Max Payne

The Good
Review Version: v1.2 - Minor paragraphs added. My grammar sucks.
Game Version: v1.0
Tech Specs Used: Intel Dual Core 2 1.86 Ghz Processor, 1GB Memory, 256MB NVIDIA 7300 LE Video Card.
Difficulty Setting Used: Renegade (finished).
Finished: Yes. Friday, June 6, 2008. 3.52 AM.

Technical Note: Game must be installed in default path to function properly, installing in a different location may cause the game to crash at the start of gameplay.

I first played this game decades ago, when I was still a freshman in university, barely a few hours…and it seems I missed out on something really dang good. Better late than never, I suppose. Ironically, I just figured out Max Payne ie. Max Pain. Doh. Sometimes your brain is slow, sometimes it’s non-existent. Really.

Anyway, about the game.

Now and again, you really need one of those games where you can just…shoot stuff and blow things up. Great stress reliever…a simple outlet for violent instinctual drives, to some of us. Moving on, the only difference between Max Payne as an action-shooter with every other action-shooter on the planet is two things: Style and story.

Style
Style is called Bullet-time™, and you’d think that Matrix really wasn’t that long ago. With Bullet-time, everything comes into slow motion. There are 2 options of “slow-motion” available. The “jump-role”, which is something every action-hero should do at least 1,000 times per second of their lifetime (hehe), or simply stand still and aim and shoot at your hearts leisure. The later isn’t really fun, but the Bullet-time sequence lasts much longer than the jump roll, which only lasts as long as the “jump.”

For people like me who sometimes have really bad reflex instincts: the brain does identify that there’s a really ugly big-ass motherf**ker with an equally ugly big-ass shot gun aiming at your possibly equally ugly face, despite mental commands zoning-in to your fingers, they don’t seem to respond (if they do respond at all) and prefer to shoot the wall, the floors, that flowerpot on the right hand corner of the screen, but not that bloke carrying the shotgun.

With a simple right-click of the mouse to a certain direction (jump-shoot), you have an extra few seconds, to actually aim and start shooting at the dude, or shoot at an uglier big-ass mother**fucker, with an even bigger gun, behind the previous bloke.

Blood splattered on the wall, bullet holes creating new windows in the ceiling…you even hit that flowerpot on the right hand corner of the screen. At this point, the life of an action-shooter is pretty much utopia.

Story
What makes Max Payne – Max Payne, however is not the Bullet-time action (though it's pretty much a trademark). It’s the story: How it is portrayed and how it unravels. The story teller is May Payne himself, using a comic-book portrayal of the unfolding events. Personally for me, on an artistic level as well as on a personal level, this is sooo much-much better than those crappy animations. Even more so, as many of the dialogs within the comic book are well written, as cliché’s in comics are almost always appropriate.

The story itself, well…it’s a simple matter of vengeance, up-close and personal. Max’s wife and newborn child are gunned down. The plot thickens, and Max ends up practically killing everyone. Yay! Despite that shallow synopsis of the story I just wrote, the writers do seem to try to bring the player to a same personal emotional level with Max…to emphasize the “pain” that Max is feeling. The loss, the unbalancing of reality…or in Max’s words: ”The end of the world is only a cliché unless your actually experiencing it…,” which are words II can unfortunately, very much relate with.

This pain, this sorrow, may only be done so with equally supportive dialogs and emotion from Max. Though Max, most of the time while storytelling, does not portray any emotion at all….which only occurs when the pain is “max-ed out” (something no one should experience). Only bits and pieces of rage and despair are frequently reminded to the player when Max remembers his memories of that fateful day. More or less, almost all of the voice-overs, especially the cool-rough voice of Max Payne (voiced by one Mr. James McCaffrey are state-of-the art acting...well maybe just Max. However, one exception: Mrs. Max Payne sounds like some drunk in a sleazy hill-billy town in middle-America. Her voice acting was a constant irritation (even more so than the sound of the baby crying).

The writer also had a lovely sense of humor, despite all those cheesy (but totally appropriate) clichés. One of the best lines for a gamer to read in the game, has something to do about Payne (under the influence of a drug) discovers that:
[1] He is part of a graphical comic; [2] He is part of an computer game.
I intentionally left out the punch-line...something you really have to experience yourself. But as far as the writing goes...it's basically a masterpiece...as far as computer games go, at least.

One minor addition...loved the music during combat.

The Bad
Most of the game mechanics were standard enough. There is however, one very annoying feature that I’m flabbergasted someone didn’t notice when developing this game.

