Max Payne

aka: Dark Justice, Max Heat, Max Payne Mobile, Yingxiong Bense
Moby ID: 4529
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Max Payne was a police officer of the New York City police. On one terrible day, his wife and newborn daughter were killed by three junkies, who broke into his apartment after having ingested a new designer drug known as Valkyr. After the tragedy, Max quit the police force and joined the Drug Enforcement Administration. Three years later, during a raid on a mafia compound that was reportedly trafficking Valkyr, his best friend and fellow DEA agent Alex is killed, and he becomes the prime suspect in his murder. Now Max is all alone in the cold, snowy night of New York. The mob is out to get him. The police are out to get him. The only way out is with guns blazing, because he has nothing to lose.

Max Payne is a third person shooter stylistically influenced by film noir, "hardboiled" detective stories, and Hong-Kong action cinema. Max can perform rolls and leaps to try and dodge enemy fire. The weapons at his disposal range from baseball bats to Ingram sub-machine guns, grenades, Molotov cocktails, and others. A unique feature of the game is the usage of the so-called Bullet Time - a time-slowing ability that was popularized by the first Matrix movie. Activating the Bullet Time slows down everything that happens around Max (including his own movements), allowing for slow, but precise performance of moves to take care of his enemies. A special meter indicates how much time the effect will last, and how long Max needs to wait until it can be activated again.

Cutscenes in the game are presented as comic book-style graphical panels accompanied by voice-overs.

Spellings

  • 英雄本色 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

253 People (181 developers, 72 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 88% (based on 75 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 412 ratings with 30 reviews)

Butchered version of the PC game

The Good
All features from the PC game are present and correct including the weapons, bullet-time, puzzles, chapters and difficulty levels. The controls are well calibrated, and like most 3rd-person shooters operates well on PlayStation consoles. There is additional artwork between the different parts of each chapters, but these would have been better off in a single loading screen.

The Bad
The graphics are not nearly as sharp as the PC version. No idea what's with the weird choice of text font that doesn't reflect the comic style it had in PC. For some reason there's less variety in the PS2 version including many reused enemy models and the identical dying voices that are reused even late in the game. To add irritation, there are a number of rooms cut out from this version such as some of the bathrooms in Lupino's Hotel.

Now performance problems. It's very hard to quickly move the camera and aim correctly before you find an enemy's bullet lodged into you. Then there's the stuttering framerate, sometimes getting you injured in gun fight or killed from a misjump. The two or three times each chapter splits ruins the game flow and denies you the opportunity to collect extra ammo and painkillers when you might need them. Also you're not able to save whenever and wherever you want, which ramps up the already difficulty gameplay. As if they couldn't fit a whole chapter into the game with save spots, since it had been done in Medal of Honor: Rising Sun.

The Bottom Line
While the story and setting are faithful to the original Windows game, the rest of the features falter. This haphazardly put together port really lacks the carefully tailored work that the PC version has to offer. There are so much better 3rd-person shooters out there for the PS2 because this game will quickly lose appeal and enjoyability altogether. Perhaps it is worth playing one just for the experience, but replay value is absent afterwards.

PlayStation 2 · by Kayburt (30392) · 2020

The first of a kind. Max Payne is just a must-have.

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.

Windows · by Slug Camargo (583) · 2003

Style over substance

The Good
Max Payne is a very simple, but fun cinematic shooter that takes genuinely old-fashioned gameplay and updates it with some tricks of its own.

The choice of third-person view, relatively rare for 3D shooters, adds the advantage of allowing the protagonist to perform moves that would be pointless in an FPS, such as rolling. We've seen many times how your FPS opponents were rolling to avoid your shots; but now you can finally do it yourself! Quickly navigating Max to save him from the constant barrage of bullets, madly rolling and jumping out of the way in time is often a life-or-death situation. The action becomes more intense and also more cinematic when you actually see your hero performing all those moves.

The famous "bullet time" effect makes the action even more stylish. Max Payne feels like one of those over-the-top kung-fu movies. Getting rid of your enemies becomes even more impressive when they die in "dramatic" ways, even the simplest kill turning into yet another scene.

The graphics of Max Payne are a sheer beauty; the engine is powerful and smooth, and the levels are quite detailed, filled with Duke Nukem 3D-style interactive environments: you can turn on and off TV sets, flush toilets, and so on.

Max Payne kicks in on a very personal note. The uncomplicated narrative is basically a vigilante quest for revenge. The player is easily able to identify himself with Max, and the following elimination of bad guys becomes more satisfying than ever.

The story is told in still screens with comic-book pages on them, which is an original and stylish idea. The dialogues and, most of all, Max's own comments, are well-written and convincingly spoken. An interesting thing is the usage of humor. At first sight, it seems there's nothing to laugh about here, but the more you advance the story, the more you realize it has a double edge. Its stylistic references to action movies are so obvious that it nearly becomes a self-aware parody.

