The writing is elaborate, but the story is nonsensical and meandering. Max's battle with his inner demons have nothing to do with the Inner Circle's power struggle which he finds himself caught in the middle of, and these two elements never blend in any meaningful way. It makes no thematic sense why he finds absolution in the end.The gameplay is fluid and addictive, but the game is too short, too easy, even on the highest difficulty, and even with its short length, the game lacks any real variety. Several levels are also really just glorified walking simulators with little to no action, and the Mona levels really break the game's flow.9/10, I love it.
the first game's story was perfect. dead kid, dead wife, drugs, mob, hillary clinton. it was full of cliches but who cares? its a stupid game where you shoot hundreds of bad guys. it worked. this one didnt. still fun but i found the story cringe and you could tell they mistook the first game's success about their story.
>>12309643>Max gets shot point blank in the head>Manages to survive because...?Yeah, MP2's story isn't the most well written thing around
>>12309664do you mean mona?
>>12309643I think you're assigning to much importance to the inner circle? it's just a macguffin to have max and mona juxtaposed against vlad and winterson. it's supposed to make you question max's status as a 'hero', the jungian shadow etc. etc.
>>12309664To be fair, Mona also survived a bullet to the head in MP1, again it's like poetry, they're soulmates.>>12309673Sure, there is an obvious juxtaposition between lovers, but it's not very cohesive, and Vlad's villain role is somewhat contrived. People just forgive how shoehorned his role is because he's just so charismatic and lovable. Also, Vlad revealing that Woden was involved with the death of Max's family in a thowaway line was really clunky. MP2's writing is entirely upheld by vibes, which it has in spades, to be fair.
>>12309710>MP2's writing is entirely upheld by vibesyou have not actually established this at all. why specifically does it have no substance? the circumstance of a villain being contrived and throw away lore dump doesn't clear that bar. so far you've just stated an opinion with no elaboration.
I fount it hard to enjoy MP2 after MP1 solely due to shitty level design.Also I never felt like replaying anything in MP2 as long as I didn't have to (i.e. in order not to die). MP1 was like Rainbow Six games (mainly, Rogue Spear), it was just fun to replay and replay the same scene (not even a whole level) even if I didn't have to.
>>12309643The problem with the story is that it fundamentally doesn't tell a new story and feels more like an epilogue for the first game. The Inner Circle is... something something? There was also no indication that Vlad was an associate to them or any connection to Alfred Woden.From the standpoint of escalation, you start the game killing cleaners, and then by the end of the game you're killing... cleaners? It doesn't feel like much progress is made.And even if Vlad killed Max right then and there, his entire organization and his whole standing army has been wiped out, meaning he'd somehow have to rebuild his entire criminal enterprise in a hostile mafia controlled city. The game also has you switch over to Mona and segments in the police station, and they feel like ruin the flow of the game.The game has only one "boss" fight as I can tell (Vlad), whereas the first game had several special encounters with their own music and enemies with more health than others. So it felt like you were beating "levels", and making some progress. In 2 it's just endless cleaner after cleaner.
>>12309673>>12309651Oh and they mistook funny shit like people liking "Ladies and Lads" so it got expanded to this "Address unknown" tv show that has a whole amusement park? Too much of that shit.>WintersonI forgot about her! Max kills her to protect Mona and... oh she's working for Vlad? Oh? That tension was held for like 5 minutes. Why not have Max be on the run for killing her or something? Does anyone in-universe even give a shit? Why not give Max something to genuinely feel guilty over? Winterson was a good cop, tried to kill Mona so Max ices her. Max lets the police think she died at the hands of the cleaners and then the guilt keeps ripping him up as the game goes on? That could work.Nope, just more cleaners-Vlad shenanigans. Oh and they dropped any and all mythological allusions. It didn't make logical sense, but the first game's story felt like Ragnarok was actually taking place, at least for the criminal world and Max Payne was concerned. It felt like the apocalypse. Oh and by the end-game the bad guy is down to 20 final guys and she's complaining over the comms that they're saying Max is unstoppable. That's at least highlighting it,a nd makes you feel like you're actually accomplishing something after all your hard work. 2nd game doesn't have anything like that.
>>12309643My favorite is Kauffman. For the first two levels everyone is talking about Kauffman, and he even gets a slow mo introduction like every other major character. I still have no clue who the fuck he even is.Because he comes out of an elevator and you jump him and he immediately dies like a bitch. Due to being in front he's actually usually the first to die. it's completely hilarious because you can jump him before he can even react.The first game had encounters that were way less realistic and more "video-gamey", but they felt more satisfying. Bosses had their own arena, had some henchmen goons, and some kind of stage geography to prevent you from immediately just gunning them down. They all had cool lines and something memorable about them so that i still remember the Finici brothers or the madman at Ragnarok.
