszko]

Saints Row the Third is only 16 dollars on Steam right now if you don't have it yet.

Can't wait to for the download to finish and play it.

[kungtotte]

If you can, try and play it in co-op with a friend. It really enhances the experience and they have a nearly flawless co-op implementation.

[Simon Steele]

ICE CROW, on 01 June 2012 - 07:48 AM, said:

Holy Shit, i just watched the new trailer for the new Tomb Raider game. Tomb Raider is now officially my most aniticipated game of 2013 hands down after this trailer.

Tomb Raider E3 Trailer

Change the trailer to HD on the player to really see how good it looks, i just linked the Standrad def trailer

Looks like Lara Croft vs. The Hills Have Eyes. Awesome.

How many times have they reinvisioned her and the Tomb Raider games? Seems like an awful lot at this point. Looks really good though.

[Serious Callers Only]

Shryke, on 02 June 2012 - 05:23 PM, said:

I'm interested in Dishonored, but still a little disappointed with how actiony it looks cause originally I was hoping for a new Thief-type game.

Try the dark mod

You only need doom 3 (i got mine for 5€, never even played it once)

[Werthead]

Quote

I'm interested in Dishonored, but still a little disappointed with how actiony it looks cause originally I was hoping for a new Thief-type game.

Apparently they made an action-based trailer for the E3-watching action crowd. Apparently you can go through the game like a psychopathic mass-murdering nutter, or you can stealth it up a lot. I think I even heard that you can get through most of the game without killing anyone.

[Lord of the Night]

Werthead, on 03 June 2012 - 06:04 AM, said:

Apparently they made an action-based trailer for the E3-watching action crowd. Apparently you can go through the game like a psychopathic mass-murdering nutter, or you can stealth it up a lot. I think I even heard that you can get through most of the game without killing anyone.

Apparantely you can get through the ENTIRE game without killing anyone. Now that is a really good optional path, be the bloody revenge-taker or the bringer of justice. I'll be going the stealth path and killing those who truely deserve it, and bringing as many karmic punishments as I can.

Really the game's true diversity will be through the killing. I read an article that describes a mission hunting a man in a brothel, and it had many many options for how to do it. First was to storm the place and kill everyone. Second was to possess a fish and swim through the sewers into the lower levels, finding the steam room where the target is. Then yet more options, on what to do with him. Burst in and kill him and the girl he's with, possess the girl and kill him and let her take the fall for it, blow up the room and the building with it, or mind-wipe him and send him to slave in his own silver mines, or just simply assassinate him Altair style. I know what i'd do.

Definitely a game to anticipate.


LotN

[KiDisaster]

I finished Max Payne 3 today and I have to say I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. Partly because I had heard so many negative things before playing it.

The story, as usual for a Rockstar game, was pretty interesting, and while I didn't think it was quite as good as the first few games it was still captivating enough to keep me interested throughout. The writing, in terms of the dialogue and especially Max's quips about the situation and his internal monologues, is top notch and a big part of what made the game for me. Even when his lines come off as cheesy (Such as when some guys burst in through the ceiling and he says "Something tells me they didn't have security clearance.") it fits the mood perfectly, and it helps that the voice acting was excellent also.

It's a fantastic looking game as well, I played the PC version and even though I couldn't quite max out the settings (Putting MSAA above 2x caused the game to exceed my video memory) it was pretty...well, pretty. I also enjoyed the soundtrack quite a bit. I'm not a fan of "noise music" really but it fit the atmosphere quite well and having this song playing during a hectic firefight is surprisingly fitting http://www.youtube.c...h?v=8MojF4YIgzg

There are also little details that I really liked, particularly the fact that if you switch to your pistol while you have a two handed weapon equipped, Max will still be holding the two handed gun in his left hand while firing the pistol with his right, rather than having the gun disappear or magically attach to his back. Gunplay on the whole felt pretty satisfying, especially the bullet cams when you take down the last guy in a group of enemies. I mainly stuck to using pistols because getting headshots with them is so satisfying

Things I wasn't too keen on: The addition of the cover/blind fire system made the bullet time mechanics a lot less useful to the point where I actually rarely ever used it. I felt that the campaign could have been slightly longer, it took me about 8 hours to complete on normal mode. But the addition of the arcade mode and three levels of difficulty above normal (Not to mention all the collectibles I missed) add some replay value so I still feel like it was worth the money. I wasn't too impressed with the multiplayer and probably won't be playing it much if at all but hey that's not what I bought it for so, yeah

I think I'll play through it on hard mode and try to collect all the clues at some point in the future. The clues actually add little extra snippets to the story which is pretty nice, the golden guns I don't really care about all that much.

