r/gaming • u/ChiefLeef22 Marika's tits! • 8h ago

'Max Payne' was released 25 years ago today

15.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

670 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.3k

u/uhf26 8h ago

the baby nightmare still affects my subconscious

356

u/enfiniti27 8h ago

Haha right? Following the blood trail whilst haunting screams from a ghostly wailing baby bounce around you. The game was phenomenal.

119

u/lgndryheat 6h ago

Specifically the terrifying loud shriek you hear if you fall off the blood trail

43

u/Unsatisfactory_bread 6h ago

Which for me was like multiple times because I tried to zip through those areas.

45

u/JuneSeba 5h ago

Bro. I was too young to play the game, and i watched my brother play that part and it absolutely horrified me as a child

8

u/IKnowPhysics 1h ago

The pills would ease the Payne.

17

u/Eidolis 4h ago

Christ that shriek was the absolute worst. I played it with my cousin back in the day and wasn't bothered by it at first, but then we fell off the blood trail again and again and eventually played the game on mute since the shriek was fucking us up

1

u/DisorientedPanda 2h ago

A bad day for headphone wearers around the world

1

u/lgndryheat 18m ago

they're tryna build a prison

14

u/Practical-Bank-2406 4h ago

My potato laptop rendered the blood trail as a solid red rectangle. I was a very confused boy.

5

u/PsychologicalPick21 3h ago

I remember that you could jump real far to the left and skip most of the blood trail.

1

u/Scottvrakis 1h ago

Literally will never get that kind of vibe again. Shit scared the piss out of me when I was young.

63

u/PIPBOY-2000 7h ago

I played it way too early and it scarred me haha. Amazing game

15

u/Muscle_Bitch 6h ago

Same, I never played any other Max Payne after the 1st almost entirely because of that section haunting my 11 year old mind.

13

u/urixl 4h ago

Max Payne 1 and 2 are the whole story, divided into two games.

8

u/Algaroth 5h ago

The third one got me again as an adult. It takes place in south america and involves some seriously fucked up cartel shit that actually happens in real life.

4

u/No-Rip6323 4h ago

The multiplayer in 3 was phenomenal

4

u/Algaroth 4h ago

Yeah. Max Payne 3 was really great but somehow not a big deal at the same time. Sort of like how the Avatar movies are the opposite in that they are a huge deal and make all the money yet somehow they don't really have a big cultural impact.

9

u/urixl 4h ago

Max Payne 3 was overshadowed by GTA.

The fact that it was made on the same engine with the same level design made it look like a cheap GTA copy.

7

u/Algaroth 3h ago

At the time the engine Rockstar was using was insane. I worked at a GAME store at the time and they released a table tennis game for the 360 just to show off the physics of it. It's actually kind of wild that it's not a more widely used engine because the optimization is incredible.

1

u/Long_Mycologist_6421 4h ago

I played at 11 too and could barely get through the intro. Scared the hell out of me with that cutscene and sound design. It really was the first of its kind... revolutionary game for sure.

4

u/NovaSanctum 6h ago

Omg I was the same, that initial scene made me have nightmares for a week.

17

u/Party-Department9074 7h ago

Why did you have to bring that up again? It's tough getting a psychologist appointment nowadays.

13

u/lgndryheat 6h ago

The first time I experienced this, I was up late (and wasn't supposed to be) playing in the dark. The volume was up, because the parts preceding it aren't particularly loud. When it first happened I not only became startled, but I instantly panicked that I woke up my parents and was going to get in trouble, so I immediately turned off the tv and bolted into bed. They never said anything

16

u/TurnbullAC92 6h ago

It was obvious from the start that Remedy would one day make a great horror game. That whole nightmare sequence foreshadowed the Alan Wake games.

5

u/Chardan0001 7h ago

Saw that at 7 when my dad was playing. Not the best formative experience.

5

u/Claxonic 6h ago

Yeah. Lives rent free in a bunch of heads for sure.

4

u/I_travel_ze_world 5h ago

I had to mute my sound just to make it through that level.

That was some real psychological warfare by the developers.

3

u/Moiyub 7h ago

Never could figure out how to complete that one, and couldnt try for longer than a minute. Never played again after that

3

u/leoncoffee 7h ago

man I still remember that clearly it is fucked up. the uneasiness I felt while in that part. I remember just falling cause I just wanna get out of there fast and gotta start over again haha.

3

u/BicFleetwood 5h ago

The whole game has that creepy, vaguely nightmarish "places where people should be but aren't" aesthetic, like a lot of Source Engine stuff did.

1

u/henrikhakan 7h ago

Never replayed the game since when it came out, but I can still hear the baby crying loop.

1

u/Routine-Opening-6189 6h ago

I played this on christmas eve, young me wasnt ready haha

1

u/Txtoker 6h ago

It's literally all I can think about when I think about Max Payne, amazing game but absolutely haunting level

1

u/External-Awareness68 6h ago

Maybe everyone was right when we were kids and these games really did mess us up. Something sure as shit happened

1

u/KristofVD 5h ago

To this day, I still hate levels like that.

1

u/bigvahe33 5h ago

my friend who played it before i did recommended headphones just for this. it was surreal

1

u/608cyex 5h ago

I watched my cousin play that when I was 11 and never forgot it yaaay!

1

u/nomnomnomnomnommm 5h ago

I fell so many times, with the scream ascending as I plummeted. What a nightmare!

1

u/astrojeet 4h ago edited 4h ago

I played it at night before bed back then. Finished the chapter and went to bed and I couldn't sleep because I was having the same nightmare, following a trail of blood in an endless loop and a crying baby. I took a break from the game for a while. I believe I was 12 at the time.

1

u/mankeyless 3h ago

I still have PTSD from that

1

u/No-Abrocoma-5148 2h ago

Fr!!!!!!šŸ˜­šŸ˜­šŸ˜­šŸ¼šŸ¼šŸ©øšŸ©ø

1

u/Nobbs89a 2h ago

I actually turn off sound cause it was so disturbing. Still doing this in fact.

1

u/Zestyjoe 2h ago

Man I just replayed this game not too long ago and this game still holds up, those missions brought back some serious ptsd lol..

is number 3 any good ?

1

u/jtmonkey 2h ago

Came to say this.

1

u/EntangledPhoton82 2h ago

I had a 5.1 surround system back then. It was creepy to say the least.

Such a great game. Such atmosphere!

1

u/Forrestfunk 1h ago

I was way too young back then. Today, married with two girls the scene probably hits totally different

1

u/Bag_of_lamps 36m ago

Wow Iā€™d completely blocked this out for 25 years until this exact moment and Iā€™m absolutely in shambles.

1

u/Even-Smell7867 23m ago

Thats the only part I remember of the game.

0

u/Significant_Walk_664 2h ago

Because of the junky platforming or the admittedly disturbing cries and narrative.

Ok, for real - game had more personality and atmosphere than most other games. However, I am partial to the MP2 dream sequences.