My style of play isn’t like the average teenager who usually shoots first and aims later like Rambo. I conserve my bullets and that means using the U.S. Marine Corp. (I think) slogan: One shot, one kill. Well, since that doesn’t really happen very often, at least every damn bullet should actually hit the target. Thus, I usually take things slow, baiting the enemy and finding myself a nice place to crouch and shoot.

Now this is where you find that annoying little feature. You find out that, Max’s head, his hands, or his gun is blocking the sight between you (the player, not Max Payne) and the enemy target. So you really can’t see very well. Now this is really stupid, especially when you start thinking that you’d rather blow Max Payne’s head off so you can actually see the enemy.

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I recently remembered something equally annoying...which is something that all action-shooter developers should notice. Though this feature may not be a big deal for everyone, mind you. Do you know is the most irritating thing about opening a door and piling the place into a new ammo dump? Having that stupid door slam right in front of your face - WHAM! Next thing you know, your spelling your name on the door in some unknown Klingon tribal dialect.

This has happened one too many times...the only way to avoid this, is to stand right beside the opened door, so it doesn't close on you (but it tries really really hard mind you). Now when your a action-shooting hero that is more concerned about keeping that door open than actually dodging bullets and shooting the living daylights out of everything in the room...you know you have priority issues.

Last time I checked in the real world, doors don't usually shut by themselves. My mental commands to my room door don't seem to be responding well, so why does every god-damn door in this game (and a lot of action-shooter games) have an automatic closing system? If I was the enemy AI, I would probably be equally pissed. :p

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Many people claim that the game is too short. Thankfully, I didn’t notice it that much. What I did notice is that the level design isn’t really top notch. A lot of it is going around in circles, and pretty much shallow if not for the story. There aren’t many instances where you can't actually use the sniper rifle with leisure, as using those dual Beretta’s mostly finishes the job, as most of the levels are corridors with enemies just behind the corner.

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To my disappointment as a “bullet-conserving” psychopath, the number of bullets in this game is a bit over-stocked. There are simply too much bullets to pick up and not enough enemies to kill. Unless you’d prefer the Rambo style of shooting first and aiming later, the overwhelming supply of ammunition in the game, killed most forms of tactical approaches to kill an enemy. No need to use my sub-machine gun when I already have 10 grenades in my arsenal waiting to be used up...and after getting those heavy guns...who uses the simple shot gun again?

I thought this may had to do with the game difficulty, which unfortunately for me was a bit too easy. I really don't understand why I can't play the hardest level...but apparently, after finishing the game and curiously playing the next level difficulty, again I was bullet overstocked... sigh

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Lastly, there was one part of the game I really loathed. It's the part where Payne is either doped up, or having nightmares. In this setting, Payne enters a dream-world, trying to find a way out. This is obviously story-based...in a bad way. The voice of the baby crying and Mrs. Payne is equally annoying as is moving around and getting lost half of the time. If they made it shorter, I probably wouldn't whine too much about it. It really does get annoying when you play the game a second time around.

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This combination of story vs. game play strikes me as quite odd. The story is very much mature for a standard action-shooter, however, the game mechanics i.e. ammunition, level design... was seemingly designed for the average doorknob who doesn’t plan out his/her combat tactics (shoot first, aim later). But then again, I probably shouldn’t expect more from a game where the purpose is to shoot things. :p

The Bottom Line
Is it playable? Yes.
Is it playable 10 years from now? Yes.
Do you have to play it? Hell, yeah! Bring on the Pain!

The Good
No aliens, robots or demons here. Just the gritty, snowed in streets of New York. The story and the game owe a lot of inspiration to the "Die Hard" movies, complete with the renegade cop that can survive the impossible.

Here we start with bullet time that was possibly borrowed from "The Matrix" and implemented in almost every FPS immediately following it. A great feature that lets you aim in slow motion whilst killing the bad guys.

All the action is set against very realistic architecture, with missing tiles, dirty floors, boarded windows. The introductory subway level was especially enjoyable.

The sound was top notch too. The guns had distinctive sounds that let you know what the bad guy was firing at you. Voicework was great too. It was so well done that you never got the sense of bored actors reading a script in to a mic. The music was minimal and well done, providing that additional sense of the solitary figure against the world.

Storywise, It was a little contrived, but with memorable characters. Instead of your usual stereotypical wiseguys, you have different people representing different factions that are making a play for power in the Big Apple. Max finds himself having to take most of them all on at one point or another as allegiances fail.

