Max Payne 2 - Low value for money?

[DangerMouse]

Max Payne 2 is pretty but short - Took 8 hours to complete and is too linear to offer lots of replayability in single player. In multiplayer.... whoops - NO MULTIPLAYER!

So MP2 costs $50.00 at retail. That works out at $6.25 per hour of gameplay - Bit of a rip off methinks.

This game cost more than the Indiana Jones DVD Box set - and gave far less in terms of revisitability. However this did not stop all the reviews hitting with 9.00 and up.

Should expensive games with short play times and NO MULTIPLAYER be marked down in reviews ? I think they should. In fact - should reviewers take the price of a game into account when reviewing the title? What about a Value For Money rating attached to each game?

Or is it that some journalists got so used to getting stuff for free that they forgotten how expensive games are for Joe Public??

Not looking to start a flame war, just hoping for thoughts / comments from our media colleagues...

[Bub, Andrew]

I admit I tend to give above average budget games a boost based on their price. Maybe a half-star at most on a 5 point scale, but I do factor that in. Or at least I'm more forgiving of missing features. I can't recall if I've ever knocked a game for being short. But I can see how you could make a good case for that.

[Mark Asher]

Eight hours is ridiculously short for a $50 game. But it's not really a $50 game -- it's a $40M game, which is what Take 2 paid for the I.P.

So Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is, at eight hours long, $5M an hour.

Anyway, I can now see why Take 2 didn't send out review copies.

[Angie Gallant]

I take the length of the game and replayablity into account when scoring games, it's something that is important to a lot of people. Only in extreme circumstances would I say that there's not enough content in a game for its price, I think it's better if the reader can make their own judgement with the information they are given.

[Charles]

It annoys the piss out of me when people assume that every game should have multiplayer, and act like it's some big thing when it's not there.

[Kalle]

Mulitplayer is not a requirement by any means, but it might have been a saving grace by adding some replayability to a, by all reports, laughably short single player experience.

If a publisher wants me to buy a game full-price I expect a minimum of 20 hours of playtime, single player and/or multiplayer, out of it, any less than that and I wait until it hits the bargain bins.

[christopher]

I don't understand why this game is getting such great reviews. It seems to be MOTS in just about every category, including the length of the game. It's like they didn't even try to improve it that much, besides making the graphics better and cutting out some of the cheesy dialog. Yet this game is getting better reviews than Halo, which at least does something different than most other games out there. And most of the knocks on Halo are because the multiplayer sucks and doesn't have co-op, while Max Payne 2 doesn't even have mulitplayer but doesn't get dinged at all for it. It's like they're telling the developers, "Just give us the same game over and over again with better graphics, and don't bother to include multiplayer, since that just gives us another chance criticize your game."

[Jim Preston]

It's a little hard to answer the original question of this thread, because people tend to have different conceptions of value. Maybe if I was back in school and I dropped $50 for a game that I finished in a weekend, I would have been pretty disappointed. But now that I have more money than time, I didn't mind the game's length at all.

As for the more-of-the-same syndrome, I'd agree with that, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I'm loving Soul Calibur II desipite it really being Soul Calibur I.V and sports games get consistenly high scores despite being very similar from year to year. Also, keep in mind that not everyone may have played the original, so fans of pure action games may really enjoy MP2. Just about every pizza I have tastes like more of the same to me, but I never seem to get tired of pizza.

[Supertanker]

I've now hit my second CTD bug in Max Payne 2, so those are running $25 each, retail. The workaround you can find on various forums worked for the first one, but now I'm stuck at Part III, Chapter 7 and unable to proceed.

Edited to add this official statement from Remedy & Take 2, which I found on the Gamefaqs forum (BTW, these suggestoins are not working):

"This error message is a known issue that appears primarily on Operating Systems other than Windows XP. The developers are currently working to fix this issue with a patch. There has been no release date set for the patch. Until it is released, the developers recommend lowering all
your display and audio settings (select "Low" on the Video configuration
window) as a temporary fix for the problem.

Here´s a message from Markus, a member of the Remedy developer team.

If you get a crash with "Bad Allocation" as the error message, we are
aware of this problem and are working on a patch.

This has been seen in Part 1 Chapter 7 and Part 3 Chapter 7, and has
been seen on Windows 98/Me only, but MAY happen on Windows XP in some another form (no error message displayed etc.)

Setting all details to minimum may help to get you playing temporarily.
You should be able to raise the details after you´ve played through the
problematic level.

Regards,
Markus

Latest News:

Could be there's something wrong in either the installation or the
game can't get data intact from the hard disk. We recommend
reinstalling the
game."

