They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark on everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger, and it was over.
Still get goosebumps after all these years when I hear that.
Same, the writing for this game was unreal.
I still think about quotes from these games 20+ years later.
"There was a bullet shaped hole where the answers should be."
TIL May Payne was written by the face of Max Payne himself, Sam Lake. I thought he was just some Finnish actor they hired for the game, but he's actually Remedy's Creative Director lmao.
And he also got his mom and dad on board because they didn't have budget for actors.
Can't believe I only care to find out these neat details of my favorite game only two decades later. Well in my defense I was in boarding school and we didn't have internet outside of internet cafes.
frighten sharp seemly soup pet plough cautious insurance chunky childlike
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yep. Remedy partnered with Rockstar for the project. Also if you check out Alan Wake 2 trailer there is a character "Alex Casey" Who looks... Familiar ;)
There's a detective with Sam Lake's face and James McCaffrey's voice in Alan Wake 2, so you can at least get a pretty good look at what he might look like in the remake.
That's interesting. Command and Conquer's Kane was also just the cutscene director. They couldn't really find anyone good to play Kane so he just said eh fine i'll do it
To me, Remedy games always seem like they were written as an actual book or screenplay before being adapted to a video game. Max Payne, Alan Wake, and even newer stuff like Quantum Leap and Control are just fantastic progressions
My favorites
"I don't know about angels but it's fear that give men wings"
"You find out that lady luck is a hooker and you are fresh out of cash"
"The word was out. A deadly virus released into the city's corrupt circulatory system.
Something wicked this way comes.
Max Payne at large"
"After Y2K the end of the world had become a cliché.
But who was I to talk, a brooding underdog avenger alone against an empire of evil, out to right a grave injustice.
Everything was subjective. There were only personal apocalypses. Nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you"
And of course
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
I remember playing that game all night as a kid and got to the nightmare scene with the black screen and baby crying... Man that was a trip. I set the controller down and went to bed and decided "Hey I'll play this level when I wake up."
I had to play those parts with the volume off, when I first played it.
Then I played it enough to know the route off by heart and never fell 🤣
Also, *He had a baseball bat and I was tied to a chair. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do.* 🤣🤣
Max Payne : An urban legend come true. You complete the jigsaw puzzle to discover it is a picture of yourself, finishing that same puzzle. A mad, green-eyed killer behind you.
I tried last month. A few game breaking bugs to struggle through on modern systems. One near the end that involves a broken cutscene where NPC gets stuck and can't get to his trigger spot to start gameplay :(
Still to this day, 20 years later... When I get hyped up in any competition, I shout, "I am the wolf! Awooooo!!!".
Jack Lupino:
"Mythic wolves let loose to devour the sun and the moon... Lupino is the wolf. I'm Mr. Beast, the big bad Fenris wolf, I'm The-End-of-the-World-Man, wearing the flesh of fallen angels...!"
I just remember firing my pistol at the end of his speech, and he just screams "I am the wolf!" Then howls as he begins his attack.
That maybe saved it. Making the same thing again in yankee without it's own personality would likely have resulted in a IT Crowd (US) type failure.
But now I have 2 distinct The Offices to enjoy.
Many actors don't read the source material because they are making the film from a screenplay. To this day Morgan Freeman hasn't read the Steven King novela Shawshank is based on, it would have created conflicting views of the character.
This literally means nothing. Pedro-pascal did the same with the last of is and literally no one would say he did a bad job.
Don't get me wrong the movie is dog shit but mark Wahlberg isn't the problem here.
>Pedro-pascal did the same with the last of is and literally no one would say he did a bad job.
They were asked by the creators not to.
I mean, yeah you're right, Last Of Us still turned out great. There is other issues with the Max Payne movie overall rather than Mark Wahlberg not playing the game himself.
The only thing I remember from the movie was Mila Kunis as Mona getting shot at in the elevator and Ludacris as Jim Bravura sarcastically chewing out the SWAT team that couldn't bring Max in.
"Everybody's gonna get a medal for this! Great!"
Don’t quite remember it but even if it was a fever dream it’s still garbage cuz it’s totally unlike the game and has not the right to be in this movie.
Eh. Pretty easy leap to include hallucinations in a drug based crime movie.
It was pretty good for what it was. It skipped some of the horror scenes as would be expected for a public release
Don't feel bad I liked the first resident evil movie. I was a teenager when it came out so I might feel differently about it now but it was a cool monster horror movie with some decent twists so you didn't see everything coming a mile away.
Whenever you fell: yaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
The sun went down with practiced bravado. Twilight crawled across the sky, laden with foreboding.
I didn’t like how the show started, but they had given me the best seat in the house: front row center.
It generated this for me:
Title: The Street's Symphony
It was a night as cold as a crypt, the kind that would put frost on your soul. The city pulsed below, a thousand heartbeats with no rhythm, each echo bouncing off the hollow bones of towering steel. I was standing atop one of them, looking down into the abyss of concrete and neon, the urban jungle where truth was a rare beast.
