I've completed that game during a snowy winter, mostly at night, when I was depressed. Some of the best memories of my gamer's life.

Loved this game as a teen. This game also made me realize how distorted the game spaces are to accommodate the third person camera. Look at those 15 foot high ceilings!

Still the best narration in any video game ever made. I adore the way Max describes what's happening and how he feels. What a classic.

You missed the opportunity to get attacked by rats after throwing a granade in the hole in the brick wall (curious to know if that's also in the PS2 version) , also if you shoot at the alarm on the ceiling it will immediately stop and Max will break the 4th wall and thank the player. Man I love Remedy.

I LOVE this game! The atmosphere is amazing in this game

Max Payne came with my secondhand PS2 as a kid and I'm really happy I gave it a chance and played it. Performance looking back is pretty dire but I didn't know any better and the gameplay was still very fun. Made me a fan of the series

Re: two points in the video: - It's absolutely no coincidence that there are similarities between this and 3DMark. As shown in the 3DMark credits, the Max Payne engine is used, Remedy and MadOnion (future FutureMark) share common ancestry and some personnel, there are close ties there, another fun fact is that the band Poets Of The Fall contributed music tracks to both Max Payne and 3DMark (and later Control). - I don't remember if the game required DirectX 8 to run, but even if it did, it was a mostly arbitrary software API targeting thing. Hardware capability wise, it's completely a DirectX 7 level game, all fixed function pipeline, no programmable shaders.

I ran this on the first PC I bought and built for myself. 1.33Ghz Athlon (fastest consumer CPU at the time) 256MB RAM Geforce 2mx (upgraded a few months after initial build to a Geforce 3 Ti200, which I promptly overclocked to near Ti500 speeds, as you did back then) and a lovely 19" Sony Trinitron monitor This game freaking blew my mind at the time. and yes, even with what was at the time of purchase, the fastest cpu on the market here in AUS this game was really demanding on the CPU side.

I legit thought Max Payne was a famous movie IP back when it first released in 2001 because it really has that aura of an excellent noir narrative perfect for the big screen. Turns out it was a completely original video game made by a passionate team of devs and that blew my mind when I found out.

I finished this game on PC, PS2, GBA, Android phone, PS4 (the PS2 version) and even again on the PC. This game is really something.

The Xbox port for this game is very good. If you play it backwards compatible it’s 4K 60 fps on Series X and it even has dead zone modifiers so you can make the game feel really good to play as well.

played the xbox version for the first time ever last year and got super hooked on it finished on all difficulties, thats very impressive to me for a 2001 game to hook me like that 20 years later

Deus Ex has an interesting PS2-port with neat controls and map changes, worth a look in a future feature!

Considering the texture limitations of the PS2, I’m even more amazed by the texture work in Silent Hill 3

The final level has a cutscene if you die that barely plays on the PS2, it’s amazing!

I had MP on PS2. Its one of the few games I reminisce on often. Remedy's dark storytelling is unlike any other developers.

I don't remember what PC I had at the time, but I know I ran this on a Ti 4600. It was mindblowing how smoothly it ran.

I originally played this on a meh PC in 2005 and it ran pretty good but then I played the PSN version on PS3 years later and i couldn't believe how rough it was.

Max got in the train and John says "Max the conductor!" I was really expecting "MAX TRAYNE!" lol

Max Payne was the first game I used mods for. It blew my mind what could be done. My AMD Athlon 1GHz got me through ok.

The long loads on John's PS2 version are easily offset by Alex's endless deaths 😄

Replayed both Max Payne 1 and 2 just this spring/early summer, was great and after not having played either of them since my childhood it was fun to see it holds up very well.

🤩I remember reading the previews for Max Payne in PC Gamer magazine. The photo realistic graphics and bullet time blew my little mind🤯, but it was Sam Lake's writing and a stellar cast that touched my soul. Max's struggles and nightmares were so real... Made me a lifetime Remedy fan!

love max Payne. still play it on the regular.

Max Payne was one of the few games I got on multiple platforms (PC, PS2, Xbox, even on iOS eventually) to compare the differences myself with I was a teenager. Glad DF cares about such things too years later. Splinter Cell was another title I did the same.