Gameplay is awesome. I have never had so much fun with a 3rd person shooter before. The random bits of loopiness provided a much needed reprieve from the endless shooting, like the Pink Bird TV show. Using painkillers instead of health packs adds that additional sense of absurdity as Max is being continually shot up.

The graphic novel was an innovative touch, even if it was used to save the developer time and money instead of using ingame scenes. It let the player skip or review completely at their own leisure.

The end game? Fantastic and challenging with a grand payoff. I like that you really don't know who the really bad guy is until the very end.

The Bad
Got to be honest, Wasn't so crazy about the maze parts of the game. I didn't like the blood trail mazes, which were mercifully left out of the sequel.

Otherwise, It was just simply great.

The Bottom Line
Great gaming for low end machines at a budget price. I liked it so much that I bought it again in 2009 after buying it in 2001.

Very much a gaming experience.

The Good
The worst snow storm of the century punishes the city of New York.
Suddenly, sirens start to howl in the night. Police cars, vans, choppers; every last law enforcement resource seems to have been summoned to attend an emergency at the Aesir Corp. magnificent headquarters building.
At the top of the building, a man stands with a heavy piece of weapon in his hands. His eyes stare into the sky. He looks like the man who finally reached his long-searched goal.
It's over. They are all dead. <center></center> Three years ago, Max Payne was an example of a detective in the NYPD. His life was good. He had a job he was proud of, a good group of tuesday poker friends, a beautiful recently-born baby girl, a lovingly caring wife... He even decided to quit smoking. "It's bad for the baby" he said to his best friend, Alex.
Max Payne was a happy man. His life was the American Dream come true.
But dreams tend to get ruined when you less expect it.
<center></center> One day, Max came back home, as usual, only to be greeted by a haunting silence. On the wall at the receiver, a foul graffitti, the icon of the junkies to the latest designer drug, Valkyr.
The house looked like a tornado just went over it.
The phone rang. Max picked up. A woman asked "Max Payne?". Max desperately asked for help, but the woman hung up.
Max rifled upstairs, hearing his wife screaming. He entered the baby bedroom —she was laying on the ground, covered with a bloodstained sheet... dead.
Two junkies attacked him, he got rid of them, and bursted into his bedroom. One more junkie he quickly disposed of... and then he saw her. His wife. On the bed. Dead.
Everything shattered in a New York minute.
<center>***</center> Max left the NYPD and joined the DEA. He went undercover inside one of the biggest mafia families of New York.
His goal: to uncover the ones behind the Valkyr drug manufacturing and dealing.
His only motivation: revenge.

So, what's the good about Max Payne, you ask? Well, let me think... —EVERYTHING!!

Hum. OK, let's bring it down a notch.

In the first place, I will have to say: the GAMEPLAY.
Max Payne is a 3rd-person perspective shooter. This is just like a FPS (namely, DOOM, QUAKE, HALF-LIFE, et cetera), but you get to see your own character on-screen too, which allows you to have a much more complete control over your character's actions.
I've been involved in endless arguements with friends after playing Max Payne, and I just keep stating that FPS's are dead: Max Payne is the first of a kind, as WOLFENSTEIN 3D was in its time. To me, Max Payne represents the logical evolution of the FPS. Period.

If not for the bullet-time feature (which I'll get to in a second, stay on me), the game develops a whole new level in character control interface. Getting into a crossfire won't be the same after having the Max Payne shootdodge feature. Regular FPS's will just give you the sad and obsolete strafe move, which seems to be stone-age old , now I've seen —and played— Max throwing himself to the ground in slow-motion, dodging enemy fire while still able to shoot, and even turn in any direction.
I remember I played NO ONE LIVES FOREVER after playing Max Payne, and every time I saw an enemy rolling on the floor dodging my bullets, and I was bound to the stupid strafe and nothing more, I couldn´t help but thinking 'Hey! I want to do that thing too! I was able to do it in Max Payne!!'

Now, bullet-time.
This is one of those cool features one could call gameplay-candy
While it's not strictly necessary to master it in order to beat the game, bullet-time adds a lot to the gameplay, making an otherwise quite linear experience into something full of possibilities.
But what IS bullet-time?
OK. Did you ever see the movie The Matrix? Or any recent John Woo movie? Or any action movies released after 1999?
If so, you might be familiar with that thing where the pace in action sequences is slowed down, and the camera makes a lot of fancy pans all over the place... Well, that's it. When you activate bullet-time, the world is slowed down, and you get to play the whole scene in slow motion, becoming able to perform all kinds of fancy acrobacies, including dodging bullets.
No matter how many fights I got into, I just wouldn't get tired of getting surrounded by these thugs and experimenting new ways of performing groovy action scenes with the help of the shootdodging and bullet-time.

