What about a Max Payne 4?

[futurestoryteller]

A year ago or so I finished Max Payne 3 for the second time. Immediately after I went to my computer and typed this up:

"My head was a carousel, spinning unnaturally fast, ready to fly off it's hinges and crash into the ocean."

There really is no context. Just what popped into my head at the time.

"I felt like a character in a Ramond Chandler story, or one of those dime store pulp magazines. But then I had amassed a body count of hundreds; worthy of any eighties action hero - a parody of one even - and just as much of a joke. I often found myself gliding through corridors, gun in hand, blasting away bad guys like I had arcade fever and a high score to maintain. Ever since that night. An essembly line of bloody corpses and bullet wounds. But I always walked away. I wouldn't have been surprised if someone told me this was hell, and I'd been killed long ago. What better punishment than to force a man through the worst trials of his life, on an endless cycle, pushing him towards an illusory conclusion he'd already reached; else he wouldn't be there."

I was pretty heavy in to fan-fiction, that's actually why I came here. However, I'm currently unemployed, so I don't have much time to continue writing. But I thought at least I'd share a sample with you guys from an old ghost, and get your opinions. If you'd be so kind.

I did want to showcase these quotes, because I'm proud of them, but the point of the thread is more about whether there might be a Max Payne 4, and what it could be about, considering how washed up Max was in the previous game.

"I was no hero. Heroes rescued, I revenged. Anyone looking to me for protection was looking to build a bomb with faulty hands; begging the thing to go off in their face."

Back when I wrote this I had pictured a continuation called "Super Max" (clever I know "Is this fool serious right now") It would have revolved around Max's incarceration at a "Super Maximum Security Detention Facility" and a staged escape as some kind of politician's PR stunt (I hadn't quite worked out the details of exactly who, or for what reason) - which would have eventually seen Max exposing corruption in the for-profit Prison System through a hail of gunfire.

"'Any fool has sense enough to come in out of the rain.' But I was a special kind of fool, and this was a special kind of rain; 9mm hollow points, and I'd appointed myself Rain Man and rain maker, when this storm hit, I didn't have the good sense to get out of it's way, but no goon had any good sense to get out of mine, either. Maybe time really does heal all wounds, I wouldn't know. My anger over lost loved ones had never faded, no matter how many bourbans I choked down, all it ever did was blur time, so that their deaths might well've happened yesterday. It was my dark cloud. So I did my rain dance in memoriam. And these idiots rode the short bus straight for Hurricane Michelle. Perhaps on an especially torturous day; Hurrican Rose. Who was I kidding - it was always: 'Hurricane Payne.' There was no escape, no 'eye' to this storm, just a big black hole, where a sad sack named Max used to be.'"

I never started a fan fiction. The main reason being; difficulty trying to see the narrative in a "non-video game" structure . When I couldn't picture the details necessary to make that happen I gave up on it. Another (smaller) reason was I thought trying to read an entire story in Max's near soliloquys would be insufferable. Even though without them it wouldn't be Max Payne.

Anyway, after the class disparity and corruption issues that were brought up in MP3, this was the next logical step to me. I don't see a Max Payne 4 in the cards, but if they were going to, that's the kind of thing I think of when I try to picture it.

 

[Hisako]

Heavy and continuous monologuing only works with a strong visual element involved, eg. comics/graphic novels/film blah blah blah. One recent game that I adored with its internal narration was Wolfenstein: The New Order - it wasn't excessive but it had just enough dry wit to break up the constant tone of shooting dudes in the head. Plus, it really brought out some great emotions from one of the blandest, whitest FPS protagonists in videogame history, which is really no mean feat.

Re: Max Payne, I honestly disliked the developments that took place in Max Payne 3, mostly because it felt like Rockstar invalidated everything that took place in The Fall of Max Payne in order to market their shiny new bullet-time shooter.
Max Payne 2 had a fantastic resolution that basically gave closure to the character in the most noir way possible, but in the very beginning of Rockstar's game, they shit all over that for the purposes of a sequel.

I think it's a good game, but it feels like a game that was initially developed around Raul Passos with Max Payne mechanics, and the flashbacks to New Jersey are used for the purposes of making the character relevant to Max Payne's story, despite the overall story not being really anything to do with Max Payne himself at all. So at the end of Max Payne 3, Max is just about at the same spot he was at Max Payne 2. I'd hate to see Rockstar pull off that nonsense again for another sequel.

tl;dr, an easy no.

 

[Cthulhu]

I'm currently playing MP3 actually (on and off). The character is the same guy, the voice is good, but the rest just... isn't working. I don't like the motivations in the game (some rich kids getting kidnapped, really), especially when you compare them to the storylines of the previous game (rich megacorporation producing drugs and having people killed and shit).

MP3 feels like some slapped-on sequel that has nothing at all to do with the previous games / storyline. Plus the game is basically a huge poor people in Brazil awareness campaign.

MP the movie was similarly disappointing - all right on its own, but nothing like the games. Is it that hard to do a 1:1 conversion? I mean yeah, they'd have to strip out extra characters and make it all about Max killing the mob while talking to himself and watching Lords & Ladies, but is that really a bad thing? It's like they took the basic storyline, then pulled it through the Hollywood-i-fier, which adds requirements like an additional female lead, CGI effects, and removes dead babies.

I'd only want them to make MP 4 if they went back to the basics.

 

[Hisako]

I liked the Max Payne film for what it was, especially compared to other videogame "adaptations" like Resident Evil which goes off the fucking rails and herp derps all over the source material in favour of Mary Sues. At the very least, the film generally stuck to the characters that existed in the first game. Plus, the visuals for the Valkyr drug were actually pretty sick.

 

[futurestoryteller]

I honestly disliked the developments that took place in Max Payne 3, mostly because it felt like Rockstar invalidated everything that took place in The Fall of Max Payne in order to market their shiny new bullet-time shooter.
Max Payne 2 had a fantastic resolution that basically gave closure to the character in the most noir way possible, but in the very beginning of Rockstar's game, they shit all over that for the purposes of a sequel.

I don't mind this, but then I didn't like Max Payne 2.

I get what you both are saying though, the game is redundant. The movie I didn't like much. In theory I had no problem with Mark Wahlberg, but all of the casting was shit, and on top of that they had an awful script and a lame director. It didn't make me furious, but I could definitely do without it.

The thing I like least about MP3 is the distracting Tony Scott visuals. When they announced a "Noire mode" I thought, "Oh, how cool, now I won't be distracted by all the crap on screen!"... NOPE. Laziest. Mode. Ever. You know I can mute the color on my TV, I don't need a setting in the game.

As far as the relevance to Max's character goes, I actually think of MP3 as more character than plotted oriented. It's about him putting himself in danger, not out of some sense of righteousness, he's just suicidal, if I didn't know any better I'd think the punishing nature of the game was supposed to reflect that idea.