I still remember playing Max Payne on my poor TNT2 when it came out, the framerate was so low I had to look at the ground to make it playable. But man I didn't care...it looked so good and it was so fun that I just kept playing, I was completely captured by the story and atmosphere. Simpler times...

Huh, I didnt realize the first Max Payne was released on PS2. I played it on Xbox back in the day (and still today, I always have issues with the PC version crashing even with fan patches), I still remember the magazine ads with close-ups of Max's face and how it was real in-game graphics.

Oh what a throwback this is! Remedy at the PEAK of their craft (James Mccaffrey was legendary)

I just recently picked up a complete Big Box PC copy of Max Payne at Goodwill for 1.99. It was complete with a mouse pad. I was super pumped.

I want digital foundry to make a video like this for all the late 90s and early 2000s PC games that got ported to the PS2 like Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament, Giant Citizen Kabuto, MDK2, Red Faction, Project Eden and others. DF has already done videos on NOLF and Max Payne.

I absolutely love hearing ya'll rambling! Hope ya'll do more of these! It makes me feel like I'm right there next to ya'll!

2003? Didn't this come out in 2001.

Thanks for great video! Liked this series very much as a kid) And that music and atmosphere... just awesome!

You could have a go at the PS2 port of the original Mafia game (the city of Lost Heaven). Worse textures (iirc the streets were just a single grey colour), bad framerate, loading screens in areas that didn't have them in the pc original, etc

Honestly can't wait for the remakes after seeing the engine powering Alan Wake 2

I knew the PS2 version was bonked, but had no idea it was to the extent of missing entire swaths of level geometry and gameplay! That's insane, and reminiscent of the PS2 versions of the Splinter Cell games.

Great video, guys! The title says 2003, but the game came out in 2001. Ran really well on my Athlon 650 and NVIDIA Riva TNT 2. Max Payne 2 came out in 2003, which had Havok Physics 2 a year before HL2.

I was a HUGE fan of Max Payne on PC. My cousin was console only so I bought him a copy for PS2 for Christmas. ...he hated it. :(

We love hearing you two commentate over games and do comparisons like this. MP is one of my favorite games so I was stoked when I saw you covered it. Thank you!

One of my favourite games of all time. No one does it like Remedy!

Just finished 1 and 2 on pc last week perfect timing

Still played so many times, yet enjoyable

awesome video, I love these pc time capsule vs ps2 and would love to see max payne 2

This game has such a massive amount of style and charm. I doubt the remake will be able to reproduce that.

I LOVE Max Payne I CAN'T WAIT FOR Max Payne 1 AND 2 REMAKE

I still have the mouse pad that came in the box for PC. It has the appeal of old nostalgic running shoes.

Just want to dispel any notion here: REMEDY made the first two Max Payne games. Not Rockstar; they merely assisted with console ports (and published MP2). Yet, bc Rockstar fully took over for Max Payne 3, eleven years ago (thereabouts), there persists some notion on "Twitter" that Rockstar developed MP1.

I played that game on an Athlon 600 with an Nvidia TNT card and it seemed to run just fine. Maybe because back then I considered everything above 20 fps to be playable. And I probably played it at 640x480.

my PC for old games now is a Athlon 64 X2 4600+ with a Geforce 250GTS. I actually played both MP1 and 2 a few days ago. MP2 on max settings still looks great.

It was kind of mind blowing playing Max Payne years later on PC and noticing all the stuff I missed on PS2. Still had a lot of fun playing for the first time on console. I really wish they would update the game on steam so you could properly play it without mods.

I love your time capsule videos !

I'd love to see you do this with Shadow Man on Dreamcast Vs a period accurate PC, would be super interesting to compare.

The only version I played of Max Payne was the GBA, and I'm impressed watching this at how faithful that version was. I had no idea how well they nailed it on that little handheld.

Had been hoping for this for a long time! Thanks for bringing back fond memories

The red loading screen is so iconic. Loaded so slow on the pc when I was a kid

If you're a fan of The Matrix at that time, you'll absolutely love this game.