[Gordon_Bleu]

Eight hours is ridiculously short for a $50 game. But it's not really a $50 game -- it's a $40M game, which is what Take 2 paid for the I.P.

So Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is, at eight hours long, $5M an hour.

Mark you have a great future in infomercials.

[Jason Becker]

Anyway, I can now see why Take 2 didn't send out review copies.

The shortness of the game isn't hurting it with the reviews so far. GR has it at 92% after 13 recorded reviews.


I don't know if a game should be docked if its short since what's a good value can be diffrent from person to person. I think the reviewer should mention it so people have the info.

[Guido Jones]

Haven't excperienced one CTD with MP2, and I'm almost through playing it a second time.

I don't think Prices should be taken into account. Sales happen all the time, you can always pick up a game for cheaper the $49.99 - I will say that reviewers should mention how long the game took them to complete, so people know if they should wait a month.

For me MP2 was worth it - the gameplay is different enough then the other shooters I've been playing, and it's about as innovative as Halo (and doesn't run like a goddamn pig).

[DennyA]

Just have a kid. An 8-hour game will still last you at least two weeks. :-)

[Wholly Schmidt]

Just have a kid. An 8-hour game will still last you at least two weeks. :-)Won't that $50 seem that much bigger an expenditure when you're trying to raise a family?

[Kevin Grey]

Short games seem to be the norm these days. Unreal 2 was less than 10 hours and I think I read that 10 hours is the target for Doom 3. Freedom Fighters is also less than 10 hours too. NOLF 2 was probably closer to fifteen but was still mush shorter than the original and I think I read that DX2 will be shorter than DX. I don't think its fair to single out Max Payne when the general trend in the industry is toward shorter games.

I also don't think it should be taken into account in the rating since this thread shows that everyone has a different idea of value and what they expect from the game. It should be sufficient to note the playing time and the lack of multiplayer in the review so that potential customers can take that into account.

[Bub, Andrew]

Just have a kid. An 8-hour game will still last you at least two weeks. :-)

And Denny is still a couple years off from when a kid REALLY starts making demands on your freetime. ;-)

[Sam Jones]

I think I read that DX2 will be shorter than DX.

In fairness, DX1 was 30-40hrs on the first play through. I hope they don't make DX2 too much shorter than the first game. If it's less than 20hrs, I'll be pissed off.

[Wheelkick]

I think I read that DX2 will be shorter than DX.

In fairness, DX1 was 30-40hrs on the first play through. I hope they don't make DX2 too much shorter than the first game. If it's less than 20hrs, I'll be pissed off.

If it's more than 20 hours, I probably won't finish this one either.

[Squirrel Killer]

Just have a kid. An 8-hour game will still last you at least two weeks. :-)

My wife and I just had our first kid on Saturday, and has a "surprise" Xbox waiting for me as a "Thanks for putting up with 2 months of bed rest" present. Such a surprise that I already have four games for it, not even counting the Clone Wars/Tetris pack-in games. Then when I was searching for the perfect teddy bear for our little girl, I got caught up in the Toys R Us Buy 2 Get 3rd Free offer and $3 Oni at EB and had an episode of Impuse Buying.

So now I have like 11 games on tap (had to get Wing Commander GBA with Oni), a refound Marathon addiction (thanks to Aleph One) and a newborn coming home later today. It's beginning to dawn on me that I may never even see the title screen of half of these games.

[Kevin Grey]

In fairness, DX1 was 30-40hrs on the first play through. I hope they don't make DX2 too much shorter than the first game. If it's less than 20hrs, I'll be pissed off.

DX2 is aiming for about 20 hours IIRC. I was just pointing out that the industry is definitely moving to shorter games. I almost fell out of my chair when I read that HL2 is going for 30-40 hours of gameplay. Valve will be bucking the trend if that's true.

What's surprising is that the biggest series in recent history, GTA, has upwards of 100 hours or more of gameplay.

[Ergo]

I'm with Denny and Wheelkick--a supposedly 8-hour game suits me just fine. With my schedule it'll take me 2-3 weeks to finish. I rarely stick with games that are much longer.

[Wholly Schmidt]

What's surprising is that the biggest series in recent history, GTA, has upwards of 100 hours or more of gameplay.
It's up to the player how much of that 100 hours they want to do though, the main story can be finished far sooner. Perhaps that's the key to it's success?

[Bleeding Edge]

I think reviewers should include the amount of time it takes to finish a game, but shouldn't let the MSRP affect the final score.

