Our worst fears: Max Payne "criminally short"
 

Gentlemen,

Our worst fears have become a reality. This comes from GameSpy's review:

You may think that the reviewer was sitting over my shoulder while I was playing (10 hours, right on the mark), I assure you he wasn't. The above quote saddens me. Why? Because in spite of the obvious undervalue of the Max Payne, the reviewer gave Max a good rating. (90%).

It looks like the online gaming reviewers have accepted these gamelettes as mainstream. They have accepted one-trick-pony shows as being the best game developers can come up with. They have joined with developers to pillage every last dollar from unsuspecting consumers for half built products.

Why? Maybe reviewers are sick, like we are, of waiting four years for a decent game to come out. Perhaps they believe by accepting these "demos for dollars" they will have more to write about, thus saving their jobs!

THEY COULDN'T BE MORE WRONG! It's bad enough that many developers completely ignore deadlines, but now they can get away with only creating "mini paynes" and get paid top dollar for it.

Truth is: reviewers don't give a flying f*ck about the cost of games because the get them for free. But they are cutting their own throats by approving of this nonsense.

Don't let game developers get away with it folks. You will either be spending a lot more money on games or you will only be getting half the enjoyment from them.

JOIN THE FIGHT OR GET OUTTA THE WAY!

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I've been trying to change the world for years but they just won't give me the source code!

Seems fair to me. He sad the game was great, but warned about the shortness. Reviewers are there to help you make a buying decision. That's exactly what he did. Max Payne is a great game, but not the right game for you if you can only afford 1 game this quarter.

Shutup you cheap bastard.

Im assuming you knew how much the game cost before you bought it?
It was never built up as being an epic experience. Just a bit of fun which 95% of ppl were happy to pay for.

right on drazy

i had a post before here, a call to boycott gamespot for their sellout tactics.

I see the words but all I read is "blah-blah-blah". Scott Miller of 3DR said Max Payne would change gaming forever. Sounds like an "epic experience" to me! Nitwit!

In a very negative way, by forcing us to pay more for less, Scott Miller may be right.

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I've been trying to change the world for years but they just won't give me the source code!

You idiot.

You obviously dont know what the word "epic" means.

The geo-mod engine has probably changed games. Does that make the geo-mod engine and "epic experience" lol you fool.

It's not my fault you have no money so stop crying about it

I agree with Drazula on some respects. Max Payne was "criminally short", but the reason it was given a 90% was because of the gameplay and graphics that were featured in those 10-12 hours. Even Skaven said that they were focused more on "quality hours" than "quantity hours". I think the mistake Remedy made here was that they leaned a little too far on the side of quality when they should have leaned a little more in the quantity direction. Hell, we waited 4 years, we could have waited a little longer for a couple more hours of gameplay. Either way though, those 11 hours I played were DAMN fun. Can't wait for MP2 and the mods that will be made (hopefully).

Nitwit! I've been around for about four decades. I'm pretty confident in my understanding of the word "epic".

As for your "hype baby" attitude, I would not be surprised if mommy or daddy purchased Maxi Pad for your pimpled-sorry a$$. You have no concept of money.

Go away, neomort...



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I've been trying to change the world for years but they just won't give me the source code!

Suuuure you're 40

if you're so smart, EXPLAIN HOW MP was built up to be epic

And that was for good reason. The vast majority of game reviewers on the Internet, Draz, contrary to popular belief, are NOT idiots. They've played the game, they've acknowledged the length, yet, they've still given out high scores.

This. Is. Obviously. For. A. Reason.

I can pay 50 bucks to watch 5 1.5 hour movies in the theatre. If they're good, I'll obviously care somewhat about the cash I spent, yet I'll acknowledge that for that cash, I was well entertained. The same goes for Max Payne. It took me about 12-15 hours to complete. Cost me around 60 bucks. And I'm happy. Why? Because this game takes you on an extremely entertaining ride. A ride that you can't experience in games with 60 hours of gameplay with a half-assed excuse to kill everything in sight. Max Payne's story is head-and-shoulders above anything released recently. The gameplay is fantastic. The graphics set the new industry standard. The sound is excellent. The level design well done. Realistic. Yeah, so it's a bit short. Big deal. This detracts somewhat from the value, but not enough to spoil the entire overall effect.