>>12309643If you just skip every cutscene, I think it's still very competent and it only has major pacing issues. The Good:>AK and M4 available much earlier >shooting and combat is refinedThe Bad:>obvious padding and meandering segments >Mona segments felt like it hurt pacing - should have had her own expansion pack missions instead>functionally zero reason to not use the Ak/M4 the entire game>No M79>lame dream segments>lame police HQ segments>lame batboy segments
>>12309827https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTLH9Jt5JxQI think they wanted to make the game more realistic and less cartoony, so they gave everyone including normal enemies regular health points, and made encounters more realistic. Kauffman and two goons just come out of an elevator. But as I said, you can gun him down seconds after his "cool" appearance and it's nothing. In the first game, "bosses" would stick around, taunt you, and have some kind of a gimmick and higher than normal health.
>Several levels are also really just glorified walking simulators with little to no actionBut you get to look at physics wank! In 2003+23!
>>12309643I know there are some crazy mods for it, bur is there a mod that ports MP1 into MP2?
>>12309643>Max's battle with his inner demons have nothing to do with the Inner Circle's power struggle which he finds himself caught in the middle of, and these two elements never blend in any meaningful way. It makes no thematic sense why he finds absolution in the end.Like another anon pointed out, Vlad and Winterson are a reflection of Max and Mona, both being cops who are willing to bend the law for the people they love. There's also a theme of free will and choices that's brought up through the game with Vlad and Max believing they're destined to go through their actions and that there's no way to change their path by now, Max not being sure at first but giving up after seeing his life spiral down over and over again. Seeing Mona defy her orders and save him gave Max hope and convinced him that there's always a choice, that he doesn't have to resign himself to the depressing fate life keeps trying to force upon him.>>12309664He moved his head just in time for the bullet to hit the side of his head which allowed him to just barely survive the encounter. It's a testament to just how fast his reflexes are and how much of a (un)lucky son of a bitch he is.
>>12309814I agree with this. The other problem is Max's characterization. He loses all of his Phillip Marlowe/John McClane humor and quips in the second game. He becomes a sad mope who starts self-reflecting more, but once you reach the end, theres no greater insight gained.
>>12309954>He becomes a sad mope who starts self-reflecting more, but once you reach the end, theres no greater insight gained.He stops blaming himself for the death of his family and moves on from the past.
>>12309730>why specifically does it have no substance?Maybe I'm missing something, but why does Max find absolution in the end after killing Vlad who had nothing to do with the death of his wife, and they were really just brothers caught on opposite sides in a war (his words)? The payoff in the end doesn't seem earned to me.
>>12309810Not sure what you mean by this. I thought MP2's level design was great for the most part. I love the two levels that take place at Max's block, which feels like the set from Rear Window.
>>12309814>The game has only one "boss" fight as I can tell (Vlad), whereas the first game had several special encounters with their own music and enemies with more health than others. So it felt like you were beating "levels", and making some progress. In 2 it's just endless cleaner after cleaner.There's also Kaufman and Mike The Cowboy, but regardless Max Payne bosses are just regular enemies with more health, not exactly a strong selling point for the series.
>>12309829>>functionally zero reason to not use the Ak/M4 the entire gameThe striker outclasses them in many situations in the late game, and dual deagles are just rad for their own sake.
>>12310245>There's also Kaufman and Mike The Cowboy, but regardless Max Payne bosses are just regular enemies with more health, not exactly a strong selling point for the series.Kauffman is actually a joke and I think that MP2 gives bosses the same health pool as regular enemies, so Kauffman goes down like a joke. Cowbow can be executed in the mission he pals around with you. I do remember the major enemies in MP1 being much more formiddable and memorable. It was probably too "video gamey" and they wanted a more serious cinematic storyline.
