Which is your favourite Max Payne game?

Alan Wake. :P

Alot of people shit on 3 but I think it's still a very good game and probably the best third-person shooter of last gen. Although it's not perfect. The barrage of cutscenes, pointless wall-cover, GTA style on-the-rail sections feel completely out of place and detract from the overall experience.

2 I like, but I find it's story not terribly interesting. Visually, it's aged really well, and like all 3 games, a stonking good soundtrack full of atmosphere.

The original has a pretty good story, a scrappy DIY love and enthusiasm to it alot of blockbusters these days lack. Very simple but fun gun-fu (which John Woo retroactively copied), and tightly paced gameplay that much like Paul Verhoeven's Robocop can happily jump between deadly earnest and surreal black humor, without feeling out of place.

A lovely, lovely game. A classic. It's probably the most solid trilogy around, come to think of it.

But ye, go with original. I do like 3 slightly more than 2.

Max Payne 2 it was a huge improvement over the first in terms of gameplay, graphics and ragdoll physics although I think the original has the best atmosphere. The third game is really great but I still prefer Max Payne 2 gameplay over it.

Max Payne 3 is really good from a gameplay perspective.

I love the physics based nature of the slow motion. If you hit something while dodging, Max will react

I love weapons not magically appearing and disappearing. I love Max picking up a new weapon while rolling.

I really like the variation of locations: Visiting both New York and South America

The one thing that's a bit much though is that there is just way too many cutscenes and story. I like the story, I like the cutscenes but it's a game I want to replay a lot (I think I have 5 replays on every Max Payne game) and it gets in the way. I also don't understand why they removed the comic book panels.

Max Payne = Max Payne 2 = Max Payne 3

All three are classics and should be enjoyed by everyone who calls themself a gamer.

Yeah, dodging around in slow motion never gets old :D

I like all of them but 2 was a smidgen above

Max Payne 3 is the best.

I really loved 2 and 3, haven't played the original yet although I do have it on my og Xbox. I picked three just because I think I had the most fun with it, the co,tells and gameplay were great, but 2 wasn't far behind.

Really liked the first one, game was fresh and new. second one was also really good.

3rd one i couldn't care about. Found it rather awful.

Original >>>>>>>> 3>>>>>>>>>>>>>>2

There said, origial is masterpiece. 3 has best mechanic in any of TPS and 2 is shallow disappointing sequel.

Love Max Payne, one of my favourite franchises for sure. Have played 2 and 3 many, many times and the first once. My favourite is 2. Really love the atmosphere, the story boards cartoons, the characters, tons of great quotes. Super cheesy and delicious :). Another thing 2 has over 3 is that it doesn't interupt you too much. Just much better consistent adrenaline flow. But 3 is fantastic also.

I think the IP is dead now though :(.

I played Max 1 and 2 on the PC, 3 on the consoles. Max 1 was awesome and the graphics and story line were great. Just like the cut scenes I felt I was playing through a dark gritty graphics novel with over the top Matrix style gun-play. Bullet-time never got old. :) 1 and 2 were release day grabs for me. Talking about this kinda makes me want to go pull the "old games box" out of the garage and load it up again.

My vote went to 1 but I did enjoy all three games.

I’d say that 3 was probably my favourite.

Payne 1 is a masterpiece.

I enjoyed all of them, but I think I liked 3 the best.

For me:

Max Payne 1 was brilliant and novel, but a few small niggles such as the dire dream levels let it down slightly.

Max Payne 2 took what was great with the first and built on it, with some graphics well ahead of their time and removing the niggles from the first.

Max Payne 3 was okay. I mean it was Max Payne but it felt more of a spin off. An enjoyable one mind.

So for me

2 >1>>>>>>>>3

Max Payne 1 for me. Still an awesome game to this day. Max Payne 2 is also great. Max Payne 3 though I really hate it.

I like Max Payne 3 a lot more but the rest are also good. I say, Max Payne 3>Max Payne 1>Max Payne 2 in this order.

Also, I happened to enjoy Max Payne movie with Mark Walberg as Payne, I just treated the movie as one of my guilty pleasures :P

Love them all. 3 has the best gunplay in any TPS I've ever played and 1/2 have some of the best atmosphere of any games I've ever played.

Shame that Remedy sucks ass these days.

This reminds me that I actually own 3. I played through and enjoyed 1 and 2, but never quite made it to 3.

Thanks. :)

You've pretty much summed it up perfectly. 3 was an awesome, awesome title. One of the best shooters in years... at least mechanically.

For me, it's 1 > 3 > 2. Max Payne 1 is my personal favorite for its incredibly oppressive atmosphere. 2 was fantastic, but really didn't wow me like the first one did. Granted, the tech was impressive for 2003 and it showed off a nice physics engine a year before Half Life 2 came along.

MP2 is Remedy's masterpiece. Its short but I've rarely felt that sort of attachment to game characters before. This is on top of the faultless combat model.

3 is a decent a third person shooter on its own but a poor Max Payne game. The setting and atmosphere are all wrong and the story is full of holes.

actually 3 is much better and more challenging than 2.

I remember i was a child and even for that time MP2 was waaay too easy that i barely died. 2 was disappointing sequel.

I think MP2 is almost a flawless experience. It took everything that was good about the first game, and improved on it. The noir storyline/aesthetic was also amazingly well realised.

So...I'd say MP2 >>> MP1 >>>>>>>>>> MP3.

MP1 was great, but I don't particularly care about the story, and the visuals have not aged well.

MP3 had good combat, but kept interrupting the combat with annoying cutscenes (sometimes twice per room, just to show enemies appearing) or awkward cover shooter segments (who the hell thought that ducking behind low walls would work in a game about highly kinetic gunplay?).

I also still have no idea why they didn't cast a Brazilian cop as the main character, other than marketing. There was no reason for Max Payne to be in Max Payne 3.

@ghosts4ever: no idea how someone who so often rage on movie games still have such a hard on for mp3?? I mean I am replaying it right now and while it’s a good game, it’s freaking awful how often the game takes away the control from the player! I literally don’t think I had 5 minutes of uninterrupted gameplay in it yet!

2 was good on the og Xbox but 3 was exceptional I remember the price dropped amazingly quickly.

Max Payne 2 for me! :)

I liked 1 and 2

Max Payne 3, because it has deeper mechanics.

Two was my shit. It didn't have the campy noir novelty of the first game, but it made up for it in fun. 3... was okay, but, to use a highly abused term in these parts, it was a movie game. Like, they literally borrowed the aesthetic from Tony Scott movies. Plus I hated Max's character in the game, he was too much of a self-pitying loser who was terrible at his jobs.

To be fair, Max Payne itself was lifted from gun-fu/heroic bloodshed movies. It's very much a movie game, albeit with less obnoxious prevalence of cutscenes.

@warmblur: "Max Payne 2 it was a huge improvement over the first in terms of gameplay,"

What were the improvements?

I don't see the issue. Very few moments require sticky cover. Almost none, to be honest. It's a nice addition that you can choose to ignore, sort of like the over the shoulder aiming.

Oh right.

Yeah you haven't changed my mind

Only played 1 & 2 , and to be brutally honest I don't remember too much about either game, they weren't memorable to me in anyway, sorry fans but mediocre comes to mind.

Loved each one of them but 2 is my favorite followed by 1 and 3. I complete 1 and 2 each in one sitting, LOL.

3 was brilliant enjoyed it all the way through.