Max Payne

"Jam packed with the frenetic 9-mm goodness of a John Woo flick"

Max Payne is definitely a gaming classic, fusing tongue-in-cheek film noir storytelling with action directly inspired by action classics such as A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled and The Matrix.

STORY:
You are former NYPD detective and DEA agent Max Payne, assigned to a crack a tough drug dealing case, and you have a dark past. Your wife and child were murdered in cold blood, and the fact that you survived torments you. Betrayed and framed for murder, the only thing you can trust now is the cold steel of the Beretta in your hand. Told through exquisite in-game cinematics and gritty graphic novel pages, the story is electrifying, interesting and unique. If you don't find it interesting you will at least enjoy it's dark tone of humour.

Score: 9/10

GRAPHICS:
Max Payne sports a lot of graphical muscle, with moderately detailed photorealistic textures and well designed environments that breathe life to the depths of New York City's underworld. Max and all of the other characters animate fluidly. There doesn't seem to be any ragdolls, but shotgun blasts do send enemies flying backwards in a satisfying fashion. Stand-out environments include a Mafia mansion, a Russian cargo ship and a towering New York skyscraper. The game has a very dark and gloomy palette, consisting mostly of shades of grey, and the run-down environments reflect the nature of Max's journey well.

Score: 8/10

SOUND:
Right off the bat, I'd like to say that Max Payne has an impressive amount of voice acting. Max says quite a lot, and so do the other characters and the thugs you'll be gunning down. All of the comic book sequences have voice acting, and Max's gruffy, sarcastic tone gives some personality to the character. There are no big name celebrities that lend their voices to the game. The music is pretty good; it certainly sets the mood of the game. The main theme is appropriately tragic and emotional. There are only a handful of tracks and they're used repeatedly, but they're of good quality so it's not as big of a deal as you would think. The sound effects are great. All of the weapons have a lot of audio punch and explosions are deafeningly loud.

Score: 9/10

GAMEPLAY:
The majority of the game consists of brutally difficult, flashy, John Woo inspired gunfights. Max is able to slow down time and shoot with his lightning reflexes. This ability is dubbed "Bullet-Time", and has been aped by just about every shooter since the release of this game. Bullet-Time comes in two varieties: plain old Bullet-Time and shoot-dodging Bullet-Time. Plain Bullet-Time just slows down time and allows you to take better shots, as your aiming ability is just as fast as it is in real-time. Shoot-dodging allows you to dive in any direction with guns blazing in slow motion. Bullet-Time is not just a gimmick; it's required to survive most of the game's firefights, especially later on when you'll be facing up against multiple heavily armed enemies.

Max Payne comes with a large arsenal of weapons, each with their own notable strengths and weaknesses. I myself prefer to use the akimbo Beretta pistols and the Colt Commando assault rifle; others may prefer to use the solely the sniper rifle or the shotgun. The explosive weapons, such as the fiery molotov cocktail, are the most fun to use. Weapons and ammo won't be in short supply, because enemies are always packing. Except for a few times in the game where you will be stripped of your weapons, you'll always be packing some heat.

The enemy AI is a decent; they'll seek you out and shoot you, doing a fair job of dodging your shots. They're much stronger than Max is, and they don't miss often. In the final stages of the game, enemies can take a dozen shots from the Colt Commando before dying. Upon your first play through, the enemies might seem a lot more intelligent than they actually are, thanks to the game's scripted sequences. A few times in the game they'll duck and roll or retreat and regroup before flanking you, but these sequences will always play out the same on the AI's end and they always occur at the same points in the game.

Unfortunately, there's not much more to the game aside gunfights. There are occasional item hunts, but they're not very difficult. Sometimes it won't be obvious where to proceed next, but in 90% of the cases the path to level completion is clear. A few levels are well done, including a level that has Max escaping from a burning building as it is collapsing from fire damage. There are also a few dream sequence levels that involve solving a few mazes. They're fairly creepy and give some insight into Max's psyche, but playing them is a pain. They're long, boring and take several tries to solve correctly.

Score: 8/10

OVERALL:
Pros:
+ Amazing story
+ Tongue-in-cheek humour
+ Good sound and graphics
+ Slow motion gunfights
Cons:
- ... But not much else
- Difficulty may turn off some

Max Payne is an action game, through and through, and is still an amazing one years after its initial release.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/21/07