The first two Max Payne games will get remakes by Remedy! They may be just remakes, but these two go off the hype charts for me. They're both such fantastic games, and it was only a couple of weeks ago when I thought that it's a shame that we'll probably never see more Max Payne again because Rockstar bought the rights to the games and pretty much seemed to abandon the franchise. And now we're getting this.
I played the whole Max Payne trilogy only two years ago or so, and while MP1 may have felt a bit outdated gameplay-wise and MP3 too much of a Rockstar game (still good tho), I thought that MP2 still felt all-around awesome. Yeah, of course it's showing its age here and there, but there's something very unique about it. The comic book panels worked great back in the day, and they still do. The gameplay still feels surprisingly smooth and cool, even though (or because?) there's no cover mechanism or anything. The bullet time has been done a million times in other games, but it has never been as good as it was in Max Payne.
Remakes are a difficult thing to properly pull off. Change too much, and you may break the game. Nostalgia plays a big part in remakes, after all. Don't change much (= the so-called remakes where the only changes are hi-res textures or something), and no one will care. I hope that Remedy manages to find a good balance somewhere in between.
No release date or anything yet, as far as I know, but I have a feeling that Remedy will take their time and do this properly. Max Payne deserves nothing less.
I never finished Max Payne at the time. There was something about it that put me off. But Max Payne 2? Love it. I'll probably check them both out (eventually), but it's MP2 that I'm more excited for - provided that these will be good, worthwhile remakes.
What you're describing are remasters, they're a different beast from remakes.Originally Posted by Tomi
They often have varying degrees of effort. A more lazier one might be just a resolution bump + higher framerate. These are often considered to be cash grabs. Dark Souls 1 is good example of this.
Could be the psychedelic drug trip levels that put you off MP1? I found them quite depressing, and they dragged on for a bit too long. Of course the gameplay was a bit more simple in it too. MP2 did everything a little bit better.
Good point! I hope that they take notes from the recent Mafia remake. That's a great example of a successful remake, I think!
To be honest, I couldn't pinpoint why Max Payne didn't click with me. I can say what made me fall in love with Max Payne 2:
1) The physics: I remember how wowed I was when I shot a goon and they went flying into objects... which then went flying as well in physically credible ways (at least at the time). I would bump into things just to see how they'd scatter and fall. All of this resulted in the world feeling tangible and tactile and real.
2) The tone: There's an immensely tricky balance that MP2 aimed for and that it achieved IMO. A combination between melodramatic/operatic/over-the-top and emotionally earnest. Sure, it's all pastiche turned up almost to the point of parody, but at its core the game takes Max, his emotions and the people around him seriously, flamingos and all.
3) The tongue-in- cheek surrealness: Where Alan Wake felt like a constant barrage of "Remember Twin Peaks? Doesn't this remind you of it?", it either felt fresher in MP2 or there was enough there that made it feel like homage but not outright copy. Sure, there were lines and ideas that felt lifted straight out of Twin Peaks, but in Alan Wake it felt to me like the entire game was doing Twin Peaks cosplay in a way that I found pandering.
I was genuinely surprised that Mafia 1 remake turned out so well (we probably have 2K Czech office to thank for that). The modern climate of mainstream Western entertainment industries has left me utterly pessimistic. They're all so fast to bend over to moral outrages to censor existing media. The Mafia 2 remaster was completely uncensored (eg the Playboy pin-up collectables are intact), they just slapped a content advisory warning at the start.
Ten years ago I would've been super excited to see remakes or sequels to popular Western franchises (usually from large companies). These days my expectations are in the absolute dirt. If anything I'd much rather stuff be left in the past just so that their legacies won't be tainted. Talentless political ideologues turning everything into super cringey partisan sermons, or pseudo-intellectual postmodernist hacks trying to "subvert expectations" are probably the most common reasons for this.
Example:- I binge watched the first half of season 2 of Picard last week, it's an appallingly written turd. Eg they injected cringe modern day rich Californian liberal agitprop into ep3 + 4:- immigration enforcement officers being portrayed as cartoonish assholes who "disappear people".
Remember when Star Trek presented nuanced discussions on topics, presenting both sides of the argument and letting the viewer decide for themselves? A fucking parody comedy series, The Orville, still did that (and I hope they will continue to do so. Disney might've messed with the upcoming S3.).
Last edited by EvaUnit02; 7th Apr 2022 at 15:04.
UNO has Ass Creed DLC now. This is real, not a late April Fool's joke. What a time to be alive.
https://youtu.be/IIs4d8xw2mU
Huh! I stopped after the first game back in the day. I found it fun but not amazing. Now that I know the second one is the best in the series, I'll give it a go too.
I loved Max Payne 1 at the time. I still remember seeing the screenshots in PC Gamer and thinking "Wow, that's it. Game graphics have peaked. There's no way anything can look better than this."
I didn't get around to playing Max Payne 2 til many years later and it left me cold - my enduring memory of it is shitty escort quests and unnecessary weirdness. Definitely lost some of the slick simplicity I enjoyed from the first game.
Still, a modern remake of both from Remedy is something to get excited about. Maybe they can round the edges off that shitty Captain Baseball Bat Boy escort bit.
I want to believe.
I'm kinda hyped about... DUKE NUKEM FOREVER (2001)
I'm sure plenty of people have looked at the 2001 E3 trailer and wondered if it wouldn't have been a better game than the one we eventually got. Well, some 4channer called x0r has gotten their hands on the build and is posting screenshots and videoclips, they're planning on releasing it in June.