The Bad
Max Payne is a very simple, linear game, almost to the point of turning into an "on-rails" shooter. You are typically taken to locations that look "explorable", but upon closer inspection it is revealed that there is only one path to proceed. Miraculously locked doors, blocked passages, and other assorted linearity enforcers are everywhere.

The gameplay is very basic, going back to the old days of shooters when problems were solved with blasting everything you see to pieces. Since the game is rather short and there isn't much variety in the enemy design, stylish bullet time kills can get quite monotonous with the time.

The game's heavily scripted AI and its reliance on simplistic setpieces make it feel even more restrictive, filled with situations where you are forced to do things a certain way. The difficulty is very much arcade-like, reflexes and quicksave abuse playing a dominant role; essentially, it's all about resorting to bullet time and frantic rolling over and over again. Max Payne is, in fact, short and repetitive at once.

Max's colorful comments may not fit everyone's taste; some of them try to be too sophisticated, making a strange expression. Also, Max has a permanent silly grin glued to his face, which makes him look like a maniacally-minded dork.

The Bottom Line
If your dream video game is an incarnation of those very uncomplicated action movies with ridiculously tough vigilante heroes who shoot bad guys in spectacular ways, Max Payne is just what you need. However, those looking for deeper, richer, and more varied 3D action might want to pass on this one.

Windows · by Unicorn Lynx (181780) · 2016

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Discussion

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XP SP2 Indra was here (20756) Jun 4, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

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

Advertisement

In England, the game was advertised on hydrants covered with actual yellow police lines with the game's name and slogan on it ("Max Payne - A Man With Nothing to Lose" etc...), just like the game box's cover art.

Bullet time

The origins of bullet time, made famous in the movie The Matrix and as a playable effect in Max Payne, are attributed to Eadweard Muybridge (April 9, 1830 – May 8, 1904), who used still cameras placed along a racetrack to take pictures of a galloping horse.

Cancelled Dreamcast version

Max Payne was initially in development for the Dreamcast up to the point that Remedy demoed the game at E3 in 1998. Despite some more refined character models, the game looks and plays almost identically to the PS2 and Xbox versions of the game.

Development

  • Early on the V drug was not only a mind-warping drug, but also body-warping. It fact it made its users grow into hulking giants with glowing green eyes. In fact, early script drafts deal with super soldiers. There were even work in progress screenshots which shows Max fighting these super soldiers. All this was scrapped as it looked silly and was too similar to Sin.
  • In order to create the game, the developers from Remedy traveled from Finland to New York to photograph the buildings and streets. You can read about their adventure at the 3D Realms website: http://www.3drealms.com/max/newyork.html

German index

This game was put on the German index on 29.09.2001. A short time afterwards, according to a Take 2 salesman, the planned to publish a "toned down" version of Max Payne. It would be cut so it could get a "12+" rating and they wanted to do a German translation including voiceovers. This would allow them to sell it again since it isn't the same as the banned game and even more, it's localized so more people could enjoy it.

The new box art had a yellow "police line" over or under the MAX PAYNE title on the box which stated it was a toned down version. However, this version got canned.

The ban on the game was eventually lifted.

Inaccuracies

Despite all the "realism" put into the game... The "code numbers" given by NYPD officers are completely wrong, according to an ex-NYPD officer (Rich Laporte of gonegold.com)

Music

The music for the game was made by Kärtsy Hatakka, who is also the singer and bass player for a band called Waltari.

References

  • The game features some humourous moments. In one of the earlier levels, there is a room off one of the ledges outside a building. Inside is a guy lying on the ground with a stake in his back, and the letters "BUFF" (with obvious reference to Buffy the Vampire Slayer) scrawled in blood next to him. Max passes a comment along the lines off "I don't even want to know what happened here."
  • In another level, you need a password to get into a laundry room. After finding a low-life to help you out, stand off to the side while he tries to get you in. He's given a first name and asked to give the full name before they'll open the door. The name he has to give is "John Woo", director and king of slow-motion action sequences in movies, an obvious inspiration for the developers of Max Payne.
  • At one point in the game, Max comes across a television show speaking about the Aesir Corporation, and how they are becoming another monopoly like Microsoft. However, because Microsoft is a copyrighted name, the television gives a bit of static when Microsoft is spoken, and the graphic novel displays "*static*" instead of Microsoft.
  • The Dopefish (an enemy from Commander Keen 4, the Dopefish is usually put into games as an easter egg) appears in Max Payne.
  • In the room immediately after Alfred Woden's office, if you shoot a picture off the wall, you'll find a switch. Pressing it will open a secret passage to a room with a Star Trek parody.
  • At some point you will pass by a TV in which the images show a familiar red-curtained room and a flamingo, and the accompanying dialog is all in Twin Peaks style. The music has that hip TP jazzy sound. A man's voice talks about his "evil twin," which of course ties in with the dopplegangers of Twin Peaks. The flamingo's speaking style sounds much like the Little Man in Twin Peaks dream sequences. The flamingo may be a reference to Wild Palms, which included flamingos and is sometimes compared to Twin Peaks. Elsewhere, another TV shows a soap opera with events that closely parallel events in the game; this 'soap opera device' was used often on Twin Peaks. During the Twin Peaks parody portion, the flamingo’s speech is distorted and it is impossible to understand what it’s saying except its final line: “The Flesh of Fallen Angels”, a sort of recurrent motif along the game.
  • Of all the various pop culture references found throughout the game, there is one that probably escapes the notice of most players. In the tutorial level, take a look at the Tar Cafe signs. Their address is listed as "604 All Your Base Are", a reference to the poorly-translated intro of Zero Wing.
  • In the Ragnarock club there are references to the supernatural horror literature of H. P. Lovecraft - the so called Cthulhu Mythos. One of Jack Lupino's books is titled Necronomicon, and one of his personal "spells" mention the name "Cthulhu" as one of the dark gods that he invokes.
  • In Part I, Chapter Six, Max Payne enters a small flat. There is a gun lying on the counter, and a gangster can be heard whistling in the toilet. The toilet doors are locked tight, unless the player picks up the gun, which makes the adversary flush the toilet and come out. This is a reference to Quentin Tarantino's cult movie Pulp Fiction: (Pulp Fiction spoiler) This area closely resembles the scene of Vincent Vega's death, when Butch sneaks into his apartment and shoots Vic with his own gun which he left on the counter in the kitchen.
  • In the first level, Roscoe Street Station, Max overhears two thugs talking. After a moment of conversation or two, a phone rings. The ring tone is The Ecstasy of Gold from the film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, composed by Ennio Morricone.

