Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (Max Payne (PC))

Member Name: Peter_P

Product:	Max Payne (PC)
Date:	20/01/04 (58 review reads)
Rating:

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Max Payne is one unlucky guy. This sequel picks up after the events of the first game, which saw Max's life ripped apart with the murder of his wife and child by drug-crazed lowlifes. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was then framed for the murder of his boss and ended up sandwiched between bloodthirsty drug lords and the entire New York Police Department. He may have survived that ordeal - but his life isn't about to get any simpler. Far from it.

You step into Max's leather brogues as he attends a simple murder investigation. Nothing too unusual - until a blast from the past, the sassy and rather sexy criminal Mona Sax, crosses your path. From then on, the line between the law and the unlawful begins to blur.

In a welcome departure from the usual shoot-'em-up, Max Payne 2 combines storytelling and action in equal measure. The plotline is revealed on screen in the still frames of a beautifully illustrated graphic novel, and the game evokes a gritty, tense atmosphere. Your attention is seized ferociously by one plot twist after another. One masterstroke allows you to slip back in time to replay events from Mona Sax's perspective.

With a story this satisfying, you'd expect the action to be the fly in the ointment. You'd be dead wrong. The first activation of 'Bullet Time' is a moment no gamer will ever forget. With a click of the right mouse-button, the action bleeds into a sepia daze and bullets and bodies slide gracefully through the air allowing you to dispatch several enemies in one Matrix-esque flourish. Indeed, Max Payne's meaty selection of weapons makes the frequent gunfights a cinematic spectacle to shame the likes of underachieving game Enter the Matrix.

Beneath its finely polished surface, Max Payne 2 may be a fairly standard shoot-'em-up, but it fulfils its role with such style and effortless aplomb that you can't help but love every moment you spend with it. Bullet
Time inspires and excites just as much as it did in the first Max Payne game, and the storyline is gripping from beginning to end. It might be a little on the short side, but when it's this sweet, who cares?

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