- The Trippiest Video Game Levels - 4 February 2013
Surreal stages, events, or gameplay that somehow just don't fit have always been present, and even expected. Their crazy graphics, weird aesthetics and ideas make sure that we have absolutely no idea what's going on. But they have their charm, they are funny, or they're simply part of the experience—and so we love them. We collected a bunch of them below. Bad News in DmC source: DmC Chapter 10 The Cardbridge In Alice: Madness Returns source: Alice Wiki The Nightmare Scenes In Max Payne source: Max Payne's first nightmare LSD Dream Emulator source: LSD Dream Emulator Wiki Inside The Red Dragon In Rayman Origins source: Rayman Origins Dragon Trailer Yume Nikki source: Yume Nikki Wiki The Space Harrier Stages In Bayonetta source: Bayonetta Chapter 14 The Final Stage In Beautiful Katamari source: superadamsworld's LP Goro Majima's Karaoke Minigame In Yakuza: Dead Souls source: Yakuza:…
- These Deal Breakers Make Me Give Up On A Video Game Within The First Hour - 16 January 2013
When it comes to deciding what game gets my attention and why, I am absolutely ruthless. I don't care how much better it's going to get, I don't care that it's actually an amazing game and I just have to give it a chance. No. If you mess up in the first hour of a game, I'm done. I call these missteps 'deal breakers,' in reference to when there is something you can't overlook in dating—something that outweighs all other redeeming qualities. Deal breakers don't have to happen in the first hour, of course—most of them do for me because once you've already invested hours into a game you might feel obligated to finish what you started. There's almost this expectation, right? That you can't talk about a game unless you've played it from start to finish, even if we're not talking about a review or anything. This expectation/guilt is what drove me to finish Max Payne 3, even though…
- How HEALTH Made That Amazing Max Payne 3 Soundtrack - 10 January 2013
The band HEALTH's killer Max Payne 3 soundtrack was easily one of the best of last year , and a chunk of the reason Max Payne 3 was among my personal top games of 2012 . This video from The Creators Project shows the band talking about the process of scoring the game, focusing on the stadium level (maybe my favorite music in the game) and that climactic late-game moment when the vocals kick in. They've also shared some of the musical "stems" they used over at the Creators Project blog. You can listen to those below, and check out the various ways the band would layer sounds to make the music more or less intense. If you've played that stadium level as many times as I have, this stuff will be very familiar. HEALTH's John Famiglietti points out that numbers 2 and 4 are dominant stems, so they won't mix. Nifty. Makes me want to go crack wise and dodge some sniper-fire. HEALTH Breaks Down T…
- Proof That The Best Thing In Max Payne 3 Is Messing With The Hilarious, Glitchy Bullet Time - 10 January 2013
I can't tell you how many hours I've lost in Max Payne 3 doing exactly what YouTube user birgirpall is doing here. Poor Max. There he was, brooding and going on about not saving the girl and what is my butt doing? Trying to do 'trick shots' with his body. Can I clear this gap? Can he fit through here? What happens if I bullet time off this ledge? Oh my god, why is fire a one hit kill? Whoops, I got stuck in this place I wasn't supposed to go. Let's see where else I'm not supposed to go! Dead, dead, dead. Geeze Max, you're no fun. But sometimes it wasn't even a choice. There were some parts where I knew I had to move forward, but I couldn't find the way up. And apparently Max dearest can't jump or climb a freaking step, so I ended up dramatically lunging over the smallest of inclines. It's stair climbing, Max Payne style. You wouldn't get it because you don't know how screwed up the worl…
- The Best Video Game Music of 2012 - 13 December 2012
You press a button, and the beat drops. Forward you fly, straight into the perilous unknown, beats pushing against your eardrums as you push back against the controller. Tempo and harmony swim together, and you lose yourself in the rhythm of play. 2012 has been a fine year for video game music. The finest in recent memory, I'd argue. We've seen soundtracks of every shape, size and tonal color, compositional collections complementing games that have incorporated harmony and discord in ingenious, exciting ways. Granted, my affinity for this year's music is at least in part because it was the year I started running Kotaku Melodic , and so my awareness of all things musical and video gamey has been at an all-time high. But as the list below demonstrates, this year was something special any way you look at it. It was a year in which game design and music composition moved ever closer, where…
- The Dark, Troubled Thoughts of Cat Payne - 7 November 2012
The litter was calling me, like granulated pieces of my broken past. But pooping on the floor was all I had left. They'd taken everything else from me, that night my world came crashing down. A knife in the dark, a cold table. My manhood, gone, along with the rest of the garbage. Her scent is what brought me back. That hint of sex, and cheap perfume, that told me she was out to get laid, and wouldn't be back to feed me until morning. Cat Payne
- In Da Club: A Musical Moment Few Video Games Get Right - 25 October 2012
Games take us to all manner of fantastical, unlikely places. But as good as video games have gotten at accurately recreating a space-marine shootout or a mountaintop dragon battle, there's one thing developers are still learning how to create: A dance club. Many games try to create thriving urban environments for players to occupy, and there's nothing that says "thriving" and "urban" like a packed, sweaty dance club. Unfortunately, until very recently, games have been very, very bad at rendering realistic dance clubs. This scene from Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines (a game which I love, I should say) best exemplifies the sort of awkward, embarrassing antics you'd see in early video game dance clubs. There just wasn't enough processing power to make the club as hazy, loud, or crowded-feeling as it needs to be to be convincing. I love dancing at The Asylum, but mostly because it's so…
- Max Payne 3, Now Available in Black & White - 22 August 2012
Taking a page from LA Noire's case notes, Rockstar's Max Payne 3 will on August 28 be adding something called "Noir Mode", which is a tidy term for "playing the game in black & white". It fits with the game's noir overtones, I guess, but given so much of Max Payne 3 is spent in the ridiculously over-saturated Rio, it seems almost a crime to rob your eyes of the city's lush colour palette. The New Jersey sections , though? Well, they're just about perfect for it.
