Max Payne

"Good, but with some serious drawbacks"

Some critics say that the best movies should be able to be described in one sentence. Max Payne is a game that can easily be described in a very short sentence ''Cop out for revenge.'' However, in this case, just because the plot is easy to explain does not make this a good game. While Max Payne can be fun at times, this fun is often mitigated by some serious drawbacks.

The Good
Max Payne can be a great deal of fun. The first thing that struck me was that the voice acting in this game is top-notch. I'm not sure if the same voices were used on the PC version, but the voice acting helps draw you into the story and is obviously done by professional actors. This was a pleasant surprise for this type of game. The weapons that are available to you throughout the game are also diverse and fun to you. They range from a lead pipe and baseball bat to duel beretta's, shotguns, submachine guns, automatic shotguns, grenades and molatov cocktail. The guns and spent shell casings are all well modeled and look good. This leads to perhaps the coolest and most innovative feature of Max Payne: bullet time. Anyone who has seen the Matrix will have a good idea of what this is. You have the ability to jump into bullet time, where you, the bad guys, and all the enemy bullets move in slow motion. The cool thing is, you can still aim and fire at regular speed. This is extremely useful when you walk into a room with many enemies; you can jump into bullet time and effectively kill everyone in the room before their bullets come near you. Not only is this a useful ability, but it looks really cool. If you have ever imagined yourself in a John Woo movie, or the Matrix, this is a great game to act those fantasies out in. The dual shock controller works surprising well in this type of 3rd person shooter. The controls feel very intuitive, and the button layout allows you to make maximum use of both bullet time and your weapons. Graphically, Max Payne is neither good nor bad. Many of the character models look similar to GTA3, and most of the textures in the game are fairly bland. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, this is a game of dark browns and various shades of gray.

The Bad
Like most shooters, Max Payne tends to get real repetitive, real fast. While the enemies use different weapons, I still felt like I was killing the same guys over and over and over again. With no multiplayer mode, Max Payne does not have much to keep you playing once you have finished the game. I found the level design to be fairly uninspired, and at times, downright frustrating. There are two types of levels: levels that give you one path to follow and levels that give you absolutely no clue where to go and must be completed by trial and error. This makes for a frustrating experience at times. I am not against games that require exploration as long as there are some logical clues to follow. In Max Payne, the only way to complete certain levels is by sheer trial and error. These levels significantly disrupt the game flow of teh high energy levels where there are numerous bad guys coming at you from all sides. Which brings me to:

The Ugly (we're talking really ugly here
In one word: load times. I don't know what the developers were thinking when they made this game, but there is a major problem with loading times. For example - on the first level, after the game loads, the game starts off with a long cinematic. Now, in this game there are certain cutscenes that you can cut short by hitting a button, but there are other cinematic scenes that you cannot cut short and that must be watched in their entirety. After you die, you restart at the last save point (more on that later). The whole level re-loads, and if the level starts off with a cinematic, you are forced to watch the cinematic AGAIN! There were times I was ready to break my TV when I had almost completed a long level and died right at the end, only to have to wait almost 60 seconds to start again at the start of the level. Another ugly aspect of Max Payne is that it tries to be a platformer at some points, forcing you to make precision jumps or risk falling to your death. There is one particular point where you have to jump onto a moving train. I found this to just be frustrating because if you miss, it's back to the start of the level and a long cinematic. There are also certain points where you have to walk on very thin ledges and you are never really sure how close to the edge you can get before falling off. In most games, before making risky moves like that, you would save the gave...but not so in Max Payne. You have no control over when you can save - the game saves automatically at the start of each level. If you die, that is the point you are taken back to. This is just plain poor design and makes the game needlessly frustrating, especially when you reach the end of a long level, only to die and have to restart from the beginning. Not a very wise choice in my opinion.

Rent or Buy
In my opinion, Max Payne is a game that you will definitely want to rent before you shell out $50. With no multiplayer options and very little reply value, this is a title that you will find yourself enjoying for a short period of time. For me, a good game is one that I want to buy after renting it and playing it for 5 days. Although I had some fun with the game, I was thankful that I had rented it from the local Blockbuster before rather than buying it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/02, Updated 01/06/02