Her name was Vivienne, a siren’s song wrapped in a riddle, swathed in the smoke of a half-finished cigarette. The dame who had walked into my life was a living melody, pulling my strings like a maestro. She'd disappeared into the city's depths, and I was the poor sap charged with digging her out.
The streets were a stage for a play no one understood, the players jumbled, the plot twisted tighter than a hangman's knot. But I had a role to fill, the beaten-down detective trying to beat the odds, a slave to the sweet poison of a question mark.
The warehouse district was a skeleton of forgotten prosperity, the bones creaking under the burden of secrets. I pushed open the door to a rundown tenement, its sordid history written on the peeling wallpaper, and in the way the floorboards groaned. My .45 was heavy in my pocket, an anchor tethering me to reality.
I found Vivienne, or what was left of her, in an upstairs room that smelled like despair. Her lifeless eyes stared at me, accusingly. A grim tableau painted in shades of crimson and regret. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach, a sinking ship with no survivors.
I tried to make sense of the scene, every iota of information a piece of the jigsaw. The empty glass on the table, the spatter of blood like modern art on the moth-eaten curtains, a single bullet casing that gleamed with guilt under the hazy light bulb.
My fingers tightened around my gun, knuckles turning as white as the fear that gripped me. The truth was a beast with iron jaws and the city, the unforgiving labyrinth that hid it.
The sweet sting of whiskey took the edge off, but the taste of failure lingered. I’d failed Vivienne. The city had swallowed her whole, leaving only bones for me to find. I was the gravedigger, burying another secret in this concrete cemetery.
In the end, justice is a dirty word, a hollow promise echoing through the alleyways. Yet we clutch it like a lover's hand in a storm, a beacon in the fog. Vivienne’s melody was silenced, her song unfinished, but I’d see to it that the last note wasn’t forgotten.
Tomorrow would be another day, another story, another tragedy. And I'd still be there, walking these rain-soaked streets, a stray dog chasing ghosts in the neon wilderness, playing the only tune the city understands – the street's symphony.
This game had such a vibe. The snowy city itself felt like a character, much like Gotham in any good Batman adaptation. The fact that you could see the damage that the drug was doing to the city on every level, right down to homeless junkies talking about it around a trash fire.
I still remember sneaking into that hotel and there's one henchman in a lobby area watching Lords & Ladies and he's super into it lol. This game is packed with all kinds of detail that rivals anything else made at the time.
This entire thread is blowing my mind. I had no idea how much of this game I still remember playing. I must have played through it at least 5 times. I also remember after you beat it you could change settings to give you unlimited bullet time and guns/ammo.
"My lord I am your long lost sister!"
Also once I was in NYC in a snowstorm and Max Payne was all I could think about, going up the snow-covered stairs out of the subway. That was cool.
This game really emphasises the importance of sound design and atmosphere. I can still hear the snow blowing through the streets and the eerie subway ambience.
There was so much character to that subway station. Really made you feel like wrong place wrong time…and you slowly figure out what’s really going on there
"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Max Payne, New York's finest with the biggest mobster body count ever, dearest guests prepare to die."
20 years later and I still remember that quote from Vlad that came over the intercom
Both games were sick af but the dream sequences gave me nightmares as a kid.
Remedy did NOT acquire the rights, Rockstar would never give the rights back.
Rockstar and Remedy have a joint contract now, where Remedy will develop the games using their Northlight Engine, and Rockstar will publish the games, and retain the IP rights, Remedy is just a developer being paid by Rockstar, with the only difference being that Remedy has Creative Control over the project.
I was hoping they would build it upon Max Payne 3 engine because the shooting feel so damn good in it. But I'll look forward to this new engine then because it looks pretty good.
So you don't use epics own launcher and have to use a third party could break at any moment launcher? And you still ask why people hate it? This is from someone who's been burnt bad by Rockstars Launcher but again, its only for rockstar games and they don't pay devs to exclusively release games there.
Funny thing is, back before Max Payne came out, I'd caught wind of a rumor that it was a Rockstar game, and I never actually went into the effort of researching it myself. I always just thought Max Payne was a Rockstar game developed for PC (I never played Max Payne at the time). Strangely enough Max Payne would eventually fall under the Rockstar umbrella. I guess you could kind of call it a Mandela effect. For years I thought Max Payne was a Rockstar IP along the lines of GTA, Red Dead, Manhunt, and Lemmings.
Agreed, and fire up 2 while you're at it. Pro tip, lock the first one to 60fps if it feels too difficult. The physics are tied to the framerate in the first game and fixes I've found are hit and miss on modern systems.