- Max Payne's Miserable Life Still Looks Cool - 3 August 2012
This video starts off slow, showing you just how depressed and lifeless poor Max is, but it really picks up once some of Max's, um, "friends" come around. Max Payne's life might be full of misery, but at least the special effects are pretty awesome. Max Payne: Bloodbath
- Why Don't Video Game Characters Get More Excited About The Amazing Stuff They Do? - 29 June 2012
I've seen it far too many times. A video game character leaps from the top of a staircase, flying through the air, guns blazing. One enemy drops to the ground, then two, then three! Behind him, a grenade explodes, laying waste to the spot where he was just standing. Bullets whizz through the air, metal-jacketed death buzzing past like so many hornets. By the time he hits the ground, everyone in the room is dead. He stands up, dusts himself off, and without a word... just keeps on truckin'. Dude. Not even a word about the fucking amazing stunt you just pulled off? Sometimes I want to grab video game characters and shake them. Video game characters rarely seem like they're having a good time. They never seem overly impressed by the incredible odds they're overcoming, the amazing battles they're singlehandedly winning, the ridiculously difficult acrobatics they perform so regularly. Max Pa…
- Max Payne's Day-To-Day Life Probably Shouldn't Be This Funny - 27 June 2012
And yet it is. This video by Michael Shanks (the same man behind that great Box-Art Brawl video from last week) depicts the high's and lows, mostly lows, of Mr. Max Payne's day-to-day life. Yes, it's a joke that's been done before. Perhaps too many times. And yet the execution here is pretty damned funny. (See what I did there, with the "Execution?" Oh, yeah.)
- Backhanded Box Quotes: 'Duck Hunt 2012 with Swearing.' - 22 June 2012
Welcome to "Backhanded Box Quotes," a collection of super pissed-off user reviews from people just like you! Whoa, whoa, don't take that personal. Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor Released: June 19. Critic: JabbaTheSlush (Metacritic) • "his is a solid one out of ten." Score: 1 (out of 10) . Critic: Kadeemluvmusic (Metacritic) • "... bad flavor of a chocolate Call of Duty mud cake." Score: 0 . Critic: somebody worried (Amazon) • "This review is based off of 4 youtube reviews, and about 8 magazine reviews as I do not own a Kinect." Score: 1 star . Max Payne 3 (PC) Released: June 1. Critic: diesbildnis (Metacritic) • "ssentially Duck Hunt 2012 with swearing and long cut scenes." Score: 1 . Gravity Rush Released: June 12 Critic: ilikeeverything (Metacritic) • "I really like this game because it feels French and I kinda like French things every now and then like French fries. " Score: 0 . Backha…
- One New Jersey Mob Boss' Insanely Ambitious Plan to Kill Max Payne - 19 June 2012
In addition to my job here at Kotaku, I work very hard on a bestselling, fictional series of video game novelizations. Last year, I published a gripping, lusty novel based on The Witcher 2 . This year, I've been hard at work putting the finishing touches on my next novel based on Max Payne 3, tentatively titled Max Payne 3: The Flesh of Fallen Angels: The Novel. Would you like to read an excerpt? You would? Okay! Here you go, an excerpt from chapter 9 of the book, in which one New Jersey mob boss hatches an insanely ambitious plan to kill Max. I hope you enjoy it. "They killed my son! They killed my boy!" Boss Anthony DeMarco was furious, inconsolable. His son Tony was dead at the hands of some ex-cop deadbeat named Payne. In one instant, the DeMarco family line had been snuffed out, and Anthony had lost a son. Payback was going to be a bitch. "We are gonna get this guy, this... Payne ,…
- Those Max Payne Comics? They’re Pretty Good. - 19 June 2012
Ever since reviewing Max Payne 3 a while back , I've heard from commenters and others that Max "feels" different than he used to in his older games, which were made by Remedy Entertainment. Max's words sprang from the mind of writer Sam Lake, who also served as a model for the renegade cop. What's most interesting about the Max Payne comics published by Marvel, then, is that they represent a partnership between Sam Lake and Rockstar's Dan Houser , the men responsible for Max Payne's past and present. They're damn good comics, if you ask me. The series so far represents a blend of both men's sensibilities, which feel less disparate than some would say. It's a bit of Lake's quirkier, more literary Max as he becomes the rundown wreck he appears as in Houser's more cinematically-minded Max Payne 3 . It's a great use of comics as an interstitial tie-in. Comics based on video games can be rea…
- For Cheaters in Max Payne 3, Hell is Other Cheaters - 13 June 2012