Oh, me too. Please please let it be true. The world needs KCD2 already.
I'm kinda hyped about... DUKE NUKEM FOREVER (2001)
I'm sure plenty of people have looked at the 2001 E3 trailer and wondered if it wouldn't have been a better game than the one we eventually got. Well, some 4channer called x0r has gotten their hands on the build and is posting screenshots and videoclips, they're planning on releasing it in June.
"Hyped" might not be the right word for what I'm feeling—since it's apparently so early in development—but I must admit I am getting a little excited about it now, Limasse Five's current project, SenS:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1966170/SenS/
Prototype coming May 21st and, starved as I am, I'll be ignoring its Early Access status.
Well that's a mystifying store page. Can you describe it more helpfully?
If it's like his previous project NaissancE, then it'll put you in a maze-like surreal world that you walk around in and explore, and then things happen around you, some of which you may be able to control once you get a feel for the weirdo UI or place that you find yourself in. Figuring out how to control anything is probably a lot of the "game", and the rest is just taking it in.
Just from the little trailer and info we have now, it looks like it's more on the glitch end of that template, where the world itself is pretty glitched, and you can glitch in and out and in between different places or situations.
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There's already a kind of subgenre of this kind of glitched walking sim at least. This is going beyond answering the question, but I suddenly want to make a list of these kinds of games for my own interest, since I think other people are interested in or at least curious about this kind of game too.
Let's see, on the completely glitched end you have games like: ZeroNorthZeroWest, Aentity, Roa, Hypnospace Outlaw, Broken Reality, Matter, Shape of the World, Memory of a Broken Dimension, LSD, Mu Cartographer, GlitchSpace, LaLaLand...
I mean it's a spectrum. On the more coherent but still utterly unreal or surreal side there's Kentucky Route Zero, Duck Season, Buddy Simulator, Pony Island, NaissancE, Frog Fractions, Beckett, Fugue in Void, Through the Fragmentation, AntiChamber, Disoriented, Islands Non-Places, Post Void, Panoramical, Epitasis, Glitch Pets ...
And even pretty vanilla mainstream games have glitchy sections like System Shock 1 & 2, Half Life 1 & 2, Control, Fez, Disco Elysium, etc.
But I think this genre would be the ones where the glitch is everywhere and central to the game or part of the gameplay or exploration itself. Well, I always wondered if this could be called a proper subgenre, so I thought to list out some games that seem to fit the pattern ... if you'll forgive my little detour.
Thanks for giving me a bunch of stuff to check out! And NaissancE was pretty stylish, so I'll keep an eye on SenS.
What demagogue said—mostly. There isn't a lot to go by, but I'll make sure to report back when I've played the prototype.
Here's more recommendations (in alphabetical order):
Bokida - Heartfelt Reunion
Endless Becoming - Apartment
Fibrillation HD
Kairo
Kristallijn
North (which I haven't finished yet, because I got stuck, trying to figure out what my current goal was)
There Was the Moon
TIMEframe
I just wish he releases the full game while my mind can still process it.
Wonderful list; thank you! I'm going through my PSN and Steam wishlists and adding as much as possible. Out of all of these I've only played KRZ, LSD, and oddly enough, Islands: Non-Places, so this is a real treat.
And thanks, qolelis, I'll check those out as well.
Ok honestly not thaaaat hyped about this. It's got the ejector suit into wingsuit thingy from Arkham Knight, it's got the landing on car roofs to hijack a car from Just Cause 2, and a grab bag of other (fun) mechanics we've seen before. Not a lot of innovation, rather just a greatest hits of mechanics from previous games. I'm sure it'll be fun, but I'm not rushing to get it day one.
This looks good tho, and I like the story setup. A post-Batman Batman game. Yeah, sign me up!
New teaser. Looks very creepy and atmospheric.
Good shit, already beyond the features of SWAT 4 (in this aspect) and still in early access.
I apparently promised something here...
It's a very early prototype and even the dev himself advices against buying it right now—unless you want to support him and follow the game as it develops, which I decided I wanted to do. The dev also said somewhere that the current prototype is a small excerpt from the full game, which will later not be as accessible. There's also talk about multiplayer (not implemented yet) and an allegedly extremely ambitious and pretentious vision for the full game (dev's own words, more or less), but, honestly, I'm not sure if he's joking or not. I like it when people dare to think big and new, though. The prototype suggests a more tangible story (compared to NaissanceE), but that might be restricted to only this part of the game (and the writing is in dire need of proofreading). This early, it's hard to be too critical, because everything can and will change or improve later.
In short: Matrix meets Cthulhu meets Brutalism.
For the rest of this post, I'm simply going to quote my own review:
The first public prototype does take a while to get started, but the dialogue during the first half hour suggests several interesting concepts and I can really see the potential. Later, you get rewarded with exploring a few areas, and some of them gave me a bit of vertigo, because of the huge scale.
Don't expect a lot of exploration this early, although you do get some of that too.
Great sound design throughout.
If you decide to get in this early, my best advice is to manage your expectations and you'll be fine. With that said, there is a lot of potential to both reach and surpass NaissanceE, but it _will_ take a bit of time. While I do have high expectations for what Sens could become, we are not there yet.
My second best advice for best enjoying the current SenS-prototype (May 21st 2022) is to have some patience (while tension and foundation is being built for what comes later) and you will be rewarded.
Last edited by qolelis; 10th Jun 2022 at 10:41.
Persona 3, 4, 5 announced for PC, Xbox, Game Pass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7tVV9zRFMM
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