Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

The Good
The first thing they do is ridicule the first game, as if to say that the game is real serious now, honest, we're going to keep the humor tightly packed into these TV sets. Which is true, unfortunately. The "constipated grin stuck to my face," as the TV calls it, is gone from Max; he's undergone plastic surgery to resemble Harrison Ford. As if anything was ever improved by involving Harrison Ford with it.

Payne 2 wants to be a "film noir love story," yet not enough attention is given to developing the story, in or out of the action. At least the unashamedly two-dimensional story of the first game did the job; here, the feeling that the shooting is just more of the same is amplified by the bumbling attempt to craft a real story like wot they have in the movies, man.

More things are now told with longer in-game cutscenes, which lack the attitude and style of the comic book panels; relegated to playing second violin, the graphic novel stumbles and feels more bolted-on than a feature of the game.

The Trainspotting-style establishing characters with a freeze-frame, zoom and name tag doesn't work either, probably because most of the time they introduce a character who will then promptly get shot before a minute has passed, or say hello goodbye. Or first the one and then the other. Though not the other and then the first- um, you get the picture.

The Bad
The fatal flaw is the modification to bullet time: Now it only gives you a slight slowdown, not enough to be useful for much. Killing a lot of people quickly will make the hourglass turn yellow and give you the slow-motion you're used to, as well as faster reloading, but this is fun only when you get to take on a large crowd of thugs with a sawed-off shotgun; it makes everything else dreary.

Diving through a door with Ingrams used to be great, but now it'll get you shot three times out of four, as Max doesn't automatically stand up; you have to release the fire button for a second. I mean, what's this, I have to release the trigger and think for a second in a shoot'em-up, now? Where's the fun in that?

Adding insult to injury, the manual talks about how bullet-time 2.0 urges you to press forward, but the level design doesn't really take it into consideration, rarely giving you more than three enemies at a time and a lot of empty space between groups. Meaning you find yourself running around with an hourglass all yellow and no one to kill far too often. Maybe it could have worked if more slowdown was awarded for shooting someone at close range, or something: As it is, it's a feature that obviously wasn't given enough consideration or playtesting, giving the game a rushed feel. Damn this technology that goes out of fashion after half a year.

The rarity of really slow motion also means you seldom get to see the bullets flying; gone is the fun of diving forward and seeing the shotgun pellets graze Max's head. It's most noticeable when you're looking through the scope of the MP5, and there it looks plain ridiculous, as the back of a bullet is the graphically least interesting part of it.

Max himself is far less interesting in his version 2.0; while you could hardly argue that he at any time had a full set of dimensions, here he seems reduced from a cardboard cut-out to a non-person. You get to see his home and the police station he works at, but he doesn't really seem to be there, somehow.

The more interesting person in the game is his femme fatale Mona Sax, who sleeps in a heap of ammunition round the back of a derelict fun fair. Now that's my kinda girl. You get to play her a couple of times, yet this seems intrusive and less fun, even though she has Max's full set of moves and the same damage resistance. And you get to do a lot of sharpshooting with her, which is usually my favorite thing in these games.

Perhaps it's that she's supposed to be a professional assassin, and when you fail to snipe people effectively several times before you get the hang of it, it compromises her believability. Or maybe I just have trouble perceiving a woman's voice as coming from inside my head - it's not for nothing that voiceovers tend to be so deep as if to emanate from inside your skull.

There are on the whole fewer gritty street environments; especially the half-constructed office building is just too samey. Maybe it could have worked if fighting left more blood stains and such, making it graphically interesting, but "ragdoll" is only too descriptive of the game's handling of bodies. In the first game, the bloodlessness and stereotyped way thugs went flying away from an explosion - it felt like a homage to Hong Kong action, something that Payne 2's ragdoll system takes away with its pretensions of realism.

The Bottom Line
I suppose it does the job, barely, of satisfying Max Payne cravings. Just don't expect the full flavor.

The Good
Max Payne 2 made three large improvements over the first game in the series. Here is a quick overview:

First: The graphics engine was greatly enhanced, and a physics system was added - not only can Max knock over some pieces of furniture or other small items when he runs into them, but there are some amusing physical chain-reactions that can occur in some circumstances. For example, picture two dozen cafeteria-style chairs piled on top of an explosive ammo crate in the corner of a room. C'mon, you know you wanna toss a grenade in there and watch the result.

Also, the game's textures, especially the models and textures used for the stars of the show (Max and Mona) look gorgeous. Additionally, a number of visual effects were added - in Bullet Time, the screen becomes washed out and all of the colors become muted, and motion-blur effects are used liberally (but not too much). Even with a low-end videocard, you can get a very enjoyable visual experience. I first played this game with a GeForce4 MX, and had no significant graphics problems. Even Max's nightmare/hallucination sequences are severely distorted, visually, adding greatly to the experience.

Second: Bullet-Time (BT) was tweaked somewhat. You still have the familiar hourglass time-limit, but now it regenerates slowly over time. Also, shoot-dodging does not use up your BT reservoir anymore. And most importantly, when you enter BulletTime directly, and start racking up kills, Max moves faster and faster (or, to be more precise, everything else slows down relative to Max). As you gain "levels" in Bullet Time, the screen and sound effects get more and more washed-out, muted, and... "focused". Get enough kills, and Max finds himself running around in a blurred, sepia-toned "tunnel-vision land", with his enemies standing nearly (but not quite) motionless. Naturally, the BT "levels" are temporary in nature, so Max needs to rack up a good number of kills, fairly quickly, to hit his maximum level. They fade away over time as Max "calms down".

