Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Moby ID: 10708
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Two years have passed since Max Payne first embarked on his desperate quest for revenge. Returning to his former position as a detective in the New York City Police Department, Max is assigned to investigate a series of murders carried out by group of contract killers known as the Cleaners. Unexpectedly, Max encounters the enigmatic Mona Sax, whom he assumed dead. People from his past begin to return one by one, and Max gradually realizes that he did not know everything about the mysterious Circle and those who were involved in the murder of his family. Somebody out there is trying to kill Max, and he must find the answers before they succeed.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is a direct sequel to Max Payne. The game is very similar to its predecessor in gameplay concept and presentation, bringing back noir detective atmosphere, cinematic John Woo-style action, and cutscenes shaped like comic book panels.

The game is built on the same engine as the predecessor, with several additional special effects and enhancements, such as dynamic shadows and lighting, cubic mapped reflections, and high resolution textures. The Havok engine with ragdoll physics is used to enhance the interactivity with the game world: objects can be moved and destroyed, physically responding to the actions of the player character and opponents.

A new feature in the sequel is the possibility to use secondary weapons alongside regulars guns, namely melee strikes, grenades and Molotov cocktails. Certain characters will join Max and fight on his side from time to time. The player also controls Mona Sax during a few stages. The Bullet Time feature from the previous game has been upgraded to version 2.0, in which Max's speed in bullet time increases as he gets more kills consecutively.

During the first playthrough the game only offers one difficulty level. If the player struggles to succeed, the game will automatically lower the difficulty, reducing the effectiveness of enemy fire and increasing the amount of painkillers. Additional difficulty levels are unlocked when the player completes the game, as well as two new modes: New York Minute and Dead Man Walking. The first awards the player with a score for completing a level as quickly as possible, while the second has Max fighting endlessly respawning enemies.

Spellings

  • è‹±é›„æœŹè‰Č2ïŒšé©Źć…‹æ€é…æ©äč‹ç§‹ - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

324 People (272 developers, 52 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 59 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 262 ratings with 13 reviews)

Max Payne 2: Electric Boogaloo

The Good
Max Payne 2 the sequel to the critically acclaimed PC smash, is not only as fun as the original but in many ways exceeds it. That’s right it is better. I wanted to review this one for the PC, but there were too many reviews, so since I also played this version I decided to write it for this one.

Max Payne 2 introduces us to a wreak of a man. Max’s head is messed up and as you play the game you unravel the last few days of Max’s life and see his fall from grace and his fall for another woman. The story is still told using graphic novel style panels. Max can still slow time and still kick ass. The plot in this one is even darker than that of the original, and told almost backwards like film noir. Other than that I do not buy that ‘film noir love story crap’ how can it be film noir if it is not a film?

Anyhow Max Payne 2’s plot is just as good as the originals albeit darker, and told out of sequence. Many of the characters return many with bigger roles, as well as some new ones. Max is now a brooding drunk, you will find many of the characters have changed quite a bit none however as much as Payne.

The Graphics are simply amazing in this one. Max no longer looks constipated. The lighting effects are incredible even on lower end PC’s and of course on the Xbox, the PS2 version however does not fare well in this department, let’s face it the PS2 can’t run this game so why does it try?

The sound/ music is good. Loud and convincing gunshots, play it on 5.1 surround sound! The music is excellent particularly, “Late Goodbye” preformed by Poets of the Fall.

The gameplay is very similar to the original. With a very important change. Max can now shoot dodge without using up any of his bullet time meter. This move is essential to victory and very handing going around corners with foes on the other side. It is so useful in fact that you will find yourself relying on it more than the bullet time!

The Bad
The bad, Max Payne 2 can be finished in about 3 hours, it is very short even for an action game. When I rented the Xbox version I finished it before it was due back!

The Bottom Line
Overall this sequel does a rare thing it surpasses the original. And you can pick it up for 10 bucks if not less! Do not play the PS2 version it sucks, hell the PS2 could barely run the first one.

Xbox · by MasterMegid (723) · 2006

Some guys just shouldn't bother with the dames...

The Good
The original Max Payne was easily one of my favorite early Xbox titles. With a combination of film noir and graphic novel styles, it was easy to get sucked in, especially after you'd mastered the use of Bullet Time. Max Payne 2 easily surpassed it in almost all categories.

The first thing you'll notice is the change in the appearance of the characters. Models are more complex than in the previous game, especially in regards to the heads. Gone are the static photographic faces, which have been replaced with softer, more convincing textures, mapped to heads that feature mouths that move during speech. The effect was characters who felt more real, making it easier to become attached to the characters and story this time around. I’d originally been opposed to the aging up and conversion of Max into a stereotypical late-30s tragic badass in a trenchcoat, but it works well here and I actually prefer him to the younger Max. The entire world, even familiar places, feature better modeling, lighting, and textures as well. It's fitting that you'll revisit an area from the first game that's in the middle of renovation in the second. It may not be up to the PC version’s standards, but it’s still a beautiful game.

