Can an oldfag shed some light on why Max Payne 2 flopped in terms of sales? I don't get it. The gameplay is better and it was reviewed well at the time, it's got the perfect aesthetic for the early 2000s, ending on a post-grunge song. What went wrong?
Can an oldfag shed some light on why Max Payne 2 flopped in terms of sales? I don't get it...
It doesn't have the face.
It didn't need a sequel. The foid on the cover also put me off.
It lacks the funny face.
Primarily a PC game in a time which PC gaming was considered dead
Heard that it runs fine on the hueg, though
Nerds didn’t want a “film noir love story” and the first one is a perfectly contained story
I've no idea. I liked both games.
oldfag
Not really sure why, but I can say that it lacked the hype of the first one. The first one had all sorts of buildup after it was shown, and then delayed. We hadn't seen anything like it before, and, thanks to a slick demo that resembled The Matrix (which was an unexpected success) the buzz on this game hit just right. Nerded out over physics (like shooting the tank and making them fly, or the blowing up door thing... like in The Matrix). 3rd person shooters were also pretty uncommon then.
I think the new models got lots of flack for looking odd and older. Max looked kinda terrible in game for its time compared to the OG Max, and people were talking about that a lot, even non-fans.
We didn't say it back then but MP2 would be "soulless" compared to the first, at least back then. A cool new IP making a splash vs a soulless corporate made polished turd.
It felt like the difference between The Matrix and The matrix 2, actually. The first wanted to be what it was, and the second wanted to be what the shareholders thought made the first one so good.
The stupid face was a retarded design choice, made it impossible to take the game seriously.
I had a dream of my wife. She was dead, but it was alright.
The first game ended perfectly with Max getting his revenge. It's a sequel that didn't need to happen narratively or gameplay wise.
First game was a campy game with the developers and one of their mother portraying the characters in poorly edited comic panels as the actual voice actors do terrible accents, even if the plot starts with a baby murdered in her crib. Second game tries too hard to be taken seriously with actors and models portraying the characters and "serious" tone in writing. Betrayals, contrivances to make a minor side character in the first game become the antagonist and Mona returning at all when all she did in the first game was getting shot and seemingly dying; In general, the game is just set up to be Max's misery porn.
The gameplay additions were ass. The "matrix" 360 spin reload is ugly, obnoxious and something you forget that it exists until you trigger it by accident. Bullet time in general doesn't feel like it is slowing anything down compared to the first game. The only thing worth liking about it is early generation ragdoll physics.
Max Payne 2 and Max Payne 3 are terrible fan fiction for all I care.
It didn't need to sell. It just needed to be good, and it was a fitting end for the series. I don't even consider Max Payne 3 as its sequel, with it being so different in terms of atmosphere and direction... and it barely had any connection to its predecessors.
OG max Payne
noir graphic novel that wears its silliness on its sleeve and weaves Norse mythology in with its modern crime story
max Payne 2
dude remember that 6/10 from that one cutscene anyway max really wants to fuck her now
The original felt like an adrenaline fever dream, like it was all a Valkyr driven hallucination in a back alley. Trying to humanize these characters beyond their basic archetypes was a mistake because then it had to stand on its writing and we realized Max had the personality of a wooden plank and Mona was just a cardboard cutout.
The only correct way to do a max Payne sequel was to have Woden find Max in jail or in retirement somewhere and have a job for him ala Rambo or Commando. Max going back to being a cop after massacring half of Brooklyn was ridiculous
Honestly I’m shocked how much R* likes Max Payne. They bought the IP off Remedy, green light a sequel and it flopped. R* now has GTA SA and GTA4 money and what do they do? They spend an obscene amount of money on Max Payne 3 that is using some form of black magic to run on the 360 with its visions. And then Max Payne 3 is also a huge colossal flop. Now all these years later and R* greenlit remasters of Max Payne 1 & 2. You can tell R* really loves that IP even though it is a money sink
It was one of the first games with the new generation physics engine, maybe it was just too demanding for PCs
Steam left beta and CS 1.6 released a month earlier and killed all its momentum.
It wasn't.
