Sit down!!!! A (small) screen shot from Duke Nukem Forever...

[EvilNed]

Max Payne was friggin' awesome. Superb graphics when it came out and a real story throughout, proper storytelling and drama and emotion. Max Payne 2 furthered both of these with jaw-dropping visuals and once again the maker's will have a milestone on their hands with Alan Wake. A milestone sticks out, it points to great achievement and a quality product - that's exactly what the Max Payne games are and what Alan Wake will be too. Max Payne 2 was a ****ing travesty. The first one was fun, but no more. It was fun entertainment that lasted about an hour. Definetly no milestone. It's barely remembered now. Half-Life is a milstone. Doom is a milestone. StarCraft is a milestone. In contrast: Serious Sam is not a milestone. Max Payne is not a milestone. WarCraft 3 is not a milestone. They're all great games. But it's about recognition more than anything.

[Neil]

Max Payne 2 was a ****ing travesty. The first one was fun, but no more. It was fun entertainment that lasted about an hour. Definetly no milestone. It's barely remembered now. Half-Life is a milstone. Doom is a milestone. StarCraft is a milestone. In contrast: Serious Sam is not a milestone. Max Payne is not a milestone. WarCraft 3 is not a milestone. They're all great games. But it's about recognition more than anything. I loved both the Max Payne games... One of the few games I played all the way through... Of course what they brought to the tables was exceptionally well done bullet time and very good character graphics...

[Tricky]

I loved both the Max Payne games... One of the few games I played all the way through... Of course what they brought to the tables was exceptionally well done bullet time and very good character graphics... Remember the creepy nightmare sequences?quite well done i thought! For me metal gear solid & final fantasy 7 stand out as milestone games,and the first resident evil.I remember playing metal gear & being amazed by the graphics while hiding at the first section of the game & just watching the enemy patrol in the snow,that game was the peak of the PS1!And final fantasy 7 was just beautiful,i normally wouldnt describe a game like that either.

[MinionZombie]

I think EvilNed is thinking more "land mark" rather than "mile stone" ... land mark games (like Half Life or Doom) are the major sights along the over-all "skimp over the issue" points of interest journey. The appreciation of detail and a much more rounded and closer inspection of the history of gaming comes with "mile stones" - and the Max Payne games most definately were mile stones. I couldn't believe the level of detail to the characters in Max Payne 2 when I first got it, the whole game looked beautiful - and it still does - now that's an achievement. AND the story present in both games made them really stand out (and they still stand out to this day for that very reason). They actually created a story people cared about and could get sucked into, they were like interactive movies - and like you said Neil, they nailed bullet-time (a damn sight better than those atrocious Matrix games).

[EvilNed]

No, I'm definetly thinking mile-stone. No game made such an impression on the FPS game as Half-Life did. Half-Life was, in simple terms, the FPS' industrys Die Hard. No longer do we play a buff soldier with a taste for war (like Arnold), we play a scientist who's thrown into a chain of events he can't help but has to make the best off. Unlike Duke he doesn't fight by choice. He fights cause he has too, but he's NOT a fighter. Like Die Hard. Doom was just a milestone for basicly being the first actual working 3D game. Wolfenstein was 3D, but it was more or less a demo of what you could do in a 3D engine. And, unlike Max Payne, they're remembered and played on a large scale even today. I guess that's what sets them apart. But maybe they're landmarks... Hmm. I don't know. But applying the term "mile stone" to Max Payne is definetly something I would not do. It was never that popular. Especially not the second game, which (as I've already said) I thought sucked.

