shots
| Max Payne 2 PC review | |
| developer | Remedy / Rockstar |
| publisher | 3D Realms |
| author | Marcin |
| date | Oct. 29, 2003 |
| graphics |   |
| sound | |
| gameplay | |
| value | |
| reviewer's toast | |
| overall | |
|
|
Chromehounds
NA Review by Marcin
Oblivion-The First 3 Hours
PC Quicktake by walTer
Comic Quick Takes January 25, 2006
Feature by Mike
While the first Max Payne game was nothing spectacular once you got over its Bullet Time trick, Remedy listened to the complaints and produced the sequel in record time, tweaking, adjusting and improving what the game lacked. Now with improved Bullet Time, clever scripting, a more interesting story, fewer jarring transitions and a few interesting literary devices, the Fall of Max Payne provides a more streamlined shooter experience. The Havok physics engine provides the icing.
Let's start at the end...
Max wakes up in the hospital, half dead, head ringing with the sounds of gunfire and screaming. In other words, situation normal. Tripping through a flashback you enter the story proper, after the facts are ancient history. This immediately establishes the mood for recriminations, brooding, flashbacks, foreshadowing and other over-the-top literary devices mostly seen in Holywood "blockbuster" movies, an effect Petri Jarvilehto (lead producer) and the rest of Remedy were aiming for.
And that's how Max Payne 2's story plays out, like a solidly made action flick where the story is secondary, the bodycount is king, and the conclusion is obvious from the start. Just for kicks, Remedy threw in a bit of gratuitous implied sex, and a lot of heavy breathing, if you like that sort of thing.
Fortunately, you can skip all cutscenes, both the engine and the comic-book style ones. While the drawn figures are of now considerably higher quality and don't look like grinning idiots (Max looks like a particularly tortured-yet-determined Mel Gibson, perhaps from the Signs or Ransom era, Mona looks ... well, very good indeed), the transitions from game to comic book still jar and displaced me - but to each their own. Again, they're fully skippable (thank you, Remedy!).
On with the action
There is a bit more variety in level design this time around. From Max's apartment building to the precinct police station to gang-war-riddled slums, each has a bit more character than the original game's sets, with NPCs and ample television sets blaring out their own mood altering tweaks to the game, enmeshing you further in the surreal. The excellent graphics add to this, with everything (except perhaps the ubiquitous Black Vans, which are awfully blocky) is rendered in perfect detail.
There are a few neat tweaks, such as Max having sidekicks at a few points throughout the story - just make sure they're not directly behind you when the enemy's sighted. They tend to shoot first, wonder about issues like line of fire later. Another one is more assorted NPCs, who react fairly well to changing environments. Turn off a drunk's TV set - he'll mumble "Dass okay, it was a rerun anyway". This and a good bit more make Max's world more reactive.
Added to this is the Havok physics engine's touch - boards and boxes topple and clatter down, bullets knock things from their shelves, and of course bodies tumble convincingly (albeit in an exaggerated manner as well - the physically correct corpse flop wouldn't be as exciting as a shotgun blast flinging someone out the window). There is not much scripted utilization of the physics yet - I can count perhaps two instances of it being used to effect enemy death - but what's there is entertaining. When combined with the gritty texture set and detailed environments, Max Payne's world feels like the most realistic game yet. The liberties taken with the "realistic" weapons only add to the game's allure.
The sound is competent as well, from voice acting to explosions. Once again, some liberties were taken with weapons fire, but it shouldn't jar most players. I did find that the audio placement was imperfect - weapons fire and weapons ricochet seems connected somehow, and often I heard weapons fire right next to me when in fact the wielder was on the other side of the room - it was only the bullets landing next to me. Likewise, TVs and phones (with which you can interact, again) seemed to have misplaced audio sources - try standing a bit away from them for better sound. This persistent annoyance grated.
Finally, there's the much vaunted Bullet Time 2.0. Putting it simply, the more baddies you kill, the slower the world moves for you. This time around though, it's only everyone else who moves slowly - Max runs in normal time, allowing for far more inventiveness and especially fun with explosives. Heck, you could almost play corpse hacky sack if so inclined. To top it off, using jump dodge (shift plus direction key will launch you into a slo-mo dive) uses no actual Bullet Time, giving you that much more to play with.
Action and continuity fans rejoice - there are no more frustrating jumping puzzles overlaid with screamingbaby.wav! While there are a few dream sequences, they are not overly long and have a very low idiocy quotient. Instead, we have a few stages where jumping and quick movement are necessary, but it is tied well into the story and doesn't break up the flow.
Content please!
The game is very short. Even if you watch all the TV shows (well, you're silly as they're all one-shot-funnies, but besides that) you probably won't be able to squeeze out more than 8 hours of gameplay. Once you've completed the game, there isn't really much reason to play again except to ... play again. On a harder level.
Alternately you can fire up the Dead Man Walking mode, a neat, Crimsonland-like setup where you're placed on a stage with enemies warping in, and you try to survive. Ample bullet time combined with instant heal (unlike in the game, where the painkillers take time to heal you) means a certain amount of fun, but there's only so long you can do this as well. Remedy has already released two new DMW levels however, so it may be that even more is in the works - a concession by the team that the game is short, perhaps?
Verdict
Max Payne 2 is what the first game should have been - a well constructed, flowing (if you ignore the comic cutscenes) game with varied challenges and obstacles, and a couple of memorable characters. There is evident care taken into level design, and a few interesting tweaks (apart from the usual "Let's take all your guns away" plot devices) that alter your gameplay from the norm. For a pleasant blastfest and an opportunity to mess about with the Havok physics, Max Payne 2 is a decent game. Just make sure you get it cheap, so you're not gnashing your teeth 10 hours later.