>>12309643MP2 was such a downgrade from MP1 in everything except graphics and physics.Somehow they managed to make the gameplay worse with bullet time changes and lowered the difficulty to toddler level while not allowing you to increase it for the first playthrough
>>12310265Yeah, the bosses in MP1 definitely put up more of a fight, but at the end of the day, they're still just regular enemies with more health. The bosses in these games were never great gameplay-wise, so it's not a major flaw for MP2 that the few bosses are complete pushovers. It's more of a flaw that MP2 is a much easier game than MP1. Dead On Arrival from MP2 is easier than Fugitive from MP1.I do find it amusing that MP2 really builds up Kaufman so much in the first act, only for the encounter to be a complete dud, while MP1 just throws silly bosses at you like candy with no buildup whatsoever.>walk into hotel>"Damn, it's the Finito brothers.">walk into a random room>"Holy shit, it's Rico Muerte!">wake up tied to a chair>"Oh no, it's Frankie "The Bat" Niagara."
>>12310298Mp1 is PURE video game design, where it has mini-bosses and end-stage bosses. Yes, the enemies are just regular enemies with more HP and typically a higher tier weapon, but that's not all. The entire levels are designed around them so that Max can't just whack em. That's what makes MP1 so good: it has a lot of very interesting and diverse enemy encounters. MP2 feels like you're shooting cleaners and then commando cleaners the entire game, beginning to end and it starts to all blur together. I still remember Rico Muerte, etc. They all have stupid pun names and make them memorable. I do think that they either gave MP2 "bosses" the same health as regular enemies, or the increase isn't that much. In MP1 you can unload dual ingrams into one in slow mo as they dance helplessly.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGwZ4eSDozchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtrKQKYj5_0&pp=ygUObWF4IHBheW5lIGJvc3M%3DI think at some level they were actually embarassed by how video-gamey, and silly and rough MP1 was so they "fixed" it. But they aimed for realism which made the game less interesting.
>>12310339>>12310298>MP1: All the bosses, even Vinnie Cognitti have interesting stages so you can't just rush the bosses>MP2: Kauffman literally walks off of an elevator unaware of your existance and you literally jump him before he can even react It's hilarious how anti-climatic he is. Which, I guess is because they're aiming for realism. Shit like that happens all the time in the real world (the boss of an operation just happens to get ambushed), but it's not rewarding in a vidya gaem.
>>12310342Cowboy either dies in my game as my partner, or I straight execute him. This is the "boss" encounter for him? Re-watching these vids, yeah I think MP2 enemies all have the same health pools even so called bosses so they all die in a completely anti-climatic manner.Also there's hardly any comic cut-scenes, which makes me think they were embarrased by them. MP2 should have 100% comic book cutscenes lik the original. It was part of the charm. Poorly animated early 00s character models standing around isn't fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mrnNc_vnrchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWm5Mhse16QIf you haven't, try the hardest difficulty but without bullet time. It's kind of a crutch and it actually improves the 2nd game a lot because the changed how it builds meter. In 1 it's by kills, in 2 it fills over time (so functionally infinite). MP games have semi-realistic gunplay by video game standards, so they turn into almost cover shooters without bullet time. The entire gameplay dynamic changes.
>>12310245You can kill Mike the first time you meet him and he won't show up later. He died on my first playthrough and I was surprised when replaying the game that he would reappear towards the end if he survived. I never got the impression that he and Kaufman were supposed to be bosses in the traditional sense, just named characters. I dunno, I kinda like that for a change you can off "important" characters just like if they were any other human being. It's not what you would expect from a videogame but it felt oddly satisfying after coming from a game where everyone can tank a million bullets.
>>12310339>Mp1 is PURE video game designThe game usually wears its level design goals on its sleeve too. Payne 2 is not as fun or challenging. The realism claims in this thread mean one thing but standing in front of a door and watching 4 guys trip over themselves endlessly because they can't open it is the definition of cartoony.
>>12310430Yes, Kaufman is supposedly the head of the Squeaky Cleaner company, the front for Vlad's hitman squad. But he ends up being killed when jumped by Payne early in the game.
Max Payne is tech demo garbage
>>12309664>>Manages to survive because...?Because dying in one hit isn't fun gameplay :^)
>>12310430>I dunno, I kinda like that for a change you can off "important" characters just like if they were any other human being. It's not what you would expect from a videogame but it felt oddly satisfying after coming from a game where everyone can tank a million bullets.I really like this aspect too. Kaufman is built up by the cleaners speaking of him in hushed tone, Mike is built up by fighting alongside you first, but they both go down like two sacks of potatoes. There's just way too much Max Payne 2 slander ITT, that game is great. How wonderful is that first cleaner you encounter, where the player has three choices: trust him and walk into their trap, ask him to go first so you're not sandwiched by two enemies, or straight up put a bullet in his head. At no point does the game spell out that you even have a choice here with a button prompt, it's all emergent gameplay. Max Payne 2 rocks and is filled with soul.