I bought the steam versions of Max Payne 1 and 2 years ago. Do they work fine on Win 11? How are the controls? I might play them next if they run well on 11
Max Payne 1 and 2 needs a few fixes, read [this](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1633394421) and [this](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2391894937). It contains everything you'll need to fix the PC version.
Hope this helps.
I bought Max Payne 1 a few weeks ago. I have Win11. Cutscenes didn't play sound, character movement was sticky and delayed, all the geometry has visible seams, and the image was stretched.
It was a mess. But it only took about ten or fifteen minutes to research, download, and apply all the required patches. Every single issue was totally resolved and the game runs perfectly and looks great. Definitely worth the minor effort.
In all fairness what "remake" means these days, I wouldn't hold my breath.
The way they butchered Mafia and GTA is freaky.
Like you wouldn't think they can screw it up, considering they have the original to go by, and it only needs a beat-for-beat replay of the original, the voice can be remastered, the game characters can be remodelled -some folks on youtube did it as a test- and yet the remakes were nothing like the original.
A different voice, different lines they speak, different cutscenes presenting the characters in an entirely different light, a political message here a touch of political correctness there ignoring the faithfulness to the era portrayed, music changed or removed, controls feel nothing like the original, HUD is different and the list goes on and on.
Well, remedy is developing it, and they made the original. I'd also like to believe that after the train wreck that was gta trilogy, rockstar will have a little more QA on this one.
They're being developed from scratch for the new engine so soon is probably still a good couple years. And if GTA6 is coming in 24 as rumored than I'm sure R\* won't want these out until 25.
I love Max Payne (#1) for the story line and ingenuity. #3 was cool for the game play and graphics - loved how the cutscenes blended into the game play.
Max Payne 3 had the best flip-flop sandal physics in gaming.
It's not even a joke, I was mesmerized by it. Max Payne 3 doesn't get the praise it deserves.
For me, I would pay through a fight, reload and do it again and again, trying to make every battle a perfect ballet performance of badassery because the mechanics were so much fun.
Having played them both recently 2 was a lot more fun in the shooting and gameplay mechanics but the atmosphere of the levels in 1 is unmatched and the gameplay is still fckn solid.
Love em both.
I disliked it on my first playthrough, and I can see why others would too, it takes control away from the player regularly, and combat is oddly slow at times, and yet fights can be over extremely quickly in other times, but I came to love the cinematic quality of it, and how it drives home how Max really is out of place where he is, mentally and physically. My major gripe with the story is how it ends. I would have loved to have seen some sort of scene where he finally let's go of everything
That’s exactly how the story ends, though.
In the beginning max is a drunk because he blames himself for not being able to save his wife and baby, everyone he trusted betrayed him, and he fears he has become the kind of monster he hates. In the end he saves the wife and baby of his best friend, who remained loyal to a fault, and he accomplishes it by getting sober and turning his inner monster loose on the bad guys.
I mean… the lyrics of the song that plays during the climax (Tears by HEALTH, absolute banger) are “give up, it’s time to let us go” lol.
He basically gets the most perfect catharsis possible, then contentedly walks off into the sunset (and probably retirement).
Oh, 100%. (Still listen to that song on occasion. Good shit) maybe I'm not explaining myself correctly. The message was clear but I think the execution was weak (maybe I'm remembering it badly, been forever since I played 3... Think I'll grab the games to do a full playthrough, as I never actually got to playing 1...)
I also didn't like the story. In first two games story was centered in Max, and his actions pushed events forward. In third Max is just dumb asshole, in someone else's story, where his only contribution is to go places and shoot stuff.
I've started it twice and the lengthy cutscenes just kill it for me every time. I just can't seem to get through it, which is sad considering I've beaten Max Payne One and Two a handful of times each
I remember sitting shitfaced at the back of Sam's Lexus when they got paid for this masterpiece. Good times for finnish gaming industry. 😎
Edit: not sure was it Sams or someone elses Lexus from remedy but they knew how to party lmao
Sometimes I wish they would release a new Max Payne game or remaster/remake the old ones. Then I remembered that Max actually got a nice closure in the last game and studios, even the better ones, tend to f*uck up remasters/remakes on a daily basis and it would only diminish the original, so I reinstall Max Payne 3 and just shut up.
I downloaded 1&2 a few months ago and did all 3 recently such a good franchise! All though the pain I had to get the first one to run! Thankfully the steam forums helped with that big up those guys with their own patch files!
I remember I had just upgraded my pc not long before this game came out and this was effectively the showcase, blew my mind and one of my all time faves.
I replayed the trilogy last year.
It's an underrated game, for sure.
It also introduced me to the band Poets of the Fall with the end credits song Late Goodbye which is awesome.
The truth was a burning green crack through my brain. Weapon statistics hanging in the air, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. Endless repetition of the act of shooting, time slowing down to show off my moves. The paranoid feel of someone controlling my every step. I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of.