If I ever only played through the entire game once, and it thoroughly entertained me for those 15 or so hours and even ONLY for those 15 hours, I consider the money was well spent.

This might not be your opinion, or that of some others, but it's pretty clear that this is the opinion of the majority.

You, my friend, are speaking for the minority.

You fell for it. I'm not 40. I'm 38. But since I was measuring in decades, I rounded. I guess you're concept of estimation in about as good as your understanding of money. http://www.veforums.com/rolleyes.gif Also nitwit, you could have looked at my profile which has my homepage listed, which has a pictures of me, my wife and my four children! Way to talk outta your arse!

Hype-babies http://www.veforums.com/rolleyes.gif

Ugh! What movies are $10? And what movies are an 1.5 hours? (Outside of "Rugrats in Paris", like I said, four kids!)

Most matinee movies are $5! Evenings are $7. And most movies last about 2 hours. Recheck those numbers!

JOIN THE FIGHT OR GET OUTTA THE WAY! WE'RE COMING THROUGH! WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE! (Ow, I just cramped my index finger... http://www.veforums.com/wink.gif)

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I've been trying to change the world for years but they just won't give me the source code!

You obviously don't live in Canada. http://www.veforums.com/smile.gif

I say half these damn cheap ass reviews don't even buy the games anyways! They get 'em for free or download the thing from #WAREZ on IRC or something!

Drazula;

"In a very negative way, by forcing us to pay more for less, Scott Miller may be right."

One word. Greed.

Constrained as the content of Max Payne as it so obviously was, has enabled them to make top drawer profits from a bottom drawer game. Reasons being; bullet-time, photo-realism, and a slick once over, enabling the peddling of a game content less sophisticated than Tombraider to an ever desperate public searching for a game worth playing.

Why innovate or actually produce something worth having or savouring, when the gaming market is so malleable as to accept any warmed over dinner left for the dog?

The cause of this is over-subservient gaming press striving for market share in an overcrowded publishing market. Without sycophantic reviews the game market would collapse like a dying star as it doesn't contain enough critical mass in the quality of game releases.

The unholy alliance of the gaming press and self-serving developers is holding the gaming public to ransom.

Max Payne is heralding a new age of gaming where gamers will be subjected to paying more for less, with the tease that there might be later add-ons. One day, once gamers have been manipulated that far down the garden path, how long before the free add-ons become chargeable add-ons?

kickassguy;

"The vast majority of game reviewers on the Internet, Draz, contrary to popular belief, are NOT idiots."

True. That's why they're doing it. Their first priority isn't to making a good, thoughtfull, well informed review. That went out with the Ark. Their first priority is to make money.

...

The gaming public is being kept in the dark by developers and the press. If anyone had any inkling what alternatives existed, how long would it be before the backlash started?

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<I>This Forum is your DOOM!</I>

[This message has been edited by CultureShock (edited 08-09-2001).]

O.K. if you're 38. Why do I seem to find that the more of your post I read the more I think that I'm much older than you(Or just more intelligent).And I'm only 17. And if you have 4 kids. Just made them play the game and that give you 50 to 60 hours of gameplay.

Cultureshock.. the majority of reviewers may in fact be in it for the money, but reviewers ON THE INTERNET aren't. I could go into Frontpage express and whip up a 2-minute page and say that "MAX PayNE SI TEH BOMBB!1" and I would be an Internet Reviewer©. Internet reviews aren't solely sites like Gamespot or anything of the sort. What's more important is the buzz on the forums, on the user-made pages. Each person coming on here and saying that Max Payne is a fantastic experience that, even with it's shortness and MAYBE even it's somewhat redundant gameplay (that, even though I acknowledge it as redundant, entertains me still), is well worth the money they spent for it is just as much an Internet Review© as two-bit hacks who give high scores for the money (which isn't the case as often as you might like to believe.)

