I had only played the third game so I figured i would go back and try the OG's and while I can 100% see why this game is so well revered but unfortunately I did not have a great time playing it.
Firstly I think the narrative is amazing, such a great broody noir detective story. For a 23 year old game it surprisingly has a large focus on its narrative and atmosphere. James McCaffery gives an iconic performance as Max Payne and his snarky delivery adds a decent bit of humour to the still image cutscenes. Speaking of the cutscenes I really like the drawn comic panels, it gives a kind of court room sketch artist vibe and in some cases can look really creepy, way better than polygon character cutscenes.
Unfortunately the game really shows its age in its gameplay/level design. I never really found any problem in parts 1 & 2 but part 3 I regularly found myself getting stuck on levels for a long period of time. A lot of this can be put down to the game trying to do more than it was capable of such as "Platforming". The part 3 prologue is a good example, You have to walk across a really thin line whilst in janky slow motion and have to jump to other really thin lines and pray that you are going in the right way due to their being no direction what so ever. This section alone has killed any desire for me to revisit this game
Now of course this game has its problems because it is 23 years old, and whilst it has a surprisingly engrossing narrative and a really memorable protagonist, I do not think that it is a masterpiece. I still hope for a remake of both this and Max Payne 2 but due to recent events its seeming more and more unlikely. So if this will end up being the only rendition of this game there is then you could do far far worse.
Firstly I think the narrative is amazing, such a great broody noir detective story. For a 23 year old game it surprisingly has a large focus on its narrative and atmosphere. James McCaffery gives an iconic performance as Max Payne and his snarky delivery adds a decent bit of humour to the still image cutscenes. Speaking of the cutscenes I really like the drawn comic panels, it gives a kind of court room sketch artist vibe and in some cases can look really creepy, way better than polygon character cutscenes.
Unfortunately the game really shows its age in its gameplay/level design. I never really found any problem in parts 1 & 2 but part 3 I regularly found myself getting stuck on levels for a long period of time. A lot of this can be put down to the game trying to do more than it was capable of such as "Platforming". The part 3 prologue is a good example, You have to walk across a really thin line whilst in janky slow motion and have to jump to other really thin lines and pray that you are going in the right way due to their being no direction what so ever. This section alone has killed any desire for me to revisit this game
Now of course this game has its problems because it is 23 years old, and whilst it has a surprisingly engrossing narrative and a really memorable protagonist, I do not think that it is a masterpiece. I still hope for a remake of both this and Max Payne 2 but due to recent events its seeming more and more unlikely. So if this will end up being the only rendition of this game there is then you could do far far worse.