(OUTDATED, PLZ IGNORE) Should you buy Max Payne 3, or the Complete Edition?

[Rubber Ducky Enthusiast™]

This thread was written long before the Complete version became the standard version. Since you no longer have a choice between the two versions, this thread is archaic and useless. Please ignore.

I've seen many topics on here from potential buyers asking questions, so I thought I'd share some thoughts here.

Is this game Open World like other Rockstar games?

No. As with series tradition, MP3 is a linear action game with an empthasis on story. It might seem (at first) like it has Open Ended levels, but don't be fooled. This said, the levels have an outstanding level of detail, as seen in Rockstar's previous work (i.e. Grand Theft Auto).

Do you need to play the other 2 games to understand what's going on here?

Not really. Max Payne 3 is not a continuation of the last game, but rather an entirely new story with the same main character. No plot points (except for the premise of the first game) from the previous two entrees are given a big spotlight here.

Does this game have any sort of DRM? Does it impact gameplay?

Yes - in the form of Rockstar's Social Club, it does. You will be required to have an account for that that still works, and will be required to plop in the CD Key Steam gives you upon purchasing. With all of this said, Social Club has a tendancy to... not work sometimes. While it doesn't make playing the game difficult and isn't an intrusive rootkit disguised as an Anti-Piracy measure, there's a good chance that it won't work upon starting the game up. I know because this happened to me the first few times I booted up MP3 and forced me to re-install the full 30 Gigabytes.

What about the DLC? Should I buy the Complete Edition?

The DLC is MP3 is Multiplayer only. If you're into Multiplayer games, this sounds good on paper as the multiplayer in MP3 isn't actually all that bad. That said, it's been 5-years (getting close to 6 now) since MP3 was released and it shows. While the community isn't completley dead, it is certainly getting there. It can be pretty hard to find an Online game, and even when you do, it's not all too common to find one that only has a small handful of people playing on it.

This said, if you're on a Mac, you're ♥♥♥♥ed. According to the storepage, Multiplayer support for MP3 on Mac was dropped in 2014! Unless you can find a workaround (which is probably really difficult, considering the DRM), don't buy any of the DLC or The Complete Edition if your OS of choice is Mac.

However, there is some content NOT related to the multiplayer. Some of the DLC adds challenge modes. This said, most of the DLC is still related to Multiplayer.

Either way, I wouldn't exactly recommend getting The Complete Edition. Again, this doesn't mean the Multiplayer isn't fun.

And that's about all I have to say.

[Dominic]

you forgot to mention the challenge mode you get with a dlc

[Rubber Ducky Enthusiast™]

Originally posted by Dominic:

you forgot to mention the challenge mode you get with a dlc

Aye, thanks for that.

[PunisherHadzic]

So basically nothing in singleplayer?

[Rubber Ducky Enthusiast™]

Originally posted by fckinghostile101:

So basically nothing in singleplayer?

I wrote this before the DLC was bundled with new copies of the game.

To summarize, DLC offers up a challenge mode for singleplayer and little else. The good about that challenge mode: I recently played through Max Payne 3, and ten years later, it's still a ridiculously fun game. The bad? Unless you have a mod that allows you to skip cutscenes, you still have to wait to skip cinematics. Even if you do have that mod installed, skipping cutscenes can be like walking through a minefield. Some will let you play the game immediately after you skip them, others will lock your game into a state where you can only progress if you completely reset. You have no real indication of which cutscenes do this, you just have to guess and learn which cutscenes not to skip from experience.

Other than that, not really. Game came out ten years ago and, on top of it, was released a full year before GTA V and GTA Online. I'll let you guess which game got updated: is it the one that's made its parent company millions in profit almost every year since release, or is it Max Payne 3? Yeah, nobody's really playing multiplayer. It's impressive that the servers are still running, but I suspect that might not be the case in a year or two.

But it's not like it matters, anyway. As I said, DLC's bundled with the main game now, so this whole thread is now completely irrelevant.