Max Payne was one of the best third-person shooters the PC world has come to know. The original featured revolutionary, highly-acclaimed "bullet-time" technology that was slightly reminiscent of The Matrix, but it was so damn fun that it was better than the movie's. Following up the huge success of the original game, Rockstar Games returns from its ventures into the Grand Theft Auto series to bring us Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.
This game was highly-anticipated in the gaming community, but it arrived late on the scene at this year's E3. Despite its lack of punctuality at the show, it was definitely a featured game and people flocked to see its demos and trailers.
One of the things gamers loved about the original MP was its riveting story line that is so rarely seen in games nowadays. Rockstar definitely does not leave Max Payne 2 without a story line, and I think you'll be quite impressed with the plot.
This game of epic proportions brings gamers back into the world of one of the most bad-ass guys I know: Max Payne.
The graphics in this game are simply remarkable. One of the things that surprised me the most about the game was its ability to run on a pretty average PC. I tested this game on two computers. The first, a Pentium 4 at 2.5 GHz with a Radeon 9800 graphics card, ran the game absolutely flawlessly; the details were crisp, clear, and just absolutely beautiful. When I tested the game on a lower end PC (900 MHz Pentium 3 with a GeForce 2 video card), I expected it to run poorly. Well, it turns out the system did just fine, with just a few minor aliasing problems and choppy moments of gameplay.
Max looks ten times better than he did in the first game. His coat now flows realistically when he moves. Rain falls in many levels of the game, adding an even darker nature to Max's already dark aura. The game is exceedingly aesthetically pleasing, and it really brings the gritty atmosphere of Max closer to the player.
The game is based around its spellbinding storyline, and movie-like cinematics are frequent at the beginning and end of each "chapter" of the game. These scenes are absolutely gorgeous, bringing the suspense of the story into a visual, eye-appealing form and helping to complement the storyline and supplement its uneasiness. There are also comic book-like prologues and epilogues beginning and ending each chapter. These are artistic sketches which are often dark and desperate-looking. However, it is really these that help to convey the story, and they are crucial to the game's plot.
The in-game graphics are also unbelievable. It is the bullet-time feature that really makes this game work, and it is one of the coolest-looking things in any video game to date. You can really see the bullets flying away from you and towards you, allowing you to quickly dodge them in a Matrix-style fashion. Rockstar has given the player more control while in "bullet-time mode" by making the action a bit slower and more precise. In addition, the shoot-dodge move also allows Max to dive forwards, backwards, or to either side and lay out an entire clip of ammo into a room full of enemies, and is one of the prettiest things in the game.
The negative aspects of the visuals are not always apparent and rarely occur, but they do exist. Seldom are there any bugs, but every once in a while there would be some problems with the aliasing. Also, on a lower-end system, the visuals can be a bit choppy and frame rate slow down is highly-apparent. However, glitches in this game's visuals are very hard to come by.
Max Payne 2's audio is usually very good. Max's narration of the comic strip scenes is all it needs to be, and it definitely shouldn't be anything more. There isn't much music in the game, except for at the main menu. The firing of guns comes out to be pretty true to their real-life counterparts. Your enemies yell instructions to each other and sometimes even taunt you, making the game feel even more realistic - if the action of Max Payne 2 was really possible, that is.
The voice acting is very good in this game. Many of the cinematics have realistic acting that could be found in many movies and contain quite a bit of expression. It actually sounds like the actors put a lot of effort into accurately conveying the characters as they saw fit. Max and his new "semi-lover," Mona, also narrate during the gameplay. This narration really helps to put the gamer into the shoes of Max, showing his thoughts as he progresses throughout the game.
The only problem with some of the scenes with voice acting is that the mouths and faces sometimes don't really match up realistically with the speech of the person. Sometimes these characters appear as stiff, but it's really something that is ignored, and doesn't play a huge part in debasing your Max Payne experience.