Bullet Time has also been changed up. As you take out enemies, your Bullet Time meter fills up. Once you’ve filled it up completely and keep pumping the baddies full of lead, the meter will begin to turn yellow. At this point, Max’s reactions become closer to real-time while everything is slowed down. Send an enemy flying and shoot a nearby exploding object to send him spiraling somewhere else. This becomes especially fun when you turn a group of bad guys into a midair corpse ballet. Another addition when in the yellow is the spin reload, in which Max spins while dumping clips, with the camera following him. On one hand, it may seem like a needless bit of animation, but in the case of a large firefight, it gives you a quick 360 view of the scene. It’s a great effect when you’ve just sent the last of three guys into the air. Once you’ve mastered the altered Bullet Time, you’ll find the real meat of the game and quite possibly lose yourself in a Zen-like trance.

The sound engineer is to be applauded, especially when it comes to vocal effects. Besides the standard face-to-face conversations, you’ll hear characters through doors, over speaker phone, over an intercom, etc., and each sample is convincingly muffled, echoed, distorted and spacially-placed. Explosions, gunfire, and environmental sounds are in the same league, as is the effect applied to them when Bullet Time is kicked in. When the world slows down with a full-auto machine gun, you can even hear the parts of the gun moving. And mind you, this is just using a stereo setup. The soundtrack features some nice arrangements of the original music, and everything fits the mood very well. The track by band Poets of the Fall, which plays at the credits, was a welcome addition that truly capped off the movie-like experience.

The Bad
The only real issue that I had with the game was the short length, which also seemed to be the main complaint by most. For anyone who bought the game at $50, it was likely a disappointment. At $20 or less, maybe not. I’d rented it, beating it quickly and blazing through in half the time on my second attempt.

I do wonder about the addition of the melee attack though. Not once did I need to resort to it out of a lack of ammo, nor did it seem all that effective when I did use it. Perhaps more experienced players can go on a pistol whipping frenzy when Bullet Time has gone into the yellow, but I was so trigger happy that I'd never thought to try. Most likely, they just decided to have Max able to do something when the button was pressed while he wasn't carrying grenades.

The Bottom Line
Where many could easily dismiss Max Payne 2 as being little more than a short expansion disguised as a sequel, I found a game that improved upon the original’s strengths while tightening the design overall to help match the pace of a film. Not every story needs fifteen to eighty hours to tell. Besides, any game you can blaze through but still get sucked into and enjoy can’t be all that bad, can it?

Xbox · by DarkBubble (342) · 2007

Topped the original in every way possible

The Good
All the elements that I loved about the first game are present here and executed even better. The music is excellent, the cutscenes are great and the gunplay is tight. What more could I ask for?

The Bad
It takes a light amount of tinkering to make it work on modern systems, but that is just about all the nitpicking I could do here.

The Bottom Line
Remedy has done it again. They topped the original game in every way possible. If you want an action-packed adventure with unique shooting mechanics and a great story to go with it, then this one is worth it.

Windows · by Lal Fam (27) · 2024

[ View all 13 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Need help with retarded ending Indra was here (20760) Jan 29, 2011
Please help to Max Payne Movie! Marex (40) Nov 12, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Max Payne

Max Payne looks very different in comparison to the predecessor because this time a professional actor, Timothy Gibbs' was used as Payne's face instead of writer Sami JĂ€rvi.

References

  • Towards the end of the game, one of the police officers quotes one of Max's first lines from the first game; "They are all dead." In both instances, the police are arriving after the situation has been resolved.
  • If you listen to the messages on Vinnie Gognitti's answering machine, you'll hear a threat from the "God Father." Someone did a an impression of the late Marlon Brando.
  • First time Max walks around the police HQ, there are two cops in basement garage. The cops are modeled and named after 3D Realms leads and co-founders George Broussard and Scott Miller. Pay attention to their dialogue; it makes fun out of the long production time of Duke Nukem Forever, ending with 3D Realms' legendary release date slogan ("When it's done!").
  • In the level "Dearest of All My Friends", Max and Vinnie escape in a delivery van which has the word "Deliverator" written on its side. According to Joe Siegler, it's a reference to Remedy's earlier racing game Death Rally, where "Deliverator" is the most powerful car in the game.

References to the game

May Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne was parodied in an episode of "Die Redaktion" (The Editorial Team), a monthly comedy video produced by the German gaming magazine GameStar. It was published on the DVD of issue 06/2007.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2003 – Best PC Story of the Year
    • 2003 – Best PC Graphics of the Year
    • 2003 – Best PC Successor of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2003 – #8 PC Game of the Year
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • February 13, 2004 - Best PC Action Game in 2003 (Readers' Vote)
    • Issue 12/2008 - One of the "10 Coolest Levels" (For "A Linear Sequence of Scares". It is the highlight of the game because it is very different from the rest of the game, represents a silly image of Max' soul and offers many surprising script sequences.)

Information also contributed by Jason Musgrave, Jouni Lahtinen and Scott Monster

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by kbmb.

Xbox, PlayStation 2 added by Corn Popper. Xbox 360 added by karttu. Xbox Series, Xbox One added by Eufemiano Bullanga.

Additional contributors: Xantheous, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Slug Camargo, Daniel Albu, Havoc Crow, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added October 25, 2003. Last modified March 15, 2024.