Anything as good as Max Payne out there?

[Ash]

If you're more into 3rd Person Action the latest Tomb Raiders are pretty good (I prefer the 2013 reboot to last year's RotTR but it's still a good game).

The new Tomb Raiders are shit Uncharted clones.

 

[Soulcucker]

Max Payne 1 is the peak of the non-cover third person shooter genre, just accept the decline. Stranglehold and Enter the Matrix are the closest games to the Max Payne series, nowhere as good but both are solid games. Some other third person shooters not listed in this thread that I remember enjoying: Headhunter (PS2/Dreamcast only), Dead to Rights, 007: Everything or Nothing, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, The Club, 50 Cent:Blood on the Sand (enjoyed ironically, but surprisingly it is polished popamole), and Freedom Fighters (worth looking up just for the soundtrack alone).

 

[Darth Slaughter]

I remember playing "the suffering" a long time ago. I never finished it, due to crashes a bugs on my PC back then, and I remember that instaling the sequel would mess the 1st game's installation.

I don't remember much about the gameplay aspects other than it was a shooter, but at the time it had a Max Payne feel to it.

 

[GrainWetski]

If you're more into 3rd Person Action the latest Tomb Raiders are pretty good (I prefer the 2013 reboot to last year's RotTR but it's still a good game).

The new Tomb Raiders are shit Uncharted clones.

The "shit" part of your post is unnecessary as that is implied already.

 

[Carrion]

Max Payne 1 is the peak of the non-cover third person shooter genre, just accept the decline.

The "non-cover" part is kind of redundant there. Also, as good as MP1 was, it still had a number of shortcomings that were only fixed in the sequel.

Freedom Fighters

This was a pretty cool TPS and played really well on PC despite being a multiplatform game. The soundtrack is very good indeed.

One thing about MP1&2 was that they had a really sharp and precise control scheme, which was in some ways closer to an FPS than your typical TPS from that era. Something like Enter the Matrix plays like shit compared to them, and even though you can probably do all kinds of "cool" stuff in it, it falls woefully short of being even nearly as enjoyable. F.E.A.R. really is your best bet for John Woo-esque action, even if it's not a TPS.

 

[Icymad]

People are just dumping random third-person shooters.

So true, lmao.

The only game I've played that resembles MP1&2 quite a bit, is Stranglehold. Max Payne was inspired by John Woo's movies and mainly Hard Boiled (it had many references) so after Max Payne was a success someone thought, hey let's make an actual John Woo game, and they made this, which is basically Hard Boiled: The game. It's not as good as MP1&2 and it has more contained levels where a lot of enemies come at you, but it's a very good shooter nevertheless, with some awesome shootouts and a general gun-firing mayhem.

I remember researching this game back in the day and people would dismiss a faithful John Woo game adaptation with dumb statements such as "this game is a blatant Max Payne ripoff". Yeah right, hope the Gears of War fever was worth it (not that i hate GOW or tps in general). I played this game when Max Payne 3 was still fresh (thanks for the bad reception this game took) and was pleasantly surprised. And frankly, this game surpasses Max Payne in quite a few ways. Take the enviroment and move set for example - no more spamming bullet dodge, now you want to be creative with the enviroment (Max Payne 3 only used the enviromnent in set pieces, a shame).

Stranglehold is also more challanging than Max Payne 2 and 3, and waaaay more action packed than Max Payne 3, and the levels where quite good looking and varied(while Max Payne 3 took a tropical country as a setting and decided to use the shithole parts of said country as an inspiration, tough to be fair, neither Max Payne 1 and 2 levels where memorable to me).

Botton line Stranglehold is the only non Max Payne TPS (at least in this thread since Enter the Matrix looks like dogshit) the OP should try if he wants bullet time action. As for Max Payne 3, play it too, it's a solid game all things considered. Funny thing Remedy made another game with time manipulation (quantum break) but didn't use conventional gung fu tropes.

 

[Ash]

What's with the perceived requirement that shit has to be bullet time? The OP said "what are good TPS that you think are as good as MP?". Bullet time a good TPS does not make.

 

[Icymad]

What's with the perceived requirement that shit has to be bullet time? The OP said "what are good TPS that you think are as good as MP?". Bullet time a good TPS does not make.

Maybe bullet time could have salvaged Enter the Matrix if Max Payne didn't exist, i dunno. It's surely is fun to dismiss a major feature like it is nothing.

"what are good TPS that you think are as good as MP?"
Binary Domain? I mean, it plays totally different than Max Payne in regards to shooting( "gunplay"?) and a dystopic futurist Japan setting that has nothing to do with John Woo Style police settings but it is a really fun TPS nonetheless.

 

[Dev_Anj]

It was heavily implied that the original poster wanted a game that had the same appeal as the Max Payne games, and Max Payne is pretty much known for its bullet time and/or shoot dodge John Woo antics. That's really a big part of the appeal of those games. Trying to treat it as a generic "Third person shooters as good as Max Payne" question is pointless since that's a very subjective question that doesn't really have any good answers, it depends a lot on what the poster personally enjoyed from Max Payne. Therefore, it's good to instead look at what did Max Payne offered that made it unique and approach the query from that angle instead.

 

[adddeed]

Thanks for all the suggestions, will take some time to look through those i havent played.