The STORY of the game is very good. It doesn't exactly innovate, or surprise (come on, we all saw those plot twists coming), or anything for the like, but it makes its job fine. It could become an action-driven-police-thriller movie any day of the week.
The main events of the story are told through comic strips which fill the space between stages, and by short interventions of Max himself as a V.O. during gameplay, a la film noir. The drawings in the comic strips are great, and dialogues are cleverly written, with lots of beautiful film noir cliches including dark metaphors and some black humor.
One thing to note —in case you didn't notice it with that intro above— is how CRUDE the story is. From the intro sequence where you know this can't end up in anything good, to the shocking murder of Max's family and his best friend, the developers won't save resources to make sure you'll fell so desperate and impotent, that you will want revenge as much as Max does.
Some of the stages are actually nightmare sequences, full of dark surrealism, adding even more interest to the storytelling, and making sure not even asleep will Max have a moment of rest.

The GRAPHICS have a fairly surprising quality, considering the age of the game. This makes sense once you learn this game was based in the MAX-FX engine, which is the same in which most of the DirectX 8-class 3DMark 2001 benchmarking utility is based. A game based on a benchmarking engine by definition has the potential to stress the current generation video cards to the max.
You can raise the details level in order to bring on bump-mapped background textures, complex particles, lighting effects, and what all not. If you have a powerful video card, Max Payne's visual are nothing short of stunning.

The SOUND of the game doesn't exactly shine, but it tags along fine. You will need a surround system to fully enjoy some of the amusing dialogues that your enemies are constantly having before they notice your presence, because those kind of distant sounds just don't show up in normal speakers.

Regarding REPLAYABILITY VALUE, Max Payne uses a pretty old yet totally valid trick: once you beat the game, several new difficulty modes are unlocked. Instead of just making the exact same ride a little harder, gameplay itself is slightly modified. There is one mode called "Dead On Arrival", in which shots are as lethal as in real life, meaning that one single gunshot takes down a person, even the player. Another mode is called "New York Minute", and it requires every stage to be completed in one minute top, otherwise it's instant Game Over. One more mode, sets Max in a fancy looking lobby, under a constant un-limited bullet-time mode, and with a shitload of weapons and ammunition to pick up. Then a lot —and I mean A LOT— of badguys enter the scene. Guess what comes next.

Finally, even though the game is a linear ride, there are a number of easter eggs scattered throughout the game which add just a little more to a really well rounded up package, and might make worth paying attention to the details. I loved the TV announcement of this 'Adress Unknown' show with a weird dream-like monologue involving a flamingo, a doppelganger, and clear references to the TV series Twin Peaks.

The Bad
I find it hard to say something bad about this one, I just LOVE the game. But let's see.

We could point to the linearity thing.
The game is kind of linear...
OK, it's INSANELY linear. It's as linear as a game can be. It's as linear as a ruler. All you're going to do throughout the whole game is enter a room, kill every last thug you find there, go through the only door that opens, which will get you into another room, where —you guessed it already— you'll need to kill every last thug, so one and only one door opens...

As hungry for revenge as Max (and us) are, one could for sure thank a little more of options. Maybe some adventure, maybe some choose the way, some kind of non-violent interaction with NPCs, maybe at least some secret areas...

The Bottom Line
As simple as the formula is, Max Payne is just two steps from PERFECT. Even its linearity isn't much of an issue with the whole new world that the shootdodging and the bullet-time mean. I just kept asking for more rounds of thugs to come in, just for the sake of reaching new levels in action-packed crossfire scenes.

Max Payne is not only a great game, but a step to note in the developing of action games. I just can't stand another shooting scene without being able to shootdodge a la Max Payne. To my eye, FPS's are dead: Max Payne paved the way to a new era.

In a special note: if you liked the game, be sure to get the Kung Fu mod by Kenneth Yeung ( http://kungfu.maxpayneheadquarters.com/ - [email protected] ); a small 5 MB baby which turns the game into a WHOLE new experience. Like its name implies, Max gets close-hand combat kung-fu abilities —including wall-walking.
Another must.