Max Payne
February 22, 2002
After a very long dry period, I’ve finally come across a game gritty enough for my taste. 3D Realms’ Max Payne delivers an engaging storyline, well-rendered scenery, and-the best part of the entire game–a first of it’s kind combat mode called ‘bullet time.’
Imagine The Matrix meets Payback meets virtually any John Woo movie (ok, maybe not Broken Arrow) and you’ve got Max Payne. You are a cop who’s been pushed too far. Your family and friends have been murdered, and you’re not sure if the culprits are one of the many crime families in the city, your own agency, or that international terrorism group you’ve been hearing about. To make matters worse, you look sort of like Carson Daily. To be safe, you’d better just put on your leather jacket and kill everyone who gets within five miles of you.
In short, you throw your badge straight out the window and proceed to purge New York City of its less–reputable elements. Taking out mob syndicates by yourself might seem like a daunting task, but you’ve got one thing on your side that the enemy doesn’t-bullet time. This isn’t the easiest thing to express on paper, and the screenshots I took don’t do it justice, but I’ll try:
You barge into a room filled with a half-a-dozen armed thugs. You’ve got only a pair of Berretas between you and them. They’ve got shotguns. It might seem like a lost cause, except that you have the ability to right-click.
Suddenly time slows down. Everyone in the room, including you, is now moving in slow motion, or bullet time. You can actually see the bullets as they leave your gun and cross the room towards their targets (thus, bullet time). Also, for some reason, your heartbeat is now very loud. The single advantage you retain is that-unlike your opponents-you can aim in real time. And this is what puts Max Payne miles beyond any other third-person shooter.
A secondary benefit of bullet time is the bullet-dodge. This is essentially a slow-motion sideways leap. You can still shoot and you’re a harder target.
As far as story goes, it’s just ok. I don’t ordinarily go for games that are 100% linear like this one, but, again, the prospect of gunning people down in slow-motion is what sold the game for me. You do get the chance to overhear some pretty funny conversations between your enemies-I heard one ill-fated gunman telling his partner about how the best action movies used bullet time in the gunfight scenes, and that he’d give anything to be able to do that. I felt obliged to let him experience it before he died.
Told in the form of a graphic novel, the cut-scenes look like comic book clippings, consisting of still-shots of real actors. Also, the narrator really has a thing for bad similes. In fact, he likes them like a… like a… well, worse than anything I can come up with. “The train lit up like a Christmas tree” comes to mind.
It’s amusing to play a cop gone (sort of) bad, but just how bad you are doesn’t seem to have any affect on the game’s outcome. For instance, there are several places where you encounter civilians (mostly junkies), but whether or not you slaughter them or simply listen to their delusional ramblings seems to change nothing.
The other good thing about the game is that it worked well with my PC. The powerful combat engine and slightly above average graphics didn’t faze my aging ATI Rage Fury Max. Load times were acceptable and I never once experienced any lag.
That about sums up Max Payne. If you’re a hardcore role-player, don’t expect this to be another Deus Ex. It isn’t. It’s a shooting game, and you have absolutely no control over the outcome. At the same time, if you’re just looking for a cheap thrill, buy it. If you’re easily amused, like me, bullet time should be more than enough to see you through at least a couple of weeks.
CVG Report CardMax Payne
Developer: Remedy
Publisher: G.O.D. Games
1 Player Game
Genre: Action
Rating: B+
Platform: PC
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