I’m not so sure. Say what you like about the single player, MP3’s multi is satisfying as hell, and it runs pretty much exactly the same as the campaign. I definitely agree that there’s more than a passing similarity to RDR and GTA, but multi this good isn’t possible if the game is fundamentally broken.

What we’re really arguing is fine print: neither one of us is feeling totally satisfied by the campaign, we’re just trying to iron out why. I felt a lot more frustration from flank-spawning, bullet-sponge enemies and Max’s incredibly sparse distribution of pain pills myself. 

I agree totally.  And believe me, I have nothing but love for Rockstar. 

But game mechanics have never been their strong suit.  Even in the GTA and RDR series (games that I think are astoundingly good), the shooting mechanics have been passable at best.  It’s much easier to overlook this in an open world environment because you, as the player, essentially have unlimited options in terms of how you want to approach a mission.  But take those same design decisions and apply them to a linear shooter?  You end up with an unmitigated mess because the player is now crippled beyond belief.

Yeah, MP3 is different, but I don’t think on the balance sheet that it hits the right notes.  What made the original games so good was the reckless abandon that the character approached every situation with; it was visceral, fast, and brutal.  MP3 just feels like GTA squeezed into a tiny corridor, walking through freshly poured tar.

What’s clear is that MP3 is really, really different from the other games in the series. It feels like Red Dead or GTA much more than The Fall of Max Payne. And yeah, you’re right, Max moves a little slowly, although that did not render it unplayable for me. 

I can’t help but wonder if they’d have been better off admitting how different MP3 was gonna be up front, rather than assuring us it was the same experience we know and love from the old games.

Rockstar are undoubtedly the reigning kings of open world immersion in gaming, but they tried to shorehorn Max Payne, an action game, into their existing engine and it just doesn’t fucking work.  The entire time I’ve been playing this game, it feels like the main character is jogging around with 2 30 pound weights chained to his ankles; everything is sluggish and unresponsive.  Rockstar really needs to start taking cues from Gears of War and Vanquish (an exceedingly hard game BTW, but was playable due to surgical controls) if they plan on doing another shooter because they really seem like amateurs with this one.

It’s a shame more critics aren’t being honest about this for fear of offending their readers because I guarantee you that I’m not the only one who feels this way about MP3.

Thanks. It’s good to know I’m not just crazy and someone else was bugged by this stuff. Still a great product overall, but yeah.