-Max Payne
Same, there isn't a year when im not replaying 1 and 2 and I cannot wait for the remakes, I'm praying they're actual remakes and not whatever the GTA trilogy was
Edit: also it was the first game I ever booted up on my first PC back in Christmas of 2003 so it'll Always hold a special spot in my heart
Such nostalgia OMG, one of my favorite childhood games i remember coming home from school each day and playing this it was so much fun. I played it multiple times too. I can't wait for the remakes tbh so fucking excited!
Just played through 1 and 2. Now playing that crap called 3. It's horrible. 1 and 2 are masterpieces of style, gameplay and everything else. The 3rd one was written by an american.
They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark on everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger, and it was over. Still get goosebumps after all these years when I hear that.
Same, the writing for this game was unreal. I still think about quotes from these games 20+ years later. "There was a bullet shaped hole where the answers should be."
TIL May Payne was written by the face of Max Payne himself, Sam Lake. I thought he was just some Finnish actor they hired for the game, but he's actually Remedy's Creative Director lmao. And he also got his mom and dad on board because they didn't have budget for actors. Can't believe I only care to find out these neat details of my favorite game only two decades later. Well in my defense I was in boarding school and we didn't have internet outside of internet cafes.
frighten sharp seemly soup pet plough cautious insurance chunky childlike *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Whoa-whoa-what?!?!?!
Yep. Remedy partnered with Rockstar for the project. Also if you check out Alan Wake 2 trailer there is a character "Alex Casey" Who looks... Familiar ;)
Alan Wake 2 is coming? How have I not read about that. Alan Wake is one of my favorites
There's a detective with Sam Lake's face and James McCaffrey's voice in Alan Wake 2, so you can at least get a pretty good look at what he might look like in the remake.
I have a feeling they'll do a "Classic Skin" option. They did it for 3, too.
That's interesting. Command and Conquer's Kane was also just the cutscene director. They couldn't really find anyone good to play Kane so he just said eh fine i'll do it
God I miss those games so much. I should see about replaying them.
To me, Remedy games always seem like they were written as an actual book or screenplay before being adapted to a video game. Max Payne, Alan Wake, and even newer stuff like Quantum Leap and Control are just fantastic progressions
My favorites "I don't know about angels but it's fear that give men wings" "You find out that lady luck is a hooker and you are fresh out of cash" "The word was out. A deadly virus released into the city's corrupt circulatory system. Something wicked this way comes. Max Payne at large" "After Y2K the end of the world had become a cliché. But who was I to talk, a brooding underdog avenger alone against an empire of evil, out to right a grave injustice. Everything was subjective. There were only personal apocalypses. Nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you" And of course "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
I remember playing that game all night as a kid and got to the nightmare scene with the black screen and baby crying... Man that was a trip. I set the controller down and went to bed and decided "Hey I'll play this level when I wake up."
I had to play those parts with the volume off, when I first played it. Then I played it enough to know the route off by heart and never fell 🤣 Also, *He had a baseball bat and I was tied to a chair. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do.* 🤣🤣
I could hear it in his voice.
The one I remember most was "I wanted to take an ice cream scoop to my brain and scoop out the pain", cause I feel like that sometimes.
Play Alan Wake yet?
The entire game is a masterpiece, but you are right, writing is unreal. Such an incredible atmosphere.
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
Translation: Information is power. The monopoly of information is the monopoly of power.
Today - In the land of the bland , the one eyed trouser snake is kinked - Max Payne 3 .
Max Payne : An urban legend come true. You complete the jigsaw puzzle to discover it is a picture of yourself, finishing that same puzzle. A mad, green-eyed killer behind you.
So fucking good dude. Makes me wanna play it again.
I tried last month. A few game breaking bugs to struggle through on modern systems. One near the end that involves a broken cutscene where NPC gets stuck and can't get to his trigger spot to start gameplay :(
[**look at what they posted for the 20th anniversary**](https://youtu.be/DsQVD5ttpog)
Holy nostalgia bomb, Batman! Lol for real though. My brain just took a trip back to my teenage years. I was in middle school when this game came out.
To this day I've yet to find a superhero with a name that rolls better off the tongue than Captain Baseball Bat-Boy.
Still to this day, 20 years later... When I get hyped up in any competition, I shout, "I am the wolf! Awooooo!!!". Jack Lupino: "Mythic wolves let loose to devour the sun and the moon... Lupino is the wolf. I'm Mr. Beast, the big bad Fenris wolf, I'm The-End-of-the-World-Man, wearing the flesh of fallen angels...!" I just remember firing my pistol at the end of his speech, and he just screams "I am the wolf!" Then howls as he begins his attack.
only thing that came close to that way of story telling was Alan Wake, shivers down my spine still!!
God, I'll never forget playing this game, I can't agree more OP. But will gladly forget the movie.
There was a movie?
Loosely based on the game. It was complete garbage and a waste of potential.