Anyway, definitely a fun game and I'm glad I bought it.

[KiDisaster]

Lord of the Night, on 03 June 2012 - 12:29 PM, said:

Apparantely you can get through the ENTIRE game without killing anyone. Now that is a really good optional path, be the bloody revenge-taker or the bringer of justice. I'll be going the stealth path and killing those who truely deserve it, and bringing as many karmic punishments as I can.

Really the game's true diversity will be through the killing. I read an article that describes a mission hunting a man in a brothel, and it had many many options for how to do it. First was to storm the place and kill everyone. Second was to possess a fish and swim through the sewers into the lower levels, finding the steam room where the target is. Then yet more options, on what to do with him. Burst in and kill him and the girl he's with, possess the girl and kill him and let her take the fall for it, blow up the room and the building with it, or mind-wipe him and send him to slave in his own silver mines, or just simply assassinate him Altair style. I know what i'd do.

Definitely a game to anticipate.


LotN

I was already looking forward to this game, but the ability to possess fish just heightened my anticipation

[Lord of the Night]

KiDisaster, on 04 June 2012 - 07:23 PM, said:

I was already looking forward to this game, but the ability to possess fish just heightened my anticipation

Apparantely you can possess any animal. Dogs, rats, birds, fish, etc.


LotN

[mor2]

New title from Ubisoft, Watch Dogs: Gameplay Demo  Introduction

There is also sleeping dogs, assassin's creed 3 etc etc, I doubt i'll have time to play any of them, but still I like watching those trailers, I find it exciting how much games has advanced in recent years and I dont mean in terms of graphics.

Edited by mor2, 05 June 2012 - 04:40 AM.

[haLobEnder]

Lots of cool stuff coming out of E3. So far I'm most impressed with Quantic Dream's new game, Beyond: Two Souls which oddly enough for anyone who has been following any Last of Us buzz, stars Ellen Page.

Another game that looks awesome is Star Wars: 1313 which is being compared to Uncharted. Several divisions of LucasArts are collaborating on this one, which on its own is kinda' cool.

ETA: Just watched that Watch Dogs trailer. That is looking pretty cool. Much like Farcry 3 it's looking pretty ambitious however, I hope Ubisoft is able to pull both of them off.

Edited by halO bendeR, 05 June 2012 - 12:55 PM.

[nickg]

There is a pretty brief video of gameplay for star wars 1313 on YouTube. Looks pretty sweet.

[Chise]

Watch Dogs and Ni no Kuni - [ insert "just shut up and take my money!" meme here ]

but can someone explain the Rhythm Final Fantasy game & this "Sony got Harry Potter not as a book, but this gamey move interactive" thing to me? 'cause I just don't get it...

Edited by Chise, 05 June 2012 - 04:34 PM.

[Tyrellius]

Chise, on 05 June 2012 - 04:34 PM, said:

but can someone explain the Rhythm Final Fantasy game & this "Sony got Harry Potter not as a book, but this gamey move interactive" thing to me? 'cause I just don't get it...

Milking fanbois with pointless peripheral sales.

[Muttering Bill]

I gave into temptation and bought Warriors Orochi 3 over this past weekend.  That means I won't be able to pick up Lollipop Chainsaw next week, which I would have rather have gotten, if I had realized that it was almost out.

But, oh well.  The games good.  Good enough to steal my attention away from Skyrim yet again.*  And different enough from Dynasty Warriors 7 that it doesn't feel like the same game that I've already just spent 150 hours playing.  I'm working through story mode, on Chapter 2.  Running a somewhat reduntant team of Ayane, Kunoichi, and Wang Yuanji.

*(I also screwed up in Skyrim and have to revert ot an earlier save, which always drains my enthusiasm for a game.  Even though it's only about 2 hours of lost progress.)

Edited by Muttering Bill, 06 June 2012 - 12:38 PM.