When Max met the Enemys!! (Max Payne (PS2))

Member Name: trussellp

Product:	Max Payne (PS2)
Date:	02/03/02 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: bullet-time, graphics

Disadvantages: phony story line...joking

There’s a famous scene in When Harry Met Sally that goes something a bit like this: “Yes, yes, yes, yes, oh God, yes, yes, YES!”
And that was exactly how I felt just a few short minutes into Max Payne on the PC. Only I wasn’t faking it. You see, though I’ve raved about such titles as Black & White and Severance: Blade of Darkness in the past, nothing I’ve played to date could possibly prepare me for the greatness that is Max Payne.
Undoubtedly destined to change the face of computer gaming, the jaw-dropping Max Payne sees you thrust into a film noir-style action storyline, with seedy hotels, drug-addict prostitutes, and your own murdered family filling out the gritty plot.

"There’s few times in your life you’ll feel as cool as you do the first time you come diving sideways through a doorway, two Berettas in your hands, bullets rippling by you in slo-mo..."

You are Max Payne, a cop undercover in the Mafia who has been framed for the murder of the head of the DEA. What’s worse, the Mafia now know you’re a cop, too, so you’ve got both the cops and the robbers after your gravely-voiced, leather-jacket wearing, gun-toting, sorry ass.
As Max himself explains in one of his brilliantly written narrative monologues, “It’d be stupid not to leave town and not look back.” A mafia hotel explodes in a fireball behind him, before the unflinching cop adds: “I guess you can call me stupid.” It’s brilliantly cinematic scenes such as this one – told through a combination of animated cut scene and hand-painted graphic novel-style comic strips – which make Max Payne one of the best presented games ever.
Presentation’s all very well, of course, but pointless if the game itself stinks of poo. Fortunately, Max Payne is spring fresh and fragrant.

In order for you to get to grips with the control system, youR
17;re given the option of playing a training level, which sees you running, Dirty Harry-style, from phone box to phone box, with each ringing telephone giving you a handy gameplay hint when you pick it up. Sometimes the hints are of the “press Return to use an item” variety, while other times they’re more up the “look out, you’re about to have company” street, dished out shortly before a gang of machine-gun toting maniacs charge round the corner.
And it’s in just such a firefight that Max Payne excels. The first game ever to use “bullet time”, Max Payne, with just a simple click of the right mouse button, allows you to slow the action right down, Matrix-style, in order to give you a fighting chance in a room full of enemies. There’s few times in your life you’ll feel as cool as you do the first time you come diving sideways through a doorway, two Berettas in your hands, bullets rippling by you in slo-mo as you pick off villains left right and centre, dropping half a dozen of them before you hit the floor. It’s an absolutely fantastic idea, and works better than I’m sure developers Remedy even dared hope.
While major gameplay devices such as this are what make the game good, it’s the fine details that make it great. You can hide from the enemies and listen as they have full conversations about anything under the sun, you can turn TVs on and off and catch snippets of programmes (about three levels into the game you have a full guns blazing shoot-out as a tremendously funny spoof period drama plays on the TV in the background), and you can even buy drinks from the vending machines. What’s more, baddies’ mobile phones play an assortment of tunes, such as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and in one great comic touch, you come across a dead body, a stake wedged in his back, and the not quite finished killer’s name, “Buff” scrawled in blood on the flo
or.
Visually superior to anything ever seen on any format, and with a distinct noir style all of its own, Max Payne feels less like a game as it does a monumental gaming event. I promise you, you’ll never be able to look at another title without comparing it to this one.
Recommended, then?
Yes, yes, yes, oh God, yes!

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