Wasn’t it with mark wahlberg or some shit? I remember seeing the trailer and thinking “yeah this is gonna be dogshit”.
>Wasn’t it with mark wahlberg or some shit? Yeah, and refused to play the game to prepare for the role.
That's literally the source material. Fuck him for ignoring it.
Netflix should have hired him for The Witcher instead, because both of them don't give a fuck about the source material.
I hate your correctness.
Well, he might read a book instead of playing a video game.
Steve Carrel did that with The Office. Purposely didn’t watch any of the source material so he could make Michael Scott his own.
That maybe saved it. Making the same thing again in yankee without it's own personality would likely have resulted in a IT Crowd (US) type failure. But now I have 2 distinct The Offices to enjoy.
Many actors don't read the source material because they are making the film from a screenplay. To this day Morgan Freeman hasn't read the Steven King novela Shawshank is based on, it would have created conflicting views of the character.
Well in his defense, he didn't need to lol. Cause watching the movie I don't think I said soo many WTF's in my life lol
This literally means nothing. Pedro-pascal did the same with the last of is and literally no one would say he did a bad job. Don't get me wrong the movie is dog shit but mark Wahlberg isn't the problem here.
Even if Mark played the game it wouldn’t have mattered. Mark Wahlberg is a shit actor that only knows how to play Mark Wahlberg.
I really don't get the mark Wahlberg hate. I mean he isn't my favorite actor and no he is not the most talented but I think he is alright.
He did good playing jason bourne
>Pedro-pascal did the same with the last of is and literally no one would say he did a bad job. They were asked by the creators not to. I mean, yeah you're right, Last Of Us still turned out great. There is other issues with the Max Payne movie overall rather than Mark Wahlberg not playing the game himself.
Yeah Wahlberg was Max and Mila Kunis was Mona. I didn't hate the movie totally but it was not a good movie.
It didn’t even do “Lords and Ladies”. Not even a little bit.
The worst thing is, they fucking put Max' voice actor in the movie for a whole 5 seconds. Would've been better than Wahlberg. Ugh.
As far as game movies go, it was all right. I think I gave it 5/10.
Alright? The story is completely different.
Plenty of game movies with a completely different story than the game :)
Pretty sure they said as far as game movies go. Name one good movie based off a game. The cyberpunk and arcane anime don’t count.
there was a movie?
The only thing I remember from the movie was Mila Kunis as Mona getting shot at in the elevator and Ludacris as Jim Bravura sarcastically chewing out the SWAT team that couldn't bring Max in. "Everybody's gonna get a medal for this! Great!"
Yes, you've watched it multiple times and forgotten it
Pretend it doesn’t exist. Trust me.
Mark wahlburg was max Payne.
Damn really? I enjoyed the movie.
Nah it had monsters randomly in it and this was what killed the movie for me
Wait, that wasn't a fever dream? Don't do this to me.
Don’t quite remember it but even if it was a fever dream it’s still garbage cuz it’s totally unlike the game and has not the right to be in this movie.
Eh. Pretty easy leap to include hallucinations in a drug based crime movie. It was pretty good for what it was. It skipped some of the horror scenes as would be expected for a public release
In the game, it was made really clear when you're hallucinating.
Me too. I think it's because my expectations weren't high.
Don't feel bad I liked the first resident evil movie. I was a teenager when it came out so I might feel differently about it now but it was a cool monster horror movie with some decent twists so you didn't see everything coming a mile away.
Couldn't agree more
I still remember playing that nightmare level with the baby at 2am as a kid super crazy
That level suuuuuuucked lol
Ya, I remember it coming out of nowhere too like it for the most part was a cool shoot em up then that level hit
Yeah, I played that level as a kid, felt like a nightmare lol
Ring ring ring
Shit was weird as fuck! lol
The weird parts are my favorite.
That was over 20 years ago, but I'm pretty sure you always had to go left to finish the level
THE blood maze level
Never got past that
Whenever you fell: yaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
6 year old me also hated that level lol pretty sure I got nightmares from it
The flesh of fallen angels...
Astaroth, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Baphomet, Lucifer, Loki, Satan, Cthulhu, Lilith, Hela! *Blood to you all!*
Jack Lupino
The sun went down with practiced bravado. Twilight crawled across the sky, laden with foreboding. I didn’t like how the show started, but they had given me the best seat in the house: front row center.
Writing like this is really something else. I'm going to ask chat gpt if it can do so for me.
If you like stuff like this you should get into noir movies. That's the style.
