Max Payne

"Bogard references in a game? Fine as long as you don't overuse them."

Decent ordinary action game raised to the skies because of an involving story and told in a cool way. It feels more attractive as a hard-boiled movie than a game. Over hyped? Yes.
But the story is actually good enough to make this game interesting to the very last part, and with the Hong Kong and the Matrix inspired gunfights you will have a hard time to find this game boring.

A man with nothing to lose decides to take up a fight against every gangster that comes in his way upon his search for revenge, revenge for his murdered wife and daughter. It’s damn cliché but also damn good.
You will do a lot of shooting in this game, don’t even consider using stealth, it’s not an option. Endless amounts of trench coats comes running at you and the question is not whether you will pull the trigger or not, it’s whether you’re fast enough.

Story 9/10: A lot of effort has been put into the story telling which is so close to being flawless, filled with cool movie references. However, these references are 98% of the time real cool and used in a good way, but there were points when I felt that I had enough of them. We get every “mission” presented to us by Max in his cynical monologues in terrific cut scenes with a strange comic look. Max acts a lot like Bogart, like he wanted to be Bogart, which isn’t surprising in a film noir setting as this, but as he mentions Humphrey from time to time the whole Bogart idea starts to feel not just a little overused. It’s no big deal though, it all could have been so much worse.
Story wise we get to follow Max on his search after the people responsible for the killing of his family, a search that takes him through different locations in New York that all feels just right. It’s all about gun fighting, what needs to be told in the story is handled in the cut scenes.
On his journey he run across various of interesting characters including the same old guys; the small time crime boss, the crooked cop, the big business people and of course the femme fatale.

Graphics 9/10: Not really anything to complain on here, by the time this game was released it was top notch. The explosions look good and as you’ll see lots of them that’s real important. Can’t think of anything to complain on here really, all I can say is that in overall on should definitely never have a problem with the looks of Max Payne (the game that is).

Sound 9/10: I had some problem with the in game voices in this game, but that’s probably because of my speaker settings. All the sound effects are here, lot’s of loud explosions and the voice actors are all perfect.

Gameplay 8/10: Max Payne offers us awesome gunfights with the “Matrix slow-motion mode” which works surprisingly good but that’s really all there is. You get a fairly large selection of guns, and you takes Max to battle his foes on lots of different locations, regardless there’s no denying in that this feels a little repetitive after a while. The different areas basically make the same battlegrounds and the enemies rush at you in groups only whether they have uzis or shotguns. It’s cool, but except for the gunfights this game has nothing else to offer, if you’re looking for a clever adventure game you missed it by miles. I can’t remember for sure but I don’t think you ever pick up any keys or stuff like that, the only way to open a locked door is with your shotgun. I like that.
You run you fight and you continue your running. It’s completely linear, but this game never tries to be anything else so in terms of gameplay there is nothing to complain about if you like a good third person shooter.
The controls aren’t very hard to get into and after that you’ll probably love them just as I do.

Replay Value 7/10: There are different opinions on this. I’ll start explaining the replay value of the game itself. When you complete the game a new difficulty will be allowed, in all there are three different difficulties and the harder difficulty you play on, the more will you get in the ending. Easy as that. This game lasts for a while and you probably just want to replay it a couple of times just for the story.
Now there’s also the mods. The mods of Max Payne seem sometimes to have a world of their own, above the rest I’ve noticed two of them being the most popular ones, these are; Matrixed Reality and the Kung Fu mods. The kung fu mod seem to be more of a game based on the Max Payne game rather than a simple modification. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to test them myself yet but judging by what I’ve heard they seem to be pretty damn good. And if you’re interested, these mods are sure to raise the replay value of the game you love a lot.

Overall 8/10: It’s rather short and not very alternately but it’s also something that I’ve never seen before in terms of storytelling in a computer game. You who like the game don’t have to worry about what to do with your time anymore, the large amount of good mods will be sure to entertain you at least until the release of Max Payne 2.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/17/03, Updated 03/17/03