Albrot

P.S. - If anyone goes to my "MAX PayNE SI TEH BOMBB!!1" site, please make sure to donate money to me, because, after all, I gets "teh monyes" for saying that.

Could someone please inform me of the federal law that states "all games must have X minimum hourly length, else all will perish."

????????

I'll admit that MP is short, but that's no reason to lessen its overall score. Remember, the #1 rule when rating a game is...

RATE THE GAME. NOT YOUR CLOCK.

I only get 24 hours out of a full day...I'm gonna send hate mail to God about this...

I feel sorry for your wife and kids

38 years old and still duking it out online with a bunch of teenagers.....


btw: you still haven't answered the question. why did you buy MP in the first place?

[This message has been edited by benita316 (edited 08-09-2001).]

Albrot;

"it is just as much an Internet Review© as two-bit hacks who give high scores for the money (which isn't the case as often as you might like to believe.)"

That might be the case for the minority of gamers. But, what about the large numbers of people who get most of their game review diet through magazines and so-called "anchor sites".

As for the professional journalists who ply their trade for money, the vast majority of reviews I have seen are sycophantic drivel, buried amongst pages of advertising. Very few, if any, ask the hard questions.

The wheels of commerce ride roughshod over enthusiast sites. I think you underestimate their power.

Max Payne is a warmed over Tombraider - You heard it here first. http://www.veforums.com/eek.gif

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This Forum is your DOOM!

I found it at Best Buy for 34.99.

Did you guys play the game at all?

If memory serves it was f'n excellent.
Ok, and another thing, not every gamer wants to have a criminally long game. I quite liked the length of Max Payne, and the game itself. If you didn't, why on earth are you coming here, to these forums in the first palce and re-iterating a thread that has been done a hundred times over. Get over it. No amount of complaining is going to make dick all difference anyway.

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get.naked

drazula, i agree with your original post. we, as consumers, should not accept this short of a game. however, the real people who will have to listen are not the reviewers, but the game developers themselves.

Kurt

uh news flash..

nobody FORCED you to "accept" or buy the game.

again, 95% of ppl are happy to pay for his game so why should developers have to change.

Yes, ppl have said the gameplay is somewhat repetitive and they are right. It is for this reason that 10-15 hours is the perfect length for MP.

As great as the gameplay is, you wouldn't want to be doing it for 40 hours.

The point is that you aren't paying on an hourly basis. You're paying for an entertaining experience which MP certainly provides

>>>JOIN THE FIGHT OR GET OUTTA THE WAY!

I played MP in about 12 hours(very fast for me)and i just have to say...I'M GLAD I DIDN'T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!!(no...i didn't get a pirate version)

>>>Max Payne is a warmed over Tombraider - You heard it here first.


your right!! i thought of that in the first 2 minutes of the game...Lara without T*TS..in snowy NY http://www.veforums.com/smile.gif

Only 10 hours of gameplay? Bullshiznit, after the 10 hours you finish the game, think of the good times you'll have whining about it on these forums, that's well over 150+ hours of fun for some of you fuxors, in case of "GenD" even 500+ hours of fun. And yes it has to be fun for you, why else would you bother to post over 10 threads/day trying to convince people (or yourself?) the game sucks?

Don't ever dare say again that Max Payne only gave you 10-15 hours of bang for yer buck, cause your getting a lot of bang here ****ing everyone off.

Buzzer;

"Don't ever dare say again that Max Payne only gave you 10-15 hours of bang for yer buck, cause your getting a lot of bang here ****ing everyone off."

Don't pull that one. They get free publicity and a pool of eternal ideas to drink from. It's not us that are getting the free ride, it's 3D Realms and Remedy! We are subsidising them!