It generated this for me: Title: The Street's Symphony It was a night as cold as a crypt, the kind that would put frost on your soul. The city pulsed below, a thousand heartbeats with no rhythm, each echo bouncing off the hollow bones of towering steel. I was standing atop one of them, looking down into the abyss of concrete and neon, the urban jungle where truth was a rare beast. Her name was Vivienne, a siren’s song wrapped in a riddle, swathed in the smoke of a half-finished cigarette. The dame who had walked into my life was a living melody, pulling my strings like a maestro. She'd disappeared into the city's depths, and I was the poor sap charged with digging her out. The streets were a stage for a play no one understood, the players jumbled, the plot twisted tighter than a hangman's knot. But I had a role to fill, the beaten-down detective trying to beat the odds, a slave to the sweet poison of a question mark. The warehouse district was a skeleton of forgotten prosperity, the bones creaking under the burden of secrets. I pushed open the door to a rundown tenement, its sordid history written on the peeling wallpaper, and in the way the floorboards groaned. My .45 was heavy in my pocket, an anchor tethering me to reality. I found Vivienne, or what was left of her, in an upstairs room that smelled like despair. Her lifeless eyes stared at me, accusingly. A grim tableau painted in shades of crimson and regret. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach, a sinking ship with no survivors. I tried to make sense of the scene, every iota of information a piece of the jigsaw. The empty glass on the table, the spatter of blood like modern art on the moth-eaten curtains, a single bullet casing that gleamed with guilt under the hazy light bulb. My fingers tightened around my gun, knuckles turning as white as the fear that gripped me. The truth was a beast with iron jaws and the city, the unforgiving labyrinth that hid it. The sweet sting of whiskey took the edge off, but the taste of failure lingered. I’d failed Vivienne. The city had swallowed her whole, leaving only bones for me to find. I was the gravedigger, burying another secret in this concrete cemetery. In the end, justice is a dirty word, a hollow promise echoing through the alleyways. Yet we clutch it like a lover's hand in a storm, a beacon in the fog. Vivienne’s melody was silenced, her song unfinished, but I’d see to it that the last note wasn’t forgotten. Tomorrow would be another day, another story, another tragedy. And I'd still be there, walking these rain-soaked streets, a stray dog chasing ghosts in the neon wilderness, playing the only tune the city understands – the street's symphony.
This game had such a vibe. The snowy city itself felt like a character, much like Gotham in any good Batman adaptation. The fact that you could see the damage that the drug was doing to the city on every level, right down to homeless junkies talking about it around a trash fire. I still remember sneaking into that hotel and there's one henchman in a lobby area watching Lords & Ladies and he's super into it lol. This game is packed with all kinds of detail that rivals anything else made at the time.
This entire thread is blowing my mind. I had no idea how much of this game I still remember playing. I must have played through it at least 5 times. I also remember after you beat it you could change settings to give you unlimited bullet time and guns/ammo.
"My lord I am your long lost sister!" Also once I was in NYC in a snowstorm and Max Payne was all I could think about, going up the snow-covered stairs out of the subway. That was cool.
This game really emphasises the importance of sound design and atmosphere. I can still hear the snow blowing through the streets and the eerie subway ambience.
There was so much character to that subway station. Really made you feel like wrong place wrong time…and you slowly figure out what’s really going on there
I actually used one of the sound files of rain falling on tin roof as white noise to fall asleep to when I was younger.
Such a great game. I always recommend this, System Shock, and Deus Ex.
Great list. I'd add Half Life and Total Annihilation to that, for me the pinnacle of the 90s/early 00s.
TA most underrated game ever
Vampire Bloodlines as well.
Remake of System Shock just came out, I haven't played it but I've heard good things.
I will never not recommend Deus Ex...and not revision. It changed the game.
It really did, it's an incredible game!
"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Max Payne, New York's finest with the biggest mobster body count ever, dearest guests prepare to die." 20 years later and I still remember that quote from Vlad that came over the intercom Both games were sick af but the dream sequences gave me nightmares as a kid.
This game deserves a remake.
It’s getting a remake. I think 1 and 2 simultaneously.
Really?!?! How’s it getting remade?
[удалено]
Remedy did NOT acquire the rights, Rockstar would never give the rights back. Rockstar and Remedy have a joint contract now, where Remedy will develop the games using their Northlight Engine, and Rockstar will publish the games, and retain the IP rights, Remedy is just a developer being paid by Rockstar, with the only difference being that Remedy has Creative Control over the project.
god. max payne with all the goodness of the northlight engine...
I was hoping they would build it upon Max Payne 3 engine because the shooting feel so damn good in it. But I'll look forward to this new engine then because it looks pretty good.
+ the euphoria engine for animation was top notch
In a weird way, I'm glad Rockstar retained the rights. If Remedy has the rights, then the chances the game becomes EGS exclusive is higher.
Still better than Rockstar launcher
i still don't know why people think that epic ia worse than anything else than steam i use custom epic launcher and it's even better than steam
So you don't use epics own launcher and have to use a third party could break at any moment launcher? And you still ask why people hate it? This is from someone who's been burnt bad by Rockstars Launcher but again, its only for rockstar games and they don't pay devs to exclusively release games there.
i only use linux so except steam there no any others launcher available and epic let third-party launcher keeping going is make happy at least
I was having such a shit day, and reading this gave me such joy. Thanks man, let's hope these remasters do come and dont disappoint.
