Impressive Mr. Payne, VEEERRRYYY Impressive

I was bored one day, and so I went to Family Video to check out the games(for the millionth time that day). I browsed around the games until I found one last copy of Max Payne sitting on the top shelf. Yay, after months of Hollywood Video and Family Video BOTH not having Max Payne, I finally find a copy that’s not checked out. Anyways, I had heard about Max Payne a lot leading up to before I rented it and how it was such a cool game on the computer.

Plot/Story
The story goes kind of like this: Max Payne is a New York cop. When he comes home from work one day, he comes home from work one day, he comes home to his wife and baby, who were brutally murdered by something and his Nazis. When the cops get to the scene, Max is framed for killing his wife and baby. Now he has to run from the cops as he searchers for his wife and kid’s murderers to clear himself from the charge. The story doesn’t progress like a lot of games do where cut scenes will explain certain events, but is told through like a comic book like series.

Max Payne: Uncovered
Max Payne is a true shooter in itself, with lots of action going on. First of all, you’ll be exploring different buildings, and through the streets of New York to search for you r family’s killers. There are no sci-fi monsters and such in this game, but there are real people(well, that are supposed to look real). You’ve got a health meter, and every time you get hit, you’ll lose health(a common thing in most games). There are painkillers spread throughout the areas, which are used to restore your health.

Max Payne’s Starring role in the hit movie, “The Matrix”
First of all, lets go into what you’ll be using to stop this New York scum. There is a pretty big weapon selection ranging from hand-guns to machine guns. Some weapons include double handguns, single handguns, sticks, grenades, little machine guns, and (need I say this, again) my all-time, ultimate favorite weapon to use in any game, the Shotgun. Also speaking of the shotgun, there’s two different kinds; one’s a sawed-off shotgun, while the other is a regular automatic double barrel shotgun. Like any other game, the shotgun is a very deadly weapon, especially the sawed off shotgun which could blow somebody back 10ft.

Now onto the most important aspect of Max Payne: Slo-mo. Has anybody here seen The Matrix? If you haven’t, go see it now; but if you have, you’ll be familiar with the slo-mo used in Max Payne, and it’s actually a crucial point in the game, as sometimes you have to use slow-mo in a certain area or you’ll die. Anyways, with one top of a button, you’ll go into slo-mo mode, which moves REALLY slow(slow enough to see a bullet flying at you). When you’re in slow mode, you can use a variety of jumping, rolling, diving techniques to dodge bullets, or just to look cool while you blow people away as you’re diving for a door. The technique that I used almost 80% of the time was the dive and roll one, which had you diving, and then rolling at the end. By the way, you have full control of Max when you’re doing the Matrix style maneuvers. My first time playing the game, I didn’t even try passing the stages, I just played around with the slo-mo, just because it was cool.

Like I said before, most of Max Payne is find way to exit, kill anyone who gets in the way, find key to locked door, kill some more people, and then repeat. Ok yea that sounds really boring, but it’s actually not that bad, especially with the John-Woo slo-mo feature. Just that will make this game worth while. Sorry this isn’t that long, but basically all you do in Max Payne is shoot people, find key to unlock door, pass the levels; all the stuff I said at the beginning of this paragraph.

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Graphics
I’ve never played Max Payne’s PC counter-part, so I can’t tell you whether the graphics had to take a big cut due to the PS2’s graphical limits(well, at least to the PC there’s limits). BUT, I know that the graphics are really cool on this game for the PS2. Some(most) of the gun decals are really cool, even though Max Payne is a third person view, but you can always tell what kind of weapon you’re using. The environments are nice and have that kind of grainy look you’d see in a movie like this that deals with homicides, murders, and such things like that.

The first thing a lot of people may notice about Max Payne is how the use of Matrix style effects are activated with the touch of a button and a controls are still available to you(dodging, diving, walking, running, jumping, shooting), only they’re in slo-mo, ala John Woo style. I think the biggest selling point of Max Payne is because this slo-mo effect adds a sort of depth into the game play. Plus it’s just plain cool.

Control
I’ve heard a lot of people complain about how the controls didn’t port well, especially those who had already owned the PC version. But since the PS2 version was my first experience with good ole’ Max Payne, it didn’t bother me at all. You use the analog sticks like a basic FPS set-up, where the right stick is used for looking around, and the left stick is for moving forward, back, and side-stepping left to right.

The camera is good and is usually in the right place(which is usually behind Mr. Payne himself). Controlling Max Payne in slo-mo is the same as controlling him in regular time, only everything is just going a little slower.

Sound
The sounds are all you’d expect from a game like Max Payne, including bullet sounds, guys yelling....you know, the good stuff. Also the voice acting is actually really good and immerses you in the game’s story line.

Overall
Max Payne is an awesome game, whether you get it for PS2, X-Box, or PC...you’ll enjoy it no matter which console you get it for.

~Happy Gaming