I really don't know how they're rendering the game. Obviously, the cutscenes are used for loading, and while most of these cutscenes are rendered real-time, some are definitely pre-rendered (they just didn't make them look too different than the game). I guess you can't really skip those...

Maybe they want you to view certain parts of the movies because they think it is 'neccecairy for the story telling'? From 'engine' perspective you dont have to wait for cutscenes to complete if you design it that way... so i think it is on purpose.

Also it feels to me that when you replay the game more parts are 'skip-able'.

In max payne 2 when you completed the game on the hardest difficulty the final cutscene differs and the game has a differrent outcome.
I did not see such a think in MP3, but i didnt complete the game on hardest yet.

The transition between FMV and rendered cutscene is pretty seemless on consoles (probably due to the cutscenes being rendered to the standard that the console's hardware can render) but if you play on a slow or fast PC then the change is noticable. You'll see textures and frame rate changes. Have a look at on the final chapter at the start when Max runs on the luggage belt into the back room. The change is as he is about to go through the flaps and is taking his suit jacket off.

There's plenty of cutscenes that do skip. Really long ones too. It's not a myth. There's just a bunch of rabid gamers that haven't tasted blood for a long, long time.

An ssd can load up the section after the cutscene almost instantly. They just want you to watch the cutscenes thats why it is the same for everyone, no matter how fast or how ♥♥♥♥♥♥ your HD is.

Originally posted by Sid:

There's plenty of cutscenes that do skip. Really long ones too. It's not a myth. There's just a bunch of rabid gamers that haven't tasted blood for a long, long time.

You can't skip any of the FMV ones between chapters in the storyline, such as the 6 minute cutscene at the beginning of Chapter 4 or the interminable club scene in Chapter 2.
Then there's all the in-engine cutscenes in Chapter 3 that can't be skipped, or the one before the QTE in Chapter 9 that makes the level longer than it has to be in Arcade mode. There's plenty more too, like the plot twist ones in Chapter 12.

I'm sure with the in-engine ones they're afraid of letting you skip most of them because it may cause scripting problems, which is quite simply poor design. No idea about why they won't let you skip the FMV ones.
Is it that hard to make it so pressing a button immediately sends you to one of the loading screens that load the next part of the level in 3 seconds?


@OP: And yeah, I have the game for the 360 and PC and they both allow you to skip the cutscenes at the exact same moments. They aren't loading anything.

I did a test with Process Monitor and it didnt read anything from the disk (for minute and a half) during fmv other then the movie itself. I posted image on the forum ages ago, i cant find it. But yeah it definitely doesnt laod anything most of the time.

Originally posted by Xorgye:

Maybe they want you to view certain parts of the movies because they think it is 'neccecairy for the story telling'? From 'engine' perspective you dont have to wait for cutscenes to complete if you design it that way... so i think it is on purpose.

Also it feels to me that when you replay the game more parts are 'skip-able'.

In max payne 2 when you completed the game on the hardest difficulty the final cutscene differs and the game has a differrent outcome.
I did not see such a think in MP3, but i didnt complete the game on hardest yet.

Super annoying cutscenes when you play new york minute.

I reinstalled the game because I wanted to give it another try. On the first startup, you have to watch that whole intro of nothing but Max stumbling around his apartment, and it always says 'still loading', I alt-tabbed out of it and killed the game in the task manager, started the game again and went straight to the main menu. So yea, they want to force you to sit through cutscenes, the loading times are mostly fake.

If you could skip all the stupid cut scenes the story mode replay value would be off the charts!

I never understood. Tthey could've atleast built in an option so they are skipable when you played through one time. They even have a mode and an achievemnt for the new york minute mode. It's terrible with the forced cutscenes.

Considering that on the first time start there's a cutscene that you can't skip that only leads to the main menu (the cutscene takes nearly 5 minutes while subsequent launches take ~1 minute) I am sure they would do the same thing in other places (especially if your experience of identical loading times on vastly different machines is true)

I dont believe it either. I did however make mistake to install this on my old non ssd-drive (space issues on the others), which is servicable for a game this age.
Why I also dont believe is that the loading a lot of times just syncs perfecly with the lenght of the cutscene, shouldnt I sometime get issues where the loading is longer than the cutscene? Sometimes there is not alot of gameplay where the next cutscene takes place.

It's not loading. We all know it's not loading. Why the ♥♥♥♥ do you lie to me game

Yeah you're definitely right. It's not that the game is loading, it's that they force you to watch the cutscenes, at least to a certain point in each scene.

When you do a new game, it makes you watch the entire intro movie while it's "still loading" and continues to be "still loading" all the way to the end when the main menu pops up.

I get that they want people to watch the cutscenes, but I don't see why they don't even give you a choice. Even just having to fast forward through sections of the cutscenes (like conversation skipping in Fallout) would be nice.