It’s a trip hearing about running the game on that sort of hardware because I was running the demo at the time on a lowly AMD K6-3 450 MHz, alongside another app to playback WAV files of tracker music I’d composed to see how it went with the action (I can even remember my favorite one) and I was still happy with the framerate at the time. It’s a trip now to think of people on much more powerful systems having a frustrating time. :)

I was 17 when I played this on PC back in the day. At the time, from a gameplay perspective, of course the "bullet time" stuff was awesomely cool! But as I was playing I found myself increasingly more and more engaged with the story and just the visual presentation of all of it. Then I recognized the writing and voice acting work, also the soundtrack. This is probably the first videogame I kept on my mind ever since I played it, I'm 39 now, even without me thinking about it. I cannot forget the Frankie the Bat Niagara moments like: Max Payne - "Niagara, as in you cry a lot?" [Payne as narrator] - I was tied to a chair and he had a baseball bat. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do. (Frank proceeds to smack Payne with the bat repeatedly) Years later Remedy keeps on in my mind, they have such unique and good taste in their work. Control was absolutely exquisite. It's good to revisit the original Max Payne and have Alan Wake 2 pretty close. Thanks DF for all your work and this revisit in particular.

One of my favourite games! Thank you!

One of the greatest written games every. So captivating and dark and moody. Film noire translated to video game form perfectly 👾

Both this and the second one are amazing games

Always enjoy these, nice relaxing gameplay with DF "ramblings" 👍

I hope these videos perform well. I can lay back and watch these Alex and John Time Capsule videos all day long.

You guys mentioned Max Payne was demanding but I can recall running it, quite comfortably, with a TNT 2 Ultra 32MB. It did scale quite well for period appropriate hardware, all things considered.

The Max Payne trilogy plays wonderfully on Steam Deck. 🙂

Hardware that's period appropriate? Sure, if you were rich during those times. Very few people had Pentium 4's in 2000. I played Max Payne in 2001 on a Pentium IIi 500mhz, 128 mb of ram, 4mb integrated graphics card, and a 10gb hard disk.

Loved this video. Please do make another one for Max Payne 2. Wasn't bored for a single second throughout the 1 hour length

Love these comparisons! Alex and John are great combo. Classic game!

I played Max Payne on an AMD Duron 800Mhz (single core CPU) with 128mb ram and 128mb ATI 9800 Pro - it ran flawlessly at 1024x768.

If you play the PS2 version on a PS4 (PS2 Classics Edition) the emulator upscales the entire game's resolution, textures, effects, frame rate and makes a huge difference.

the first max payne will always hold a special place in my heart. there were a lot of nay-sayers back then, "full price for just 8h of game? no!"; well i loved it! especially the graphic novel pages to tell the story, "is this the payne residence? - yes, someone broke into my house, please call 911!" - good, i'm afraid i cannot help you.."

This is the best video you guys have ever done in the 10+ years I have been watching. I really like watching and listening to raw uncut footage while you guys play this game. I was just as lost where to go and am amazed how fast you figured it out. Im shocked by the changes made to the levels. I like watching Alex die all the time. That would be me. Im not even bad at video games. It happenes and it's all good because it showes the struggle with the pc. This is really good content. I would like to see you guys play the whole game. Even if you used cheat codes to do it and did it in defferent parts. Even if you dont do it now I think later you guys should for the fun of it. I would like to see Max Payne 2 on xbox, ps2, and pc at the same time. I played it on Xbox and it handled pretty good in the day. I really want them to remix Max Payne with RTX. It would be a great game to remix. I just had so much fun watching you guys play this game and I hope to see other games like this where you play together with raw uncut footage. I will try and look up some games you have not done yet and see if they would be good to play. This was cool.

I played through this and MP2 recently on the Series X and it was a pretty smooth experience. It looks a lot more like the pc version. Back in the day I originally played it on an AMD Athlon and Geforce 4 ti 4200. I don't remember performance issues but I might not have noticed if it ran at 40 FPS, whereas I would if anything didn't run at 60 these days

I loved this game, and the second one. I ran it on the GeForce 3 ti200, that was a great card!

The 480p mode on GSM might have crashed because of FMVs if there were any during startup. There should be an included hack to disable FMVs made specifically to circumvent this issue.

I am curious to see how the PS2 version performs in later stages, such as the Aesir HQ with lots of enemies on screen and a big lobby (like Matrix, if my memory serves correctly). I remember playing MP for the first time on a Celeron 900mhz and integrated graphic card with only 8mb vram, had those later stages made my old PC chugged so hard. Thanks for doing the episode, I really enjoy it! MP2 comparison for the next episode?