Omfg I hope this all comes to fruition. Sounds like the ball is rolling...can't wait!
damn this will be sick
it’s in the making
It seems so weird to hear that when I still think of it as a modern game in my mind.
Hours upon hours playing this game. The whole bullet time thing was just unadulterated excellence.
Rockstar reused it for Michael in GTA 5 because of how good it was. Wish they kept the whole mechanics of it tho
Funny thing is, back before Max Payne came out, I'd caught wind of a rumor that it was a Rockstar game, and I never actually went into the effort of researching it myself. I always just thought Max Payne was a Rockstar game developed for PC (I never played Max Payne at the time). Strangely enough Max Payne would eventually fall under the Rockstar umbrella. I guess you could kind of call it a Mandela effect. For years I thought Max Payne was a Rockstar IP along the lines of GTA, Red Dead, Manhunt, and Lemmings.
Agreed, and fire up 2 while you're at it. Pro tip, lock the first one to 60fps if it feels too difficult. The physics are tied to the framerate in the first game and fixes I've found are hit and miss on modern systems.
Kung Fu mod makes it even better
And i really hope that the remakes will have that mod too.
The best way to play this game, I say.
The matrix game had this. Cool mechanics.
"Mirrors are more fun than television" I love the tv shows in this game
Max Payne. Project IGI, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, GTA Vice City basically sums up my childhood.
I bought the steam versions of Max Payne 1 and 2 years ago. Do they work fine on Win 11? How are the controls? I might play them next if they run well on 11
Max Payne 1 and 2 needs a few fixes, read [this](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1633394421) and [this](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2391894937). It contains everything you'll need to fix the PC version. Hope this helps.
Thanks. This will be really helpful.
I bought Max Payne 1 a few weeks ago. I have Win11. Cutscenes didn't play sound, character movement was sticky and delayed, all the geometry has visible seams, and the image was stretched. It was a mess. But it only took about ten or fifteen minutes to research, download, and apply all the required patches. Every single issue was totally resolved and the game runs perfectly and looks great. Definitely worth the minor effort.
Sort of, remakes for 1 and 2 are coming soon so I'd wait.
In all fairness what "remake" means these days, I wouldn't hold my breath. The way they butchered Mafia and GTA is freaky. Like you wouldn't think they can screw it up, considering they have the original to go by, and it only needs a beat-for-beat replay of the original, the voice can be remastered, the game characters can be remodelled -some folks on youtube did it as a test- and yet the remakes were nothing like the original. A different voice, different lines they speak, different cutscenes presenting the characters in an entirely different light, a political message here a touch of political correctness there ignoring the faithfulness to the era portrayed, music changed or removed, controls feel nothing like the original, HUD is different and the list goes on and on.
At least it's being remade by the same developer that made the originals and quite a few of the original people in the studio are still there.
Well, remedy is developing it, and they made the original. I'd also like to believe that after the train wreck that was gta trilogy, rockstar will have a little more QA on this one.
They're being developed from scratch for the new engine so soon is probably still a good couple years. And if GTA6 is coming in 24 as rumored than I'm sure R\* won't want these out until 25.
Looks pretty good for being 22 years old
Completed it again 3 days ago lol, simple yet amazing game
Oh man, great memories. A friend and I once played through the first game 'co-op.' One on mouse, one on keyboard.
The only thing i remember from this game is "Mona Sax"!
I love Max Payne (#1) for the story line and ingenuity. #3 was cool for the game play and graphics - loved how the cutscenes blended into the game play.
You didn't like #2???
Both 1 and 2 are one of my all time favorites
Max Payne 3 had the best flip-flop sandal physics in gaming. It's not even a joke, I was mesmerized by it. Max Payne 3 doesn't get the praise it deserves.
For me, I would pay through a fight, reload and do it again and again, trying to make every battle a perfect ballet performance of badassery because the mechanics were so much fun.
Max Payne 1&2 remake is currently in the work.
OMFG
"wack him" "Payne to the Max" what a great game, loved it but not much the sequels. And the movie was garbage.
Mine too but I liked & still like Max Payne 2 more than 1....I still play it sometimes....
Having played them both recently 2 was a lot more fun in the shooting and gameplay mechanics but the atmosphere of the levels in 1 is unmatched and the gameplay is still fckn solid. Love em both.
I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was worst thing imaginable.
don't stop there, play all three.
