Max Payne

The Good
Max Payne was an innovative and unique action title for its time. Sadly, its gameplay draws such as bullet time have been worn and torn so bad that if you describe Max Payne to a modern gamer who missed it first time around they'll simply go 'meh, its been done.' Even I for awhile was so worn out from games with bullet time and "John Woo style" gameplay mechanics that I dismissed Max Payne as dated. But a recent playthrough proved to me that this game is just as good as it ever has been.

For the year 2001, Max Payne was an absolutely eye popping game. These were the early days of full 3D acceleration, yet MP actually looked better than almost every other game on the market, better than Unreal, better than Quake 3, and so on. The detail and animations were exquisite, and high poly character models and environments were used to great effect. Its still satisfying to tear a room apart with bullets and as the dust settles make out piles of bodies lying in blood and brass bullet casings.

Developers love to use the term "Cinematic gameplay." This term has been around ever since the early days of CD when a fad of "interactive movies" came about. These interactive movies had little gameplay value and were often very poor. One of the only truly good interactive movies was the revolutionary laserdisc title, Dragon's Lair and it still had little 'play' value but it was saved by an entertaining story and visuals. But when the developers at Remedy called Max Payne a cinematic experience, they weren't bullshitting around this time. This is as close as you will get to being in an action movie you can actually interact with. Somewhere between "Sin City" and... well, John Woo movies the game is a third person shooter that allows you to use various weapons as well as the now cliche Bullet Time. But even after the glut of bullet time games, Max Payne is still one of the few games that does it right. It can really save your hide, and it looks cool seeing all the bullets, droplets of blood, pieces of plaster, all in slow motion and the "Shoot dodge" moves, which allows you to do slides, jumps, etc. to dodge while shooting in bullet time is still cool and the tight controls make it intuitive and fun. A sort of trademark of 3D realms, you can interact with most objects in the game whether they are important are not, and it is encouraged as you never know when you will find that extra bullet or the much needed health pack (Or in this game, pain pills. Why do so many games interpret pain medication as health? I suffer from arthritis and have pain pills, and sure it helps the pain but it doesn't heal me) and of course there are various jokes or evidence pieces that will help the story come together.

Speaking of the story, Max Payne tells a good one. It's done in a kitschy Noir style, and while this method of story telling as well as the voice acting can be somewhat silly at times, once you get used to it there's a great story that unfolds gracefully and has many satisfying twists and turns.

Guns sound realistic and are fun to shoot.

The AI isn't a push over. Although they are scripted, they can fight back well and are pretty harsh and brutal at times. Bullet time can sometimes be the only way that you can trump a gaggle of baddies, Remedy definitely realized that even a cop isn't going to be superman even if Bullet Time is a somewhat strange power when taken in or out of context.

The MaxEd tool available for the game is surprisingly easy to use and both my wife and I have made some homebrewed levels and campaigns, and it doesn't require a ton of hard coding knowledge to make a well detailed level.

After beating the game, various new modes are unlocked and they are more than just tougher difficulty levels. They change the game in various ways, and there's even a mode built for speed runners called New York Minute. If you're into speed running, try New York Minute, just prepare for the game to hold your balls in a vice grip because its pretty damn tough. You have to beat every level in only a minute per each one. Its hard as hell, but very rewarding when you can successfully beat a level. These modes give the game plenty of replay value.

The Bad
The game is relatively short. While it may seem lengthy by today's ridiculously short standards, the game will only take you about 11 hours to beat.

The game can be frustratingly hard at times. The box claims to have adaptive difficulty adjustments to make the game easier or harder based on how you are doing, but I have noticed no such thing. Quick save is your best friend here.

As good as the graphics are for the time, they are lacking in one area: Facial animation. It's strange that they wouldn't have it, the game uses skeletal animation, you can tell by various animations and the way fingers realistically move and animate. Yet the characters faces are painted on, and its kinda creepy when they talk and their faces don't move. Remedy could've easily just made .gif files and changed the faces in cinematics if they didn't want to go through the trouble of using their skeletal animation system for full facial animation, and they DO use this effect as Max's face contorts in pain upon death as do the bad guys. Its disappointing, and as I said, kinda creepy how the faces never move and it reminds me of the way people talked on the Nintendo 64.

The voice acting and dialogue can seem hammy and somewhat stupid. "Pain killers: Take away the pain, leave the hurt." What the hell does that mean? Sometimes it uses its "Noir" style a little too much and the descriptions are often silly and sometimes when you'd expect a character to emote realistically, just another cheesy Darth Vader "NOOOO" voice happens. You get used to it eventually, but its still somewhat annoying.

The Bottom Line
Max Payne is still an awesome shoot 'em up and a thrilling third person shooter. It may seem short, but it will keep you in the game at all times and is fun throughout. Its also one of the few games with bullet time that actually still makes it feel fun and unique, but that's most likely because it was the first game to use it. It looks cool and plays cool, and its got a good story despite some silly acting. If you haven't checked this one out yet, definitely give it a look.

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
Max Payne's major strength lies in its compelling, surprising plot. It's true that it was flawed in some parts (particularly the stuff that dealt with Mona), but very good, nonetheless. The plot lost some of its speed about 1/4 of the way through, but it never got boring or particularly slow. The plot is filled with surprises, as well as a few juicy plot twists to keep things interesting. Overall, the game has one of the best story lines I've seen in an action game, even better than Half-Life in my opinion.

The story line of the game is delivered through slick comic book style cutscenes. The "panes" of each scene appear sequentially as events transpire, complemented by some good voice acting. While it detracts from the immersion factor a bit, it's a very unique approach to the traditional way of presenting cutscenes.

Second only to the plot are the game's graphics. Perhaps it's because I'm running the game on a fairly high-end machine, but I found the game's graphics to be astounding. Not many other games I've played feature such a gritty, convincing atmosphere or minute attention to detail. Some minor tweaks would have been nice, such as the characters moving their lips when they talk during the in-game cutscenes. Overall, though, the graphics are fantastic.

The Bad
Despite being one of the best games I've had the pleasure of playing, it isn't without its flaws. I'm going to echo what the other reviewers on this site have been saying, and point out that there is indeed a great need for bullet time to get through tougher parts of the game. While it's a really cool and unique feature, the game only allows one to have a limited amount of it. With the way I played, I ran into some spots where I didn't have enough bullet time to approach a situation that seriously called for it. I like the idea of limiting bullet time, so it's not heavily over-used by players, but it would have been nice to have more bullet time "ammo."

Other than that, I have no real major complaints. The game got frustratingly tricky in some parts, particularly the garage sequence, but nothing I tore my hair out over.

The Bottom Line
When I first started the game, I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much. I guess I just got tired of all the hype surrounding the MAX-FX engine and Bullet Time. The first third of the game wasn't particularly spectacular (but still really good, nonetheless), which left me doubting whether or not the game was really worth it. Needless to say, when I got further into the game, I saw what makes it so special.

Probably the most notable thing about Max Payne is the slickness and style of the whole package. The way the graphics, storyline, and overall presentation come together makes the game superb. The game has a great plot, great graphics and most importantly, the game is fun. A lot of developers these days forget this critical point. It's nice to see some that haven't.

The bottom line is that Max Payne is without a doubt one of the best shooters to be released, ever. If you're a serious gamer, or a fan of action games, you really owe it to yourself to give it a shot.