References: Self

  • In the skyscraper mission, in one of the elevators, if you stay and listen, you will hear some guards talking about how it would be cool if you could see your moves in slow motion. The guard concludes by saying that he will name this effect Bullet-Time.
  • In one part of Max Payne, the graphic novel jokes about Max being a game (this happens in one of the nightmare sequences).
  • Another humorous moment... In Part 1, Chapter 2 "Live from the Crime Scene", you finally made your way into the bank vault, and the alarm is blaring. If you shoot the alarm (thus silencing it), Max will thank you.. The same happens at one point in the hotel: you must ride an elevator playing some cheesy elevator music. Shoot out the speaker and Max will thank you.
  • Max Payne features a lot of Remedy employees as characters in the game, including screenwriter Sam Lake as Max Payne himself. This led to a very weird E3 2001 showing of the game, since Sam Lake was at GOD Games´ Promised Lot along other members of Remedy with a demo. Everybody was a bit disoriented by seeing Max Payne on screen and his real-life counterpart talking about the title right next to it.
  • In Part 1, Chapter 6, when you're chasing Vinnie, there is a billboard for Captain Baseball-Bat Boy, the comics you see throughout the game.

Version differences

The PS2 version doesn't allow you to quick save during a level unlike the PC and Xbox versions.

Awards

  • Gamespy
    • 2001 - PC Action Game of the Year (Readers' Vote))
    • 2001 - Best Gimmick of the Year (for bullet time)
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2005 - #41 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list

Information also contributed by AkibaTechno, Archagon, DarkBubble, dasfatso, David Sky, Dreamweaver, Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze, Erik Niklas, festershinetop, Juan Pablo Bouquet, Juguryo, JPaterson, Karthik KANE, Kasey Chang, MasterMegid, PCGamer77, phlux, Samuel James Vince and Scott Monster

Analytics

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Related Sites +

  • 3D Realms Site
    The official 3d Realms/ Apogee Website
  • A Rock-Solid Hero for a Rock-Solid OS
    An Apple Games article about the Macintosh version of Max Payne, with commentary being provided by Art Director Saku Lehtinen (July, 2002).
  • Max Payne
    The official Max Payne website
  • Max Payne
    3D Realms official Max Payne website
  • Max Payne Fan Site
    Tips, cheats, screenshots, modifications and links.
  • Official Webpage (Mac)
    The official product page for the Mac version of Max Payne on the publisher's website, which provides a trailer, character information, a profile of the game itself, and purchasing information, among other such particulars.
  • Payne Reactor
    A fan site dedicated to Max Payne - Mods, Levels, Total Conversions, Tutorials, Forums, Cheats, etc.
  • Sound fix for Max Payne and Vista.
    A clever person fixed a bug with Max Payne not playing music and dialogue in Vista. Vista doesn't support the sound file formats used for the playback.

Identifiers +

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Contribute

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Derrick 'Knight' Steele.

Xbox added by Brian Hirt. PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. Xbox 360 added by karttu. PlayStation 4, iPhone, iPad added by Sciere. Macintosh, Android added by Kabushi. Xbox Series, Xbox One added by Eufemiano Bullanga.

Additional contributors: Macintrash, Xantheous, Kasey Chang, Unicorn Lynx, Jony Shahar, Jim Fun, Frenkel, Sciere, Scott Monster, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, 64er.

Game added July 19, 2001. Last modified March 15, 2024.