It is the gameplay where Max Payne 2 really shines. The enhanced bullet-time system is the defining factor in the success of this game, as it makes Max all the more badass and makes playing the game all the more fun. The "shoot-dodge" move is also bullet-time based, and it allows the player to dive in any direction and shoot enemies with any gun. However, it would have been nice to have the ability to throw grenades and Molotov cocktails while in the bullet-time mode.
Rockstar also integrates the fairly new rag doll physics technology, which allows dead bodies to fall to the ground realistically. There's nothing more satisfying than sending a foe hurtling off a five-story building and seeing them land at the bottom with a crunch. This engine also enables the entire environment to react accurately. For instance, if you run into a group of boxes, they fall and scatter like they really would in real life. The only problem with this engine in this game is that nothing in the environments break apart. They might fall or scatter accurately, but without this crucial feature, it leaves things feeling a bit strange. However, as a whole, this engine seems to me to be very critical in shaping the success of Max Payne 2.
As for the storyline, I would say that it is probably one of the best I have seen in any video game. Rockstar calls this game a "film noir love story," and for good reason. You often hear all of Max's thoughts about his new lover, Mona Sax, and the game is based around "the Adventures of Max and Mona." Don't ignore this game just because Rockstar says it's a love story. Sure, love is an influence in the decisions of Max, but MP2's story is just as good or better than any action movie's.
The game picks up where the last one left off. Max Payne is an NYPD agent who is often in distressful situations: throughout most of the game, Max is going crazy, and it seems that he has many mental disorders. This sometimes got a bit annoying, hearing Max complain about the "gaping holes" he finds himself in, but Max also says some of the most philosophical and poetic things I have ever heard in a video game.
The storyline really made me want to keep playing the game to find out just what is going to happen next. Also, the surprising ending is something I really loved – but of course, I wouldn't expose it to you.
The controls in Max Payne 2 are very simple, and if you're familiar with any shooters, you'll probably feel right at home with this one. The default setup is the "w-a-s-d" configuration, which provides access to many other keys as well. Pushing down the mouse wheel throws grenades and Molotov cocktails (or allows you to hit an enemy) and shift is the breathtaking shoot-dodge move I mentioned earlier. Right click activates and deactivates bullet-time, and, when activated, your bullet time meter slowly drains.
The difficulty settings for MP2 are unique. You start the game without a choice of difficulty, playing through the game on what is called "Detective." The game decides on how the AI should react according to the skill level of the player. Then, once the game is beaten, most of the other gameplay modes are unlocked. I found this Detective game mode to be creative and extremely useful for giving the player enough challenge and not making the game a breeze. Once the other game types are unlocked, you'll find some other creative modes such as "New York Minute," a game mode which allows players to try and play through the levels in as little time as possible, and "Dead Man Walking" mode, in which you try to keep Max alive as long as possible as enemies spawn constantly. I found this game mode extremely fun and challenging, and an excellent addition to the game itself.
The AI is generally good, except for a few minor flaws. Sometimes you can kill someone and a person nearby won't recognize the gunshots at all. This definitely hurts the game's realism a bit, and should have been fixed. Also, sometimes your enemies kill themselves or each other without the intention of killing them. For instance, sometimes someone might throw a grenade, then continue running straight to the place they threw it, and, through their inanity, slay themselves. This really set my enjoyment of the game back a few notches.
As you've probably heard before, Max Payne 2 is, in essence, a pretty short game. It was fairly easy playing through the game the first time, but the harder difficulties levels make up for this.
Max Payne 2 is exceptionally entertaining. I could go all day and never get tired of "bullet-timing". However, this feature of the game is the only thing that provides the replay value for the game, as there are no multiplayer or online modes, which is quite disappointing.
Max Payne 2 has been one of the best games I have played in a while. However, a few minor flaws keep it from being one of the best games of the year. An AI glitch blemishes the game's nearly-perfect action, scenes where characters are talking sometimes come off as slightly stiff, and the physics could provide a little more depth to the game. Other
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