Heck, in a fair world they'd be PAYING me to post. http://www.veforums.com/eek.gif

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This Forum is your DOOM!

What a bull**** comment to my post...atleast admit you like bitching and whining as compensation for your lousy gaming experience.

I agree, 3DR and Remedy SHOULD pay you...for giving them the best laughs they had in ages.

Max Payne's retail price everywhere in Finland is ~35$ (Anachronox is about 60$), it's your government's and postal services fault you pay so much for it, not Remedy's or 3DRealm's. I've had it for 2.5 weeks and i'm at part3 cp3 and have loved every second of it. I also found the rat easter egg on the first run, tried shooting that annoying rodent first but it didn't help, so when i got a grenade at the end i thought i'd get rid of it for good, sadistic me http://www.veforums.com/wink.gif

First of all, there are more people here that are my age than you think. A lot more! Maybe you should be less quick to judge.

I bought Max Payne because I took 3DRs word for what the game promised. Online, all people have are their word. Maybe I am too old, because I took what they said for face value. I believed them. They said, "We hate short games", "We hate linear games", "We hate monotenous games". Who would have thought they would produce what they hate?

Nonsense. I read reviews of Serious Sam/Blue Shift that clearly took away from overall score because of the length of the game. And those games were priced much closer to their actual value.

THAT THE PROBLEM! It's been so long since I finished it! It's gathering dust! Nothing more to do with that CD! Maybe they should have put the game on CD-RW. This way you could at least re-use the CDs.

Good point! But a good reviewer is the voice of the people. He should review games with that responsibility in mind. As consumers, if we make a loud enough noise, both reviewers and developers will have to change.

Hehe. Right on. It's worth repeating: I'm here to get my money's worth!

Try ordering direct from 3DR. It's $50...

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THIS TRAIN IS GATHERING STEAM! THERE IS NO STOPPING US NOW! JOIN THE GOOD FIGHT!


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I've been trying to change the world for years but they just won't give me the source code!

10 hours? WTF are you talking about?

I would love to get five whole minute of game play without a lock up!

[q] Try ordering direct from 3DR. It's $50.. [q]
i stand corrected, 3DRealms's online shopkeepers are creedy, not Remedy's fault. I guess boxes in Finland came directly from Remedy offices?

No, I think that Toptronics actually "imported" Max Payne to Finland, which is quite ironic if you think about it.. Anyway, it's definitely not $50 here, which means that the only one "ripping" people off are the gamestores. The price of Max Payne is $37-45 here.

Who cares who is stealing our game money. The point is that short "Pac-MaX" distractions need to be priced accordingly.

WE WON'T LET YOU GET AWAY WITH IT ANY MORE!

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I've been trying to change the world for years but they just won't give me the source code!

Suure Drazula, you're gonna change the whole gaming industry.

The developers and distributors dont give a **** what YOU think.

"I took the word of 3D Realms"

errr wouldn't that make YOU a "Hype-Baby"

Hmmmm i guess you kinda shot yourself in the foot there.

And if you hated the game so much, why did you complete it so quickly?
And why are you spending so much time here criticizing it when you have a wife and kids to talk to?

You've never kissed a girl, have you?

:Begin playing "Deliverance" banjo!

I've kissed my sister! http://www.veforums.com/eek.gif

:End playing "Deliverance" banjo... and run!


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I've been trying to change the world for years but they just won't give me the source code!

serious sam was released in the us as a budget title and you could even get it for 15 $

Serious sam, closer to its correct value? Fukc that. It was a full 15 pounds more expesive than Max Payne. Also, it sucked.

Drazula, I think you have made your point here, you were disappointed with Max Payne. You don't need to write twenty different topics were you tell what was wrong in the game, why don't you plan for a moment and gather all the negative things under a one topic. Max Payne is just a game, so there's always a change you get disappointed with it. Get it through your head. This kind of bombing is stupid and futile.

I disagree with you in almost every aspect and it's sad that I think you're very immature, now when I'm twenty years younger than you.