Max Payne 3 developers Rockstar have come up with a tidy solution to the problem of dealing with online cheaters: throw them in the same room together and let them kill (or at least annoy) each other. Here's Rockstar's explanation: Anyone found to have used hacked saves, modded games, or other exploits to gain an unfair advantage in Max Payne 3 Multiplayer, or to circumvent the leaderboards will be quarantined from all other players into a "Cheaters Pool", where they'll only be able to compete in multiplayer matches with other confirmed miscreants. The sight of cheaters trying to out-cheat other cheaters is something Rockstar should film then distribute. I know I'd watch it. I know Battlefield 3 is too big a game to do the same, but boy, in my dreams this is something nearly all developers could implement. Taking Aim at Cheaters in Max Payne 3
- Max Payne Knows How To Chill Out - 12 June 2012
In the midst of all the shoot-outs, drinking, and pill-popping, Max Payne is just another guy, you know? He wants to lounge on a pool chair and kick his feet up on the table. Except he does it in slow, bullet-time motion. Max Payne 3: Dramatic Chilling Simulator
- Turns Out Max Payne is a Decent Piano Player. Who Knew? - 31 May 2012
One of my favorite things about Remedy's first two Max Payne games was their winking, self-aware style. That vibe was perhaps best encapsulated by the scene in which Max has a drug hallucination and realizes that he's the protagonist of a video game . Rockstar's take on the character is much more gritty and dark, and often feels weighed down by over-seriousness. But occasionally, the game will toss a nod to the series' roots by making an absurd reference. My favorite of these is the moment in the video above, when Max discovers a trashed, out-of-tune piano in a run-down building in Brazil. The piano could be a metaphor for Max—beat up, broken, but still playing that same old tune. I particularly love how the game's actual soundtrack (which is astonishingly good in its own right ) plays a lead-in chord to the piano solo, with Max resolving the unresolved cadence. And what does he c…
- Rockstar's Behind-the-Scenes Look at Making Max Payne's Moves - 31 May 2012
Max does a lot, in Max Payne 3 . He shoots guys, tries not to be shot by guys, shoots other guys... you know, like you do. But behind all of the action, making Max Payne tick, are dedicated voice and motion capture actors whose performances, with digital skins on, make the game. Rockstar has posted a behind-the-scenes glimpse at a piece of the process, showing how Max Payne came to be. Actor James McCaffrey performed both the voice and the body work for the titular antihero. And when Rockstar needed to fill a virtual São Paulo with plausible Brazilians, they went to Brazil to cast and record the roles. Over a number of extensive voice acting and body-scanning sessions, Rockstar recorded everyone from a Ju-Jitsu world champion to a pageant queen to a local rapper. It's a neat look at just how much work it can be to fill a video game with the wide cast of extras you'd expect to find on a…
- 5 Things Rockstar Should Leave Out of Grand Theft Auto V - 30 May 2012
Yesterday, I listed 5 things that Rockstar should carry over from Max Payne 3 into Grand Theft Auto V . Today, I'll list 5 things that I hope they leave behind forever. Some of these things are new to Max Payne 3 , some are bad habits that have developed over time. A couple are story-related, a couple are gameplay-related. But if Rockstar is going to continue to make games that are at the cutting edge of both pop culture and gaming, all of them have gotta go. Here now, 5 bad habits that Rockstar should leave behind forever. 1. Cinematic Style Over Cinematic Substance There's always been a discrepancy between the cutscene snippets that we see in Rockstar's trailers and the actual cutscenes in their games. The trailers are all hyper-edited, super exciting, with bouncing music and lots of quick-cut one-liners. The cutscenes in the games themselves are much more traditionally composed, cons…
- 5 Things Grand Theft Auto V Should Lift From Max Payne 3 - 29 May 2012
It can be difficult to view Max Payne 3 on its own terms. It's a fine game in its own right, but it will always exist at least partly in the shadow of Rockstar's other, much bigger looming release— Grand Theft Auto V . Since Rockstar released GTA IV four years ago, both Red Dead Redemption and now Max Payne 3 have brought enough tweaks and changes to the studio's brand of cover-based gunplay that GTA IV 's action feels crusty and clunky by comparison. Max Payne 3 in particular refines Rockstar's third-person manshooting to a new and occasionally truly exhilarating degree. It's impossible not to want to see some of this stuff make it into GTA V . Today, I'll be talking about five things I'd like to see carry over from Max Payne 3 into Grand Theft Auto V . And in a shocking twist, tomorrow I'll list five things that I hope don't make the cut. Here goes! 1. No Enemies On The Minimap…