For example, if Max Payne 2 is an 8.0 out of 10 game due to its $50 sticker price; does it become an 8.5 or 9.0 game when the price drops after a few weeks?

I think the value decision should be left to the reader.

[Wheelkick]

What's surprising is that the biggest series in recent history, GTA, has upwards of 100 hours or more of gameplay.
It's up to the player how much of that 100 hours they want to do though, the main story can be finished far sooner. Perhaps that's the key to it's success?
My guess is that you are correct.

[DennyA]

Is it 8 hours for real people, or 8 hours for l33t 5h00t3r m45t3rz, though?

I mean, DangerMouse finished it that fast, but could most people?

I've gotten an hour of gameplay out of one portion of Halo that I'd guess some of you guys breezed through in less than 10 minutes....

[Nellie]

I loved the original Max Payne and to be perfectly honest couldn't really find anything to fault it on and marked it accordingly. Granted I'm only an amateur on/off reviewer at the best of times, but personally having qualified within the review what I thought its shortcomings were (ie its not very long, not actually an awful lot to do other than shoot bad guys etc) and why I personally didnt feel that they warranted me docking points off the score then I dont feel I did anything wrong giving it the score I did.

Guess what I am trying to say is that as long as people state in reviews what could be seen as "shortcomings", even if they choose not to dock marks for them, then I am happy I still have the information I need to make a decision on whether it is likely to float my boat or not.

[tromik]

Although the reviewer maybe shouldn't grade the game based on the length of it, they should mention it, as many readers WILL grade the game based on how long it is. You can't stop that.

[steve]

Is it 8 hours for real people, or 8 hours for l33t 5h00t3r m45t3rz, though?
It took me 8-10 hours, and I wasn't rushing.

[Kalle]

Although the reviewer maybe shouldn't grade the game based on the length of it, they should mention it, as many readers WILL grade the game based on how long it is. You can't stop that.

Why would you want to stop that? Reviews are supposed to help people make informed purchase decisions, I happen to want quantity as well as quality when it comes to games, and a great game is one that satisfies me on both accounts. I'd like to see each and every review comment on the price, as in "worth buying at full price!!!", "Solid purchase", "Not enough gameplay to warrant a full price, wait 'til it hits the bargain bin", etc. Because, believe it or not, reviews are ultimately about recommending what people should spend their *money* on.

[extarbags]

I think I read that DX2 will be shorter than DX.

In fairness, DX1 was 30-40hrs on the first play through. I hope they don't make DX2 too much shorter than the first game. If it's less than 20hrs, I'll be pissed off.

If it's more than 20 hours, I probably won't finish this one either.

Exactly the point I was going to make. People who really play games, most people here for example, are probably interested in at least 3-4 games each month. If you're demanding 40 hours per game, that's already at least 120-160 hours a month spent gaming if you intend to play those games to completion. Not everyone has the luxury of making the playing of games a full time job.

[Alan Au]

Seems to me that game length is a poor metric, as is price for that matter, seeing as neither really has much bearing on the *actual* quality of the game.

That said, I pretty much refuse to pay more that $40 for a new game these days (which is easy considering the abundance of new-release promotional deals), and I expect to get at least 20 hours (~2 weeks worth of play time) out of any given title.

If I use reviews as a determination of whether to spend my hard earned money or not, I at least want to know what I'm getting.

- Alan

[tromik]

Although the reviewer maybe shouldn't grade the game based on the length of it, they should mention it, as many readers WILL grade the game based on how long it is. You can't stop that.

Why would you want to stop that? Reviews are supposed to help people make informed purchase decisions, I happen to want quantity as well as quality when it comes to games, and a great game is one that satisfies me on both accounts. I'd like to see each and every review comment on the price, as in "worth buying at full price!!!", "Solid purchase", "Not enough gameplay to warrant a full price, wait 'til it hits the bargain bin", etc. Because, believe it or not, reviews are ultimately about recommending what people should spend their *money* on.

In my mind gameplay > graphics, sound and length. If a game is solid, but somewhat short, I will still buy it, as I see being worth my money.

[Kevin Grey]

Why would you want to stop that? Reviews are supposed to help people make informed purchase decisions, I happen to want quantity as well as quality when it comes to games, and a great game is one that satisfies me on both accounts.

In my case I never play multiplayer so any added value provided by the multiplayer aspect of a title is lost on me. For some people the reverse is true. Since everyone is looking for a different amount of time for a title it's difficult for a reviewer to try and come up with some sort of universal metric that covers all people. It should be sufficient to note how long the game is.