[Neil]

Half-Life was, in simple terms, the FPS' industrys Die Hard. I like that analogy The bullet time in Max Payne 2 was fantastic! And although they've tried it recently in FEAR, they couldn't match it. The side games where you could try and survive an ever increasing amount of spawning enemies - the one in the office lobby especially - were great

[Danny]

i dunno ff7 was a big change but it wasnt exactly "beuatiful" it was all blocky and that, ff8 was more impressive i think, though ive been having a long revisit on the first 3 for the ps-one lately so thats a little biased. a couple id think are landmark?, half life, pikmin (no stubs or possesion without it), sonic adventure, and oblivion (just becuase the first time i saw it in action i was jumping and screaming almost as bad as that nintendo 64 kid....almsot )

[MinionZombie]

I still firmly maintain that Max Payne is a mile stone game. Land marks - like Doom and Half Life (which keep getting mentioned here) and the ever-so popular poster boys of the industry. A land mark game comes along, and then everyone tries to be the same. Doom came along - and so did a slew of look-alikes and notch stepper-uppers. Half Life came along and then a whole slew of FPS games that followed began focussing more on story, on getting a proper taste of the world in which you are playing ... and the obligatory "lets explore around and talk to people before we get on with the purpose of this game - blowing sh*t up". Mile stones are the in betweens, mile stones are the games that aren't necessarily the most popular or most photocopied (which is good essentially). These games stand out there and do something different while everybody else is copying a land mark game. This is the difference I'm talking about. How many people play a game doesn't dictate quality or importance, it just means a lot of people played it - and quite possibly got sucked into the hype. The sales figures of "Manhunt" sky rocketted after the fuss about it here in the UK, but it's a crap game. Halo got a shedload of followers ... but it's not that good an FPS when it stands up to it's brethren. Just had another thought - GTA - that's a "land mark" game, the immitations that followed have been just that, immitations. It's also a land mark game because of it's impact on popular culture.

[Tricky]

The first time i played GTA3 i was in awe at the world it put you in,i'd never played anything like it!the detail,size & things you could do were amazing!day turned to night,it rained,got foggy,the radio stations,newspapers blowing around the streets,brilliant!i remember playing it one time & just parking a car on the cliffs near that mafia mansion & watching the sun come up over the sea. Yes that was indeed a milestone!

[EvilNed]

GTA 3 was a landmark, yes. But Max Payne just had one gimmick, and that was the bullet time. It was extensively overused throughout the game (well... at least by me). The Film Noir story was a nice touch, tho. But there had been Film Noir games before. Blade Runner anyone? Doom and Half-Life were both landmarks and mile stones. They mean pretty much the same thing. I don't think Max Payne was neither, considering it's pretty much all but forgotten now. I'm not saying it wasn't a good game. It was! It was a fun game. But it didn't have any replay value and was very short. So it didn't last very long. Kinda like Fable when it came. If you disregard all the hype about Fable, it was a solid good and fun game. But now it's pretty much forgotten.

[Danny]

then theres world of warcraft, a landmark in digital crack

[EvilNed]

World of WarCraft was... Revolutionary. Well, not the game itself. There's nothing really new about it. But the following it has recieved is scary.

[Danny]

man i hear that.

[DVW5150]

There were points in HL2 where I just knew what to do , as in the airboat level where you have to put the clotheswasher and cinderblocks in the dumbwaiter to raise the ramp ... I still owe a balance for the motherboard repair on my Alienware , they installed more memory and newer version of windows xp home on its own drive ... Its an early '04 model so the motherboard was due to die . My point is , I am out of the gaming loop 'till I pay the repair bill . I Miss HL2 and Doom3 , Far Cry . I have been getting my fix w/ my slimline ps2 : Black ( beat it on all difficulty levels , love the m16a2 , 155 hours playing time, 46thousand kills , 23 thousand headshots blah blah ...) , Return to Castle Wolfenstien , GTA:San Andreas ( I really love that one , but after a while it just gets boring ), and Area 51 ... When I get a ps3 it will be sometime next year , if at all . I am getting an xbox360 on Captknuts recommendation , HL2 is supposed to be released on that . That ps3 'fall of man ' looks great though , from what i have seen on g4 ....I think HL2 will be remembered for a long time . Gordon is just a great character to be ...

[capncnut]

Black (beat it on all difficulty levels, love the m16a2, 155 hours playing time, 46thousand kills, 23 thousand headshots blah blah...)