As for what i like about Max Payne? Well atmosphere, storytelling, tight controls, feeling of loneliness and desperation, polished and fun gameplay, and of course bullet time.

 

[Outlander]

No, there's nothing like Max Payne 1 & 2. Closest thing to it is, sadly, Max Payne 3.

 

[Hoplopfheil]

Non-cover TPS?

Try Jet Force Gemini.

 

[Icymad]

Turns out there is another Max Payne style TPS beside stranglehold and Enter the Matrix:


Since this one doesn't have a PC release i can see why it got no mentions until now. Maybe Vanquish could qualify as a Max Payne similar at least in regards to shooting. Too bad fear games doesn't have bullet dodge, could be nice in first person.

 

[JarlFrank]

The only game I've played that resembles MP1&2 quite a bit, is Stranglehold. Max Payne was inspired by John Woo's movies and mainly Hard Boiled (it had many references) so after Max Payne was a success someone thought, hey let's make an actual John Woo game, and they made this, which is basically Hard Boiled: The game. It's not as good as MP1&2 and it has more contained levels where a lot of enemies come at you, but it's a very good shooter nevertheless, with some awesome shootouts and a general gun-firing mayhem.

I loved this game, played through it twice. Especially the fancy indoors levels are nice. The best about it is that you can destroy almost everything, and after lengthy firefights the environment around you is completely blown apart.

 

[MaskedMan]

El Matador gameplay is a total Max Payne ripoff, obv not as good though. I think True Crime Streets of LA had bullet time dodging too.

 

[Hoplopfheil]

The Punisher (Cross platform, 2005) was briefly mentioned but deserves more attention.

It goes far beyond a simple Max Payne clone. It has basic shootdodge and third person shooting, but there's a lot more going on. It's a pretty serviceable shooter, but the added interrogation and human shield mechanics gives it flavor. In a way it's like the Reservoir Dogs game.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Vanquish

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah Max Payne 2 was the peak of 3rd person shooter. As others have said Enter the Matrix was ok. Rune (multiplayer at least) and Jedi Knight games were also good for 3rd-person melee at least. Everything since has been pretty shit.

Oni looked cool as well, but I never played it.

 

[Carrion]

Oni looked cool as well, but I never played it.

I played it a bit when it was released. It was more focused on hand-to-hand combat than shooting, but it certainly was enjoyable, although it had some pretty bland environments and that animu visual style (which probably was discreet enough to not turn most people away, even though you control a purple-haired woman). I don't think the gunplay was particularly good, but the kung fu stuff definitely worked.

 

[Ash]

The Punisher (Cross platform, 2005) was briefly mentioned but deserves more attention.

It goes far beyond a simple Max Payne clone. It has basic shootdodge and third person shooting, but there's a lot more going on. It's a pretty serviceable shooter, but the added interrogation and human shield mechanics gives it flavor. In a way it's like the Reservoir Dogs game.

Indeed. People saying MP is the peak of non-decline TPS clearly aren't very well acquainted with the genre*, as even The Punisher provides arguably better gameplay. Story-wise MP is probably the best, but there are a number of TPS that hold their own that regard too and the Punisher is one of them.

*not that it's a monocled genre like cRPG, but it did used to hold its own like FPS before modern popamole took over.

 

[SilentMRG]

I would say that Dead to Rights (2002), developed by Namco is a great option. There are versions for Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube and Windows. Unfortunately, the Windows version is not for sale anywhere, and the disk version uses the dangerous StarForce DRM. Hell, this should be on GOG! Fortunately, the version of the scene has a working crack that completely removes this hellish DRM. It works great on Windows 7 and Windows 10 without needing any extra patches. In short, the game mixes shooting sessions with bullet time and fighting sessions, as well as some mini games here and there. There is a dog (Shadow) that can be used to attack enemies, in some parts of the campaign it will be used to sniff out bombs in a building, and in these parts the player will control it. Anyway, the game mixes the entire Hard Boiled essence with Die Hard.

See parts of this full walkthrough so you can understand better...



It's a shame that the 2005 sequel is so bad when compared to the first entry, it also ended up being very generic in many ways and felt like a rushed job. There is a spin-off (Dead To Rights - Reckoning) for the PSP which, despite using the entire structure of the second installment, ended up being a good game, considering that there weren't many games of this type on the PSP. There is also another spin-off for the PS3/Xbox 360 (Dead to Rights - Retribution) that ended up being completely forgotten (I think few people played this version when it was released). Note: I've never played Retribution, but looking at the video it looks kind of bad, hehe...

 

[Ezekiel]

There's nothing that plays like Max Payne. Maybe that dumb free-to-play multiplayer game, Double Action: Boogaloo. Strangehold is stupid as fuck. Movement with no nuance, half the enemies conveniently standing under objects, railings/pipes that are more Tony Hawk than John Woo, Matrix bullshit standoffs.

 

[Ezekiel]

Cheesy, but I used that theme from Hard Boiled for one of my montages.



They still accuse me of auto-aim years after I stopped playing regularly enough to upload. Got too hard to find good matches with the awful balancing, perks, unlocks and almost everyone playing in Soft Lock servers. Why did I pick women so much? Partly because they have smaller hitboxes, with no other drawbacks.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Vanquish

 

[yellowcake]

Control is the third fourth Max Payne game.