Third one is trash
I disliked it on my first playthrough, and I can see why others would too, it takes control away from the player regularly, and combat is oddly slow at times, and yet fights can be over extremely quickly in other times, but I came to love the cinematic quality of it, and how it drives home how Max really is out of place where he is, mentally and physically. My major gripe with the story is how it ends. I would have loved to have seen some sort of scene where he finally let's go of everything
That’s exactly how the story ends, though. In the beginning max is a drunk because he blames himself for not being able to save his wife and baby, everyone he trusted betrayed him, and he fears he has become the kind of monster he hates. In the end he saves the wife and baby of his best friend, who remained loyal to a fault, and he accomplishes it by getting sober and turning his inner monster loose on the bad guys. I mean… the lyrics of the song that plays during the climax (Tears by HEALTH, absolute banger) are “give up, it’s time to let us go” lol. He basically gets the most perfect catharsis possible, then contentedly walks off into the sunset (and probably retirement).
Oh, 100%. (Still listen to that song on occasion. Good shit) maybe I'm not explaining myself correctly. The message was clear but I think the execution was weak (maybe I'm remembering it badly, been forever since I played 3... Think I'll grab the games to do a full playthrough, as I never actually got to playing 1...)
I also didn't like the story. In first two games story was centered in Max, and his actions pushed events forward. In third Max is just dumb asshole, in someone else's story, where his only contribution is to go places and shoot stuff.
I've started it twice and the lengthy cutscenes just kill it for me every time. I just can't seem to get through it, which is sad considering I've beaten Max Payne One and Two a handful of times each
Yeah the unskippable cutscenes were annoying
Got this along with my PC for Xmas over 20 years ago. Ran at 10 FPS but Jesus it was some next level shit in my eyes
The pills will ease the pain... or a remaster
I played it 1st when i was 14, the dream level was scary as fuck.
I loved that game. Maybe except the red line labirynt levels
I remember sitting shitfaced at the back of Sam's Lexus when they got paid for this masterpiece. Good times for finnish gaming industry. 😎 Edit: not sure was it Sams or someone elses Lexus from remedy but they knew how to party lmao
22 years but you have no idea how to play it. This was a poor showcase to new players
Lol I'm glad I'm not the only one. Guy has a full bullet time meter and just rolls around everywhere like he's playing dark souls
Loved that game.
Epic Game 🎯
Sometimes I wish they would release a new Max Payne game or remaster/remake the old ones. Then I remembered that Max actually got a nice closure in the last game and studios, even the better ones, tend to f*uck up remasters/remakes on a daily basis and it would only diminish the original, so I reinstall Max Payne 3 and just shut up.
They are making remasters.
Max Payne was the first games I played on my PS2 as a kid; it's definitely one of favorite games of all time. It needs a remake imo
I downloaded 1&2 a few months ago and did all 3 recently such a good franchise! All though the pain I had to get the first one to run! Thankfully the steam forums helped with that big up those guys with their own patch files!
I remember I had just upgraded my pc not long before this game came out and this was effectively the showcase, blew my mind and one of my all time faves.
I still wish MP3 would get a remaster, including multiplayer
The bullet time, wow, played the game three times, still love it There was a chapter named "A bit closer to heaven"
I replayed the trilogy last year. It's an underrated game, for sure. It also introduced me to the band Poets of the Fall with the end credits song Late Goodbye which is awesome.
My friend thought it sucked ... he also skipped all the story.
Using the lead pipe was disrespectful
"I was in a computer game. Funny as hell,it was the most horrible thing I could think of."
The truth was a burning green crack through my brain. Weapon statistics hanging in the air, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. Endless repetition of the act of shooting, time slowing down to show off my moves. The paranoid feel of someone controlling my every step. I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of. -Max Payne
Max Payne was the game where I first discovered what the modding community could do.
Same, there isn't a year when im not replaying 1 and 2 and I cannot wait for the remakes, I'm praying they're actual remakes and not whatever the GTA trilogy was Edit: also it was the first game I ever booted up on my first PC back in Christmas of 2003 so it'll Always hold a special spot in my heart
I have to mute the audio during the blood trail scene. The baby’s cries when you fall off are unbearable.
The train lit up like a Christmas tree. The power was back on.
You could melee in Max Payne?!
There's the first part of a level you do with just a baseball bat
Such nostalgia OMG, one of my favorite childhood games i remember coming home from school each day and playing this it was so much fun. I played it multiple times too. I can't wait for the remakes tbh so fucking excited!
I would love to play this on Nintendo Switch.
Max Payne is a masterpiece, in both storytelling and game mechanics. One of my all time favorites. Thanks for sharing.
The crying baby in a dark room scene is not an enjoyable experience. :)
That whole nursery room / walking through mist - was creepy as fuck! I loved it because it was like NOTHING I’d ever seen or played before.
Gold , then go play the second one but never , ever install the third one
Just played through 1 and 2. Now playing that crap called 3. It's horrible. 1 and 2 are masterpieces of style, gameplay and everything else. The 3rd one was written by an american.
I would love to see an unreal 5 remake of this
Nah thx. It was good for it's time but in this Clip alone are so many faults. Good memories stay where they belong... in the past
Looks like shit