Max Payne 2 has been a long awaited game for me, as I loved the first one, which took me by surprise. This sequel continues the story of our shoot first and ask questions later cop. We pick up shortly after the first Max Payne, with Max in the hospital and once again, trying to understand who is behind all the killings of his loved ones.
The game itself looks great, with the Half-Life 2 engine, it is almost flawless, with very few bugs and extremely realistic surroundings. You are able to interact with almost anything, knock over cans, boxes, ladders, turn televisions on and off and even interact with other characters. This makes the game seem more realistic and pulls you deeper into it. When you see others watching TV, if you shut it off, they get mad, if you shoot at someone your not suppose to, that person (and others) will turn on you and consider you a traitor. The A.I. has also been improved, with characters diving out of the way and hiding behind cars. There are even voice mail messages that you can listen to, other character discussions you can eavesdrop on and TV shows that you can watch, and I don't mean 5 seconds, I mean a good two or three minutes. Also, the game play has been fixed, no more searching for "Bullet Time" replenishments. The Bullet Time refills slowly at all times and there is also two ways to use it: the regular slow down and the action slow down. The action slow down turns the Bullet Time on while you dive and then turns it off at the end. It is a nice feature to have, yet the extra button was hard to place, unless you have an extra button on your mouse. Also, the secondary attack is a great plus. You no longer have to put your gun away to switch to grenades or molotov cocktails, you can set one of these items as the secondary attack and use them instantly between shots.
Some other improvements are the story boards (comic book sequences), which you no longer have to read, but are all spoken (you literally don't have to read one word). Also, some of the story develops in game, with people talking to you as you go along. The characters are introduced as you run into them, which I have always liked. You are also finally able to play as Mona Sax in several chapters and there are some interesting scenarios. The dream sequences are back and so are the fire sequences, but there is also one where you have to protect someone. The one drawback is the length of the game. It contains only three acts with eight chapters in each. Each chapter is pretty short and the game can be beaten in about ten hours (on easy mode). Once you finish the game for the first time, several new modes are unlocked. There are two more difficult story modes, the hardest of which limits you to a certain number of saves in each chapter (the F5 quick save is once again available) and provides a bonus ending not seen in the other difficulty levels. In addition, New York Minute mode gives you one minute to complete a chapter and Dead Man Walking is a survival mode which continuously generates enemies and times how long you can last. Finally, be entering development mode (see FAQs) you can play as any character in the game, over twenty of them.
Although the game is short, it is harder than the first, I remember being able to run through some of the harder levels of Max Payne, however in MP2, you will get killed. Use your bullet time often, especially when entering rooms. You can also take off the auto aim function, which adds to the difficulty.
Overall, I would give the game a 8/10, simply because of it's length. But it was definitely worth the $60Cdn I paid.
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