Max Payne

"A fugitive undercover cop with nothing to lose"

Max Payne is a 3rd person shooter developed by Remedy Entertainment and produced by 3D Realms and Gathering Of Developers. It was released on PC in July, 2001. The game stars, as you may have guess, Max Payne. Besides the awesome graphic novel like cutscenes, it also has Bullet Time.

Graphics - 4/10
The graphics are pretty bad, even for the time. The faces are just pasted on from real people, which looks decent at far range, but up close you can see where it was pasted. Honestly it looks pretty bad. Character models are plain and boxy but have enough detail so that your eyes wont flat out bleed. The levels look pretty good and you can tell they spent way more time on them then the people.

The graphic novel cutscenes are easily the best looking thing in the game. Although Max Payne looks totally out of place, everyone else looks like what you would have imagined due to their voices.

Sound - 8/10
The sound quality is great, especially in the graphic novel parts. Its a bit less in the actually gameplay but not so much that you have to shut the voice volume down. There isn't much music, only during critical parts. In a way this is a good thing because you'll need to hear whats going on around you. When the music does play, though, is fits the mood quite nicely.

Gameplay - 8/10
Obviously the main reason you're reading this review. The gameplay is pretty solid. Since this is a 3rd person shooter, the camera is above you and a bit behind. It works well except when you're backed against a wall crouching...because then its near impossible to see the incredibly small crosshair due to Max's huge head.

Basically you run around, shooting anything that moves while trying to get from point A to B. After you kill someone you can take his or her gun for ammo, which usually isn't that much but due to the overwhelming amount of baddies, you'll never find yourself gunless. As you beat levels you'll find extra guns, each with their own strength and weaknesses.

Now for the Bullet Time. By killing people, your BT meter slowly fills up. Once you have enough energy you can enter Bullet Time mode. During this time time is slowed down tremendously, giving you a incredible advantage against the hordes of enemies you're going to run in to. In this game Bullet Time has 2 modes, the free movement mode and the jumping mode. By pressing the Bullet Time key while standing still, time slows and unlike the jumping mode, you have full control over yourself. You can run up close and personal...or take cover like a wiener. This mode drains your energy pretty fast so use it with caution. If you yourself are fast enough, you can literally dodge incoming bullets, but don't get mad if you can't do it because its damn near impossible. Now, if you're pressing down, left or right while you enter Bullet Time you will jump in that direction. While this jumping bullet time doesn't last very long, it costs less energy and you can change the direction Max faces, allowing you to shoot people behind or on the sides of you.

Unfortunately the game allows you to save and load whenever you wish. Depending on the person, you can totally abuse this. Save after every kill, load if you think you could do better. I wish it saved at the beginning of the level and somewhere in the middle, but again, it depends on the person if they want to abuse it.

Story - 9/10
The story is very gripping, pure and simple. The game starts at the end of the game, literally. Max recalls how he get where he is today...starting at square one, his house 3 years ago. As Max walks in the door you notice something is terribly wrong. While exploring his house he hear gunshots and a baby's cry suddenly stops. As Max moves on you hear more shots...your wife is now dead. Then some junkies, high on Valkyr, attack Max but he kills them with his lighting fast reflexes.

Sometime after this Max joins the DEA as an undercover agent to try and figure out why his family was murdered. One day Max's friend and agent, B.B., calls Max and tells him Alex, another friend, wants to meet him at the Roscoe Street Station. After walking around Max finds a dead body. As he investigates he learns that some Mafia thugs are attempting a bank robbery under orders from Jack Lupino. As Max makes his way out of the old subway he finds Alex. After a short chat Alex is killed by an unknown shooter, leaving Max the prime suspect.

As you play the game, you'll often hear the radio or a T.V. somewhere in the vicinity. If you choose to find it, it'll usually bring up more graphic novel goodness. Its usually a News reporter giving the people updates on Max's fury. Pretty nice little extras they threw in there. Also, you'll eventually meet Mona Sax, a seductive lady that plays a major role in the second game so remember her if you plan on playing the second game.

Replay Value - 3/10
There really isn't a big reason to replay this game other then looking for Easter eggs you probably missed in your first play through. Beating the game on Fugitive will unlock a harder difficulty. This sorta bugs me, I think we should be able to pick any difficulty we want without having to replay the game...whatever. Again, the replay value isn't that great unless you love the gameplay, and if thats the case then I suggest playing Max Payne 2.

Final Thought - 7/10
Max Payne is an awesome game. It has a great story and the gameplay is incredibly fun and addictive. Since this is a computer game I doubt you'll be able to find it at your local Blockbuster or whatever, but you can still download the demo at a number of different places. Regardless though, the game nowadays is only 20 bucks so if you love 3rd person shooters and bullet time, I suggest buying this game as soon as possible. If you have any doubts, then downloading the demo isn't more then a few clicks away.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/04/07