So with Bullet Time 2.0, the developers eliminated a large part of Max Payne 1's challenge (limited Bullet Time), in order to make the game more "fun". It certainly succeeds; it's very easy to get immersed in this game when Max is fully "in the zone". And assuming you can find a safe spot to rest for a minute or two, you'll always be able to enter the next battle with a full BT hourglass.

Third: Scripted sequences? Yeah, we got scripted sequences. Max Payne 2 has so many NPC and plot-advancement scripts, it makes Half-Life look dull by comparison. The first game had a few, here and there, but in MP2, there's almost always something going on.

Now, about the actual game itself.

The story in this game rocked. In some ways, it seems to actually be more story-oriented than action-oriented. But I love a good helping of Plot(tm) with my shooters, so it's all good. The actual environment is great, too - present in MP2 are the television shows from the first game, but you run into them at more frequent intervals. During a lull in combat, it's nice to relax and watch the adventures of Captain Baseballbat Boy, follow the story of Lords and Ladies, or catch up on Address Unknown. There is also a new "TV show", Dick Justice, which is seemingly a parody of Shaft combined with Max Payne 1. Always good for amusement.

The level design, with one exception, was excellent. The levels tend to be very large, and perhaps a little repetative at times, but there's enough variety that it's difficult to become bored and lose interest. It's even difficult to get lost in some of these large levels, which is also a plus. The levels include (but aren't limited to) a large building under construction (plenty of scaffolds to play around on), a surreal funhouse (based on Address Unknown), a burning building, a mansion, Max's apartment building, even the NYPD station Max works at. All of these environments have a ton of detail, and you sometimes find yourself revisiting them later in the game (except the second time around, they're very, very different, due to various Plot Activities(tm) that have occurred.)

Another neat plot device is that after playing as Max for a while, the perspective switches to Mona, and you guide her through the game for a while (don't worry; Mona can also use Bullet Time). The neat part is, Mona's stories take place roughly at the same time as Max's. This happens a few times during the game, and Mona typically enters a level from the "opposite side" as Max. So effectively, when your perspective switches to Mona, time reverses roughly one hour, and you play through the level again - just from the other end. I'm sure I'm not explaining it very well, but as a plot and character-development device, it works very well.

Ordinarily I hate "love stories", which Max Payne 2 certainly tries to be. But I must admit, it pulls it off very, very well.

I should also mention that the Max Payne series has a huge, active mod community. The level-design tools were released to the public, just like with the first game. Also, MP2 has a few different difficulty levels, just like the first game. Except if you complete the game at the hardest difficulty level, you apparently get a different, "happier" ending. I've never gotten there, myself - almost, but not quite. But still, even if you complete the game once, you unlock the "Dead Man Walking" levels. These are small, self-contained levels, totally unrelated to the plot, where enemies continually spawn in at shorter and shorter intervals. Your survival time is your "score" in these levels, and they're great for a few minutes of mindless action. How long can you last?

The Bad
I mentioned an "exception" above, in regards to level design. There is, apparently, a flaw in the level-design tool (or perhaps in the graphics engine itself). If your objects don't line up just right in a given map, if you don't cross every single T and dot every I, a significant number of errors are introduced, and the game goes berzerk trying to perform all of the calculations it needs to do. It doesn't corrupt the display, and it doesn't crash or anything, it just becomes VERY, VERY SLOW. Like, we're talking 1 frame every two seconds. Granted, this only happened to me once in the entire game, and only in one particular room looking in one particular direction (at a pile of junk and debris), and it's extremely easy for me to reproduce; it happens every time. But still, there's no real way around this problem, and you've simply got to trudge through it. I'm sure anyone in the mod community who has used the level-editing tools has run into this at least once in their own maps.

Also, I wish the Dead Man Walking mode was unlocked at the very start.

But you know, other than that, I don't really have any complaints. Except perhaps that the game was too short. It felt a lot shorter than the first game, somehow.

The Bottom Line
I'm sure that fans of Max Payne 1 would love this game. In fact, it even seems to stand alone well enough, which can be rare for a sequel. You don't need to be familiar with the first game to enjoy this chapter, but it helps - you'd probably miss a lot of the in-jokes and references otherwise.

The Good
The new weapons in the game, such as the Russian firearms, add to the previously intriguing arsenal of the first game (except for the lack of M79). The ability to pistol whip or use grenades with your current weapon means there's no longer any need for weapon switching, especially in the middle of a firefight.

The newest feature, by playing as Mona Sax, is a definite plus, being able to wield unique guns and access parts of the chapter that Max doesn't. There are also NPCs who support you and Vinnie Gognitti you need to protect. Kind of makes me wonder what it would be like to play as Alex Balder.

The Bad
There is way too much re-usage of the same levels, including Ragnarock and the Address Unknown theme park. The other levels are just bland buildings instead of the rooftops, slums, hotels and factories of the first game. Then of course there are the little things missing, like laser traps, rats and breakable objects. This lack of variety also makes the game feel short. Even the unlockable minigames can't really compensate for the smaller chapter count. Using Mona Sax more often in the game might have improved the game overall. Much of the game mechanics are the same, except that bullet-time feels a little faster than it should, making it almost useless. Finally, the game also doesn't have much in the way of atmospheric music.

The Bottom Line
This sequel didn't quite capture the experience and take the best from the first game. This sequel was a bit of a let-down. This game could most likely be finished faster than the prequel and then you'll be craving for more. Not sure what Rockstar was going for, but it should be emphasised that Max Payne should not be given a Grand Theft Auto treatment. Worth the occasional play, but not worth the money to buy.