Article Max Payne Game Review

Max Payne Game Review

Set in the dirty, dank, dark city of New York, the game effortlessly captures the city during a time when the mafia was king. Not only does the story intrigue you but the way it has been told in a film-noir, old detective style very reminiscent of hahahaha Tracy holds your attention throughout. You are Max Payne a New York City undercover cop who is traumatized by the execution style murder of his wife and baby. This is a dominant theme throughout the game as you embark on a journey of revenge, love, betrayal, and finally the truth.

The cut-scenes aren’t your standard pixellated videos with bad graphics, knowing the limitations of the time and to add the element of a shadow on Max’s life they have been beautifully shown in comic book style, inter spaced with a few but thankfully far between normal cut scenes. The text is read out mostly in a monologue by Max, who conveys the impression of a tortured soul and his thirst for revenge effortlessly. The other characters are also described in detail making them very real almost willing you to kill them on Max’s behalf.

Fun Factor

This game is oodles of fun. From the stage to stage killing the bad guys and finding out more about what actually happened the night Max’s family was murdered the game holds you completely. The “bullet time” feature in the game is one of the highlights as not only do you have a mighty arsenal to choose from but also the delight to see the damage they can do in slow motion. The world slows down; Max’s heartbeat can be heard while bullets whiz past him leaving a trail of displaced air in their wake. Sounds get muted making the whole scene surreal and highly enjoyable as you dodge bullets and fire a burst of lethal lead into your attackers. There isn’t a slow moment in this game its fast paced action all the way.

After passing all the missions on either easy difficult or hard new options are given to the user for eg. ‘New York Minute’ where you are given a minute to finish the levels adding precious seconds by wasting enemies in your path. Or another where not only are you more vulnerable but the thugs/goons become even tougher.

Control and Gameplay

The controls are fairly simple. The mouse is used to aim and shoot whereas the arrow keys are used to move Max around. The camera right behind Max gives a good view of what is going-on. The a.i. is good; if you don’t shoot fast it may just be you who ends up sleeping with the fishes, even in “bullet time”. All the bad guys in Max Payne do a great job. You may be able to sneak up on them before they notice you, otherwise in battle, they'll take cover when possible, they'll toss grenades to flush you out or they'll flank you.

The Bullet time

They're consistently challenging and fun to fight and you'll find that their intelligent behavior will always keep you on your toes. Much to my surprise the game uses a system that dynamically scales the difficulty of encounters depending on your performance. You might not initially notice this, but you'll notice that though the fighting isn't easy, it isn't impossible either. Instead of clichéd med-packs or med-kits Max Payne features a different more human perspective, “Painkillers”, they can be eaten at anytime during the game to heal you from all those darn bullet wounds

Graphics

The graphics are very good for the time. The blood clouds that burst forth when your bullet hits one of the baddies is detailed and after a couple of bullets to the torso he lays their sprawled like a store mannequin though with no visible damage. Everything is visually stunning though there are some places where a few objects may look blocky or a character may look like he doesn’t have a suitable expression, but you only notice this because the rest of the game is so good. A hand comes through a box behind which a goon is hiding, it’s a little thing like that which stops Max Payne from looking completely real. You can manipulate most scenery objects in the game--flush toilets, turn on televisions, and so on--and at the very least, you can pump bullets into virtually everything.

The result of a shootout in Max Payne is often quite impressive, as countless empty shell casings, empty clips, bullet holes, debris, and dead bodies cover the scene. Sometimes things are so real you even feel like it should work but feel disappointed when it doesn’t. After a few levels you begin to differentiate which doors/cupboards can be opened and which can’t.


Sound & Re-playability

The sounds are all well suited to the game. Though the bad guys have only a couple of death knells the rest of the game environment has a lot of work put into them. The different sounds of the multitude of weapons in the game, the carnage of a grenade or the screams of people burning in the fire of a Molotov cocktail. Street sounds of cats and overturned garbage cans, glass breaking in the distance or even when you shoot a window in front of you, the characteristic sound of painkillers in their cases all adds a different sense of realism to the game. The actors sound forced during the first hour of the game but as the story unfolds you realize that they fit in perfectly with the theme that the creators are going for.

The game isn’t very long, a total of 10-15 hrs of action from beginning to end which seems much shorter as the game is fast-paced. This makes Max Payne very re-playable to see if you can finish the other modes with their various challenges. In the end Max Payne delivers a complete package of action, adventure, mystery and intrigue laced with a large dose of automatic weapons and grenades and an even larger army of thugs, goons and crooked cops to use them on.

Finally, the last words - even though Maxpayne is a really old game, it still is a fun game to play if you haven't played it yet