Max Payne for PlayStation 2

Video Games. Over four years in the making, the highly anticipated Max Payne adds a new aspect of stylistic storytelling to the action-based 3D shooter. The game was developed solely as a single-player adventure and the designers at Finland's Remedy Entertainment focused on creating an experience that would make players care at least as much about the main character as they would about finish times or frag counts. Tried and true devices of pulp fiction and film noir are employed in this computer game, drawing the player into the dark story through gripping motivations of revenge and self- preservation. Technically, Max Payne offers its own brand of state-of-the-art graphics and sound. Detailed, high-resolution environments are deformable, as walls become riddled with bullet holes of various sizes and shreds of paper, plastic, plaster, and tile fall to the ground, each in their own distinctly realistic manners. Admittedly inspired by the cinematic works of John Woo and Sam Peckinpah, the game applies stylistic