Max Payne

"Rockstar Canada, what the hell have you done to Remedy's Max Payne?"

After a while of being PC exclusive, Max Payne makes his jump over to the PlayStation2. How did it turn out? Read below...

Storyline:

Max Payne's story begins with him coming home to find his wife and baby daughter brutally murdered by a group of Valkyr addicts. Three years later, he finally gets a break in the case. Now he's out for revenge. So begins ''Max Payne''. The cliched story still manages to be pretty good. There are many plot twists to keep you guessing throughout. I do, however, have one gripe. As I stated, the story itself is pretty good, but you tend to really not notice the 'goodness' of the story due to it's horrible dialog. It's so bad that you'll find it laugh-out-loud funny. From the countless analogies and metaphors that Max uses throughout the game, to the questionable voice acting, it's all pretty badly done. A good story, marred by horrible writing. A total shame.

Gameplay:

The gameplay of Max Payne is brilliant. It's done in the 3rd person, but it never gives you the feeling of playing another MDK or Tomb Raider clone like most 3rd person perspective games give you. You basically run through the game shooting thugs, collecting their ammo, and moving on. That's pretty much it. Although it sounds like it may get repetitive and boring quickly, it doesn't. The game always has a fresh feel to it no matter how many times you've run through the same level. The way that Max Payne achieves this is by it's much talked about feature: Bullet-Time. Just like in all the great John Woo films and ''The Matrix'', Max can slowdown time while keeping his aim in real-time. There really two types of Bullet-Time, ''Full'' Bullet-Time and a ''Shoot-Dodge''. The Shoot-Dodge is all you're really going to use throughout most of the game. During a Shoot-Dodge, Max lunges in any direction while slowing down time and dodging. This the form of Bullet-Time that you will be using most of the time.

In other aspects of gameplay, Max Payne is done very badly. The 'save-anywhere' feature from the PC version is now gone. So if you die, you're going to have to do the entire level over again. This gets really annoying when you get through a REALLY tough part unscathed and mess up later in the level, losing your great performance. This issue isn't helped much by Max Payne's 'payneful' load times. If you die, you have to start the whole level again, that's bad enough, but you also have to sit through a 20-30 second load time, too. The PC version loads your last save in a fraction of a second...literally. The last gripe I have with the gameplay is the lack of mouse/keyboard support. With a mouse for aiming you can be extremely precise while doing a shoot-dodge, trying for the coveted head-shot. With the PS2 version, you're just aiming the analog stick in the vicinity of your enemy hoping that the (invisible) bullets will hit him. If Half-Life for PS2 was able to include USB mouse/keyboard support then there is absolutely no excuse for Max Payne to not have it.

Graphics:

Oh boy, where do I begin? Max Payne for the PlayStation2 has been ripped apart when it comes to graphics. The textures are very blurred compared to the PC version. The framerate also took a major hit on it's way from the PC. The PC version runs at a constant 50-60 frames per second, (FPS) while the PS2 rev walks at 30-35 FPS. During heavy combat, which this game has a lot of, the framerate sometimes drops as low as 15-20 FPS. These framerate drops can seriously hurt your aiming, as the game gets choppier and choppier. Basically, everything that has to do with visuals in Max Payne has taken a serious hit from the PC version. While the flawed, washed out textures, choppy animation, and question framerate drops are bad enough, the game's worst graphical loss is it's lack of bullet-time detail. What I mean by ''bullet-time detail'', is the ability to see every bullet that flies by you when you're in bullet-time. The PS2 version is almost ripped apart by this, you hardly EVER get a glimpse at a bullet during bullet-time. If Rockstar Canada was going to butcher the game this bad then they might as well have changed the name of ''Bullet-Time'' to just ''Time''. ...After all, you rarely see any bullets, anyway. Definitely the biggest disappointment.

Music and Sound Effects:

The guns and explosions sound great. The voices of the thugs are usually pretty entertaining, too. There is one little annoyance I have with it, however. The thugs are all divided into about 5-6 voice actors, and they do nothing to change their voice for each character. So basically, you'll hear a conversion, kill everyone afterwards, and later you'll hear the same voices of people you wasted 2 hours ago. Just a minor gripe, but it's very noticeable. The voice acting for Max and other major characters is rather crappy. It's not really the voice acting that kills it, it's the aforementioned bad writing. Max will just start talking throughout the game will his cheesy analogies to the point where you'll start saying ''Shut up, Max.'' every time he opens his mouth. Bad dialog writing creates bad voice overs, it just does.

Replay Value:

The replay value of Max Payne is pretty decent. The game is just really fun to play. Doing the same levels over and over never really gets old thanks to Bullet-Time and the things you can do while using it. There a few extra difficulty levels that you can try if you want an extra challenge, too. Yet again, it pales in comparison to the PC version, though. The PC version has level editors and mods, the PS2 version has nothing of that sort.

Overall:

Max Payne is such a great game, it's really a tragedy that PS2 got such a third rate version. Literally everything is better on the PC. If you have a decent PC or an XBOX, then please, pick it up for one of those. If you have neither, then the PS2 version is the last resort. Rockstar Canada, what the hell have you done to Remedy's Max Payne?

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/02, Updated 03/24/03