Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is one of the best games of the year, and one that any shooter fan worth his or her salt must play.
Back when Max Payne first came out, it was an instant success – millions of copies were sold, and with good reason – the innovative bullet time feature, gritty film-noir plot, and balls-out action gameplay all added up to one of the best games to ever grace the hard drive of a computer. Still, for all its goodness, Max Payne wasn't perfect – platforming sequences and chases through exploding buildings added up to a game that was 90% fun, and 10% frustration. Max Payne 2 improves on its predecessor not by reinventing the wheel, but by perfecting what made the first game great, and removing what made it tedious at points.
Fresh off his confrontation with the evil corporation that killed his family, Max has returned to work for the NYPD. After a (quite shapely) figure from Max's past shows up at a routine shots fired call in a warehouse, things once again spiral out of control for our favorite anti-hero detective. I won't reveal any plot details here, but you'll find things out for yourself soon enough, as Max 2's plot moves along much more quickly than that of the original, despite being based around a much smaller cast of characters.
Like the gritty tone, the first game's gameplay remains intact in the sequel, yet new and improved for increased performance. There are now increasing levels of bullet time that accumulate as you kill enemies in a short period of time, as well as the ability to equip both a primary weapon and a grenade. Max's arsenal also seems to have been fine tuned for the sequel, as many of the new additions utilize scopes which can be rapidly toggled on and off in the middle of a shootdodge. These new tweaks are extremely satisfying in practice, as there are few things more satisfying than going into bullet time, executing a shootdodge, turning on your scope, picking off 3-4 enemies, and then landing behind cover; all without getting hit.
Though the developers spent a lot of time tweaking the gameplay details, Max Payne's trademark presentation has not been neglected. Bullet time is now marked by a sepia overtone and very cool Terminator-style reloads for shotguns and rifles. There are more parody TV shows to be found than in the original, all of them amusing, if not laugh-out-loud hilarious. And while they won't be competing with any of the big name FPS titles soon to be released, the visuals have received a massive overhaul in comparison to the first game. This is particularly evident in the physics, which are some of the most impressive – and destructible – to date.
Perhaps the biggest improvement over Max I is the level design – while some levels in the original were very contrived in their designs, most if not all the environments in The Fall of Max Payne have a natural feel to them. There are dream sequences, but no jumping on wires within them. There is a requisite escape-the-burning-building level, but this time around, the explosions are scripted, rather than chasing you for the entire duration. It may not seem like much on paper, but once you start playing, you will appreciate just how much tighter Max Payne 2 is from a design perspective.
Unfortunately, this also leads to the game's quintessential flaw – it's short. Very short. Shorter than the first game, which was no marathon to begin with. I beat Max Payne 2 in one seven hour marathon, give or take. Granted, it was among the best seven hours of gaming I've experienced all year, but still – seven hours?
Regardless, the game does possess multiple modes for you to unlock after completing the game, as well as the promise of future single player modifications by the community. Despite the so-short-don't-blink-you-may-miss-it length, Max Payne 2 is nothing short of a non-stop downpour of bullets that is over way too soon. Don't pass this one up for any reason.
-George
Create an Account
Member Login
