Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Moby ID: 10708
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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.

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  • 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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Average score: 86% (based on 59 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 262 ratings with 12 reviews)

More Payne...

The Good
In 2001 Remedy Entertainment gave us Max Payne. A story about a man who was committed of a crime he did not commit, and thus sends sweet vengeance upon the entire New York crime syndicate.

Now a couple of years on the Fall of Max Payne continues this story. Is this just a classy revamp of what we've already seen or a bit more?

STORY Taking straight off from where Max Payne 1 left off - we continue the story of Max Payne. Just fresh from managing to get away with killing pretty much the whole of the New York underground - Max has left the DEA and has joined back with the NYPD.

While investigating a strange group of cleaners - Max runs into a problem - Mona Sax.

While this story purposely takes off many film Noir ideas and themes - it's still quite well done - it flows on smoothly and it's quite engaging.

MENU Very much the same as the last Max Payne - a image of Max and Mona against some rainy backdrop that has had many photoshop filters slapped onto it. Even the loading bar is the same - have I been here before?

CONTROLS Well - they're exactly the same as from the first game. Left Mb you fire, Right Mb for the very funky bullet time WASD for moving and so on. The only little difference is that grenades, melee weapons and molo cocktails are now on a sub class of their own - meaning you just need to select what one you want - then hit F to throw them. I would have preferred a separate key for melee - as it's so fun whacking things.

GRAPHICS Running on a Geforce 2 TI - I had visions of trying to play the Max Payne 1 demo on my aging Celeron 400 with the TNT 2 (it actually ran) But no - what ever stunning optimization tricks the developers used - they used very well. I experienced very little slowdown in the game with everything (bar shadows) on full. I was unable to check out the pretty pixel shaders ...but still.

The texturing along deserves to win an award - I have never seen our world represented in a hyperrealistic way as this game has presented it - it was very scary. Also things like plastic has been very well textured. On a higher system I'd imagine the textures would be a bit better. But nevertheless I was constantly blown away by their very well done application of textures for the game.

The game character models have been greatly improved. No longer does Max look like he's got a hot poker shoved up his arse - but he looks far more realistic. So does other characters - like Mona - who at times bears a passing resemblance to Demmi Moore. Other game characters turned out to be well done - even the henchmen and goons that you fight - while their polycount is lower - they still have plenty of detail on them.

Misc things like bullets and bullet holes are well done - a nice thing to note is firing into metal things - the holes glow orange then slowly fade from the bullet cooling down. Explosions are pretty :D And there's some stunning flame effects in the game. A good example of a pretty explosion is shooting Ammo crates - little bullets fire out everywhere - and there's lots of white flashes as well as a strobe effect for the lighting used in the action - it's very cool. Especially in Bullet time.

HAVOK 2.0 Well the physics engine in this game is worth half the price of admission. It's very well done. Games like Detestation used Havoc - but very poorly - things didn't move about realistically - you would have boxes that would slide through other boxes ....and things like heavy metal barrels would just shoot across the room - so I was a bit curious to see how this would work out.

It worked out better than I could think of. Each level is filled with tons of things to toy with - buckets of paint, planks of wood, explosive barrels and many more things that are fun to play with. My only concern that some things are a bit too easily to topple over - like chairs - you just have to walk into one and it falls over a bit too soon. Rag doll physics are very well done - unlike most other ragdoll attempts - like Ravenshield for example where people died in amusing pretzel positions - the developers had remembered that the human body DOES have a spine in their back. While there's a few weird arm positioning from a person being weirdly draped over various objects - generally it's very well done. The best pose I've seen was a guy who's head was pushed up against a plank of wood - shoving it to the side - giving it a very broken neck appearance.

Animations are very well done - as there's a fair bit of in-game character movement - all appear to be motion captured and shift flawlessly from one pose to another - even with a character in the middle of a dive getting shot seamlessly blends from his dive animation - to the ragdoll taking over and sending them into something.

GAMEPLAY Short version: more of the same. Long version: While the core game play is still there - run and gun in slow mo - this has been expanded on quite a bit. The enemies are a tad smarter and in numbers tend to flank you - if they're not caught by surprise. Bullet time has been given a bit of an upgrade. After shooting so many people down in Bullet time - Max does this Matrix ish slow motion reload spinny thing as well as the camera spinning around him indicating that you've entered "the zone" where things get slower. The downside is that you hardly get enough bad guys to really use this - plus it wears off after a while meaning you have to kill MORE people.

Now and then in some levels you get NPCs to join you. In one level this included a Akimbo Pistol packing Hobo and a Hooker. In some levels you have to protect people. Including one of the main villains who is trapped in a giant Baseball bat boy costume with a bomb stuck in it. Switching genders you also play as Mona - taking an alternate view on a game level and protecting Max with your sniper rifle.

Getting around the levels is a piece of cake - there were probably a few little bits where I had to stop a bit and work out where to go....but most of the time it's very linear. There's some great levels though - like the fun house level for instance and It's hard to find faults in a game like Max Payne 2.

And while the game play is repetitive -there's many little things that make it more detailed - like the goons having conversations, the constantly reoccurring end credit,s found on CDs in Max's apartment and is played on a piano by henchmen. Also the TV shows reappear, and you can follow the story. The two more prominent ones are "Lords and Ladies" - a Soap opera and "Address Unknown" Also right at the start there's the malarious Max Payne Parody "Dick Justice" - which parodies the start scene from Max Payne 1 where his wife gets killed. There are amusing conversations throughout the game as well - giving it a bit more depth than the first game.

And when you've done the game - there's the dead man walking game - where you must get the best time in a series of levels where guards constantly spawn.

The comic books make a reappearance again - but this time with professional actors for a change. Sam Lake still appears on the TV as various characters in the TV shows. Also the mature tone is upped a bit with a sloshing of sexual actions - well it is a love story.

The Bad
The biggest one would have to be - that it's short. Cut out the comic book parts, and the in game cinematic and would probably stop at 8 or so hours...but that's a good thing in a way - the game's length is just right I suppose - there's no filler - it does not end too suddenly and the story is whole and complete.

A friend commented that you get too much of an arsenal at the start of the game - which is true - but I don't really see that being a problem.

Another problem with MP2 is probably that it's suffering a bit from re playability - sure the levels are kick-arse - and I'm enjoying playing through them again - but there's not much else to do in the game.

The Bottom Line
If you're a fan of the first Max Payne - then you'll love this game. If you have not played the first game - then you might feel a bit lost with some aspects of the story. On top of all that - Max Payne is a very well done game in my opinion - it may be short - but it's not lacking substance, depth and fun.

Windows · by Sam Hardy (80) · 2004

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

More than I hoped it would be.

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.

Windows · by Dave Schenet (134) · 2004

[ View all 12 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Need help with retarded ending Indra was here (20756) 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.