Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says he failed with Max Payne 3, and I'm sorry, Danno, but that's completely wrong.

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Dan Houser is the co-founder of Rockstar Games, and so I would never presume to tell him he's wrong about any of the games Rockstar makes — except in one particular case, where I feel obligated to step up and say, "Dan, I'm sorry, honey, but you're wrong."

The game in question is Max Payne 3, which Houser played the lead role in, and he seems to have a low profile: in an interview with IGN, he said the game was a "failure" because, simply put, he's not Sam Leake, the creative director of Remedy who wrote the first two Max Payne games.

According to Houser, Max Payne 3 was a bit different from the open-world GTA games he was used to as a very linear game, but he also enjoyed the experience a lot. I loved what we did design-wise, the way it played without loading, the feel of a 12-hour movie, some of the visual work we did with the words on the screen.

Alas, he continued, “I felt like we were creating a really cool digital noir experience, and the consensus at the time was that people hated it.

"So I was completely wrong," Houser said. "I know Sam Lake very well, and he's a very nice guy and really talented. I thought we did a good job by doing another Max Payne game. Some people liked it; a lot of them didn't. So we made a mistake, or so I realized. My mistake failed. My bit didn't work.

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"The game is beautifully made and it just wasn't as successful as it should have been. So I would say that a lot of that failure was on me as one of the decision makers and also as the writer, when people really missed his writing."

Max Payne 3 is a really interesting case study, because it's very much a Max Payne game – gritty, gritty, full of bullet time, body drops, and snappy commentary about how bad life is – but it's also a complete rockstar game, and thus has a very different feel to the previous two entries in the series. Fans who expected more – or really insisted on it – will be disappointed.

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But Max Payne 3 itself is nothing less than a brilliant and powerful cinematic shooter. It really feels like a "12-hour movie," with cut scenes, a brilliant soundtrack by industrial rock band Health, and great acting, especially James McCaffrey in the title role.

Max Payne 3 - Official Launch Trailer - YouTube

With all due respect to Remedy, here's where McCaffrey really stepped up and tried to deliver some really great lines:

If one of them helped the poor and the other beat my sister, I wouldn't know right from wrong.

Look at me, I'm standing in a nightclub, listening to music I can't stand, I'm five thousand miles from home, I'm armed and I'm drinking. You don't want to listen to my advice, friend.

I had a hole in my second favorite drinking arm and the only way we could get Fabiana back now was in installments.

Max Payne 3 Quotes - Pain in the Ass - YouTube

I had killed more policemen than cholesterol and there was still no sign of Becker. It wasn't the first time it occurred to me, I probably should have looked at the map in more detail, but it was too late for that now.

I was a dumb American in a place where dumb Americans are less popular than clapping.

I would put a big stupid grin on my face and let these idiots take turns killing me. This is my style and it's too late to hope to change.

Max Payne 3 quotes - I was at my worst I was at my best - YouTube

We had cut Sao Paulo in half, the holiest place of worship. In retrospect it was strange how the police never showed up. But things had a habit of just looking back, long after I had run out of time to fix them.

I sat at the bar for three hours, or about five years, depending on how you look at it. I tried not to look at things.

It's fair to say that Max Payne 3 wasn't a huge commercial success: in 2012, publisher Take-Two Interactive said that sales of the game were "less than expected", leading to a significant increase in net loss for the quarter. But that's not the only measure of success, and I think it's significant that Take-Two said the same thing at the same time about Spec Ops: The Line, a game widely heralded then and now for its daring and subversive narrative.

Max Payne 3 was slower, but I think the passage of time has given us a much better perspective on what Rockstar actually offered: As former PC Gamer writer Andy Kelly wrote a decade ago, “Over the years, I've come to appreciate more the risks Rockstar took in breaking the established and popular Remedy mold.

"It's a radical move, but it works," wrote another Andy in his very accurate take on Max Payne 3. "It's always interesting to see a familiar character in an unfamiliar situation, and Max is hilariously out of place in Brazil. As if a white American in a favela didn't attract enough unwanted attention, he makes his life more difficult. Wearing the longest Hawaiian shirt imaginable. He was comfortable in New York, but here he's a foreigner and the game is well played."

And so, Dan, with all due respect, I have to say, "I'm sorry bud, but you're wrong." Max Payne 3 may have been divisive in its time, and it may not have been the big hit you'd hoped for, but I certainly wouldn't call it a failure. I would say Rockstar, and you absolutely nailed it.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs since he was a teenager, starting with text-adventure and primitive action games on the cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longtime love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He started writing video game news for The Escapist in 2007 and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until he joined the famous PC Gamer community in 2014. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports and Henry Cavill. A lot of Henry Cavill.

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