This is my favorite game from trilogy and i think gameplay aged well its still fun to play, story and atmosphere is great and community is doing everything to keep this game alife with all fixes they made already to play this game fine on modern hardware.

Played this on a Pentium II 400 Mhz with a Riva TNT 16 MB, back in the day. While the early game was ok, later on it struggled. I remember going up the staircase in the end building, and the framerate tanking as soon as the view was towards the outside.

That restaurant fire level on the PS2 was brutal back in the day when you were just figuring out what to do.

I have been playing through that game for over 20 years for at least once a year, almost always during the Christmas season. I know every inch of every texture by now. And then it was a rhetorical question.

Love the two first Max Paynes games.Played them on my og xbox at the time and the ports were a lot better on it,not as good as pc versions better than ps2 versions.Also had quick saves during gameplay.Hope the remakes are done well.

Can't wait for the remakes!

I would rather see a straight comparison with no upscaling etc on the console side. The fun part of these videos are the way this stuff actually differed at the time especially with the different hardware quirks from one console to the next. That said still enjoyed the video and appreciate you guys taking the time.

what a timing. i've just replayed Max Payne 1 and 2 since I've never played it at 1080p highest settings and skipped most graphic novels and cut scenes as a young teen. what a wonderful experience, still one of my favorite games after all this time. during the time i didnt have a PC, i tried the PS2 version on PS4 and it was locked to 30 FPS and even dipped below many times, it ruined my nostalgic memories. i first played it on the original xbox and i dont remember it running so sluggish. PC version is the best version to play it BY FAR even though both 1 and 2 used to just run on Windows XP, i had to look for some mods for MP1 because the sound was messed up and it wouldnt run at 1080p, MP2 was a little bit easier to get running properly but it was stressing my GPU out because it would run at unlimited FPS no matter how i tried to restrict it until i installed the widescreen patch.

i used to run this game on a Celeron 500MHz, with 96mb coupled with a Geforce 2 MX400 on a PCI slot. Probably on 640x480 but the settings weren't too low, it still looked great and much better than this PS2 version.

Payne to the max.... settings!

Loved the advertising you did for the gamer cube at the o2 arena, I'll be giving that 100 inch oled a try here at some point Tom lol.

Pretty rough in places, but still mostly fairly close. Can't wait to see MP2 comparison! That game holds up really well on PC, when playing in modern rez.

Thanks for another fun chaotic blind dual playthrough look of an absolute classic, loved MP1&2 growing up (do max payne 2 yes)

Still the first game I install when I build a new PC.

I remember seeing trailers of this, reading articles in magazines, saving up all summer to buy it on cd. I was blown away with the gfx, i remember being facinated by the characters having individual fingers instead of one block being the hand. That was state of the art. Think i was 15, now im 37. Time goes by fast. And oh! The main theme "poets of the fall - late goodbye". Ah the memories!

Oh man, I loved this game so much... Played it on a laptop with a 2.4 GHz P4 desktop CPU and a Radeon 9000 mobility... Ran really well as far as I remember. Worked a Helpdesk job at the time with lots of weekend and evening shifts where we'd just be sitting around in case someone called, me playing Max Payne on that laptop and a colleague watching over my shoulder... Good times :)

Ahhhh, good old Max! I 'member being blown away by the demo on my PC!!!

I'm pretty sure I played this game on a Celeron 433mhz with a voodoo 3 back in the day, and I remember it playing perfectly. I'm very surprised to hear you say that it struggles on a p4. Maybe it has something to do with the OS? I was using Windows 98 at the time

I remember playing this game on my overclocked p3 866@975 with a voodoo 5 5500…

DF retro videos rule. Keep ‘em coming guys!

I would love to watch a video about Max Payne 2 on PS2.

Nice comparison! You should have included the Xbox too 😮‍💨

That optional area with long hallway isn't available in Xbox version either. Xbox version doesn't have manual saves but it does have quick saves.

This video couldn't be more perfect for timing. I played Max Payne 2 at least 10 times and played through 3 a couple of times, but I never stuck it out to finish the original. I've been kicking back on a couch and playing it through pcsx2 :)