I think about that quote at least a few times a year. I find it quaint.
Not only did I have no idea people disliked Max Payne 2 before this thread, but I assumed everyone agreed it was the best one.
Max going back to being a cop after massacring half of Brooklyn was ridiculous
Woden pulled a lot of strings and did a lot of handjobs.
youtube.com
Bad marketing. Iffy console release. Fierce competition. Keep in mind this is some Dante Must Die level of competition,
Need for Speed Underground.
Windwaker.
GTA vice city
Tony Hawk Underground
Sims
Sim City 4.
Age of Mythology
COD 1.
Battlefield 1942.
FFx2
Splinter Cell
NBA street.
CS 1.6
Lord of the Rings ROTK
That's just the top sellers for the year.
dislike
It never happened like Max Payne 3 for all I care. Both games are "fine".
best one
is the first game.
It makes more sense now after my wife died.
I loved the fuck out of it. Critics loved it. It sold like shit. Not the first or last time.
Zoomer contrarianism. Everyone preferred it to MP1 when it came out.
If you're being serious I'm really sorry for your loss anon. Finding the right person is a painful journey; losing them would be a whole new level of suffering.
I was right there in 2003 on day one as an old fag and I don't really get it. I just don't think you can make that kind of game truly appeal to normalfags who would rather play Halo or NFL or something, it just doesn't add up to them.
All shit games
Matrix and MP1 sold well enough. I think it should have done well enough on gameplay alone.
709050793
It's a short single player game. Even back then that hurt sales.
I like 2 the best honestly. Late Goodbye was such a great way to end the franchise imo. Also getting the secret ending on total accident since I was just playing through the game for the 4th time to show a buddy and he didn't get why I was confused for a second was such a cool feeling
the start of the first game is still fucking horrifying. great sound design.
3 > 1 > 2
Max... Dearest of all my friends...
I was supposed to be the hero...
putting 3 before 1 is pretty silly ngl, even though i do really like 3
2 can fuck off though. it's the "dark souls 2" of max payne
Can an oldfag shed some light on why Max Payne 2 flopped in terms of sales?
it did not?
It was well received and got console ports too.
The plot's quality is arguable though, and really stems from the stuff Remedy has already mentioned publicly:
They killed way too many characters in the OG to have a good returning cast without retcons, resulting some asspull villains and shit. The OG also had superior Film Noir vibes and John Woo action.
I remember a lot of sequels being straight up shittier than their predecessors around this time
half life 2
max payne 2
soldier of fortune 2
FEAR 2
Operation Flashpoint 2
Worms 2
and loads more. Yes, some sequels were great but there we still a lot of misses. I think what they all have in common is they go in a very different direction than their predecessors. Take too many liberties with the material, like in the case of Half Life 2 instead of it being a tight, claustrophobic fps/platformer they tried to make it somewhat open world with larger stakes and a glorified tech demo for their heckin physics engine
You weren’t.
You were the punchline to a bad joke I didn’t get until it was too late.
You're not wrong about sequels often losing what made the originals special. It’s like devs got money, new tech, and pressure from publishers to "go bigger," but forgot that the charm of the original usually came from tight focus and atmosphere. Half-Life 2 is technically amazing, but it traded in moody level design and tension for spectacle and scale. Same with Max Payne 2 — it’s more polished and stylish, but lost some of the grit and surreal dread of the first. A lot of sequels from that era felt like they were trying to evolve too fast without understanding why folks loved the original.
The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror. As you piece it together, you cut yourself, your image keep shifting and you change with it. It could destroy you, drive you mad. It could set you free.
The first game was fine on its own, it didn't really need a sequel.
It's primarily a PC game that targeted PC gamers, it wasn't good on consoles. Back then PC gaming was pretty much dead, if you wanted big sales, you had to develop for consoles first and foremost.
It's a mature title, not the rating, but the theme. It's a noir cop drama. It's not something that appeals to many people, especially not on consoles, and especially not in 2003.
t. almost 40yo
Behold, the superior polished gameplay model of Max Payne 2 but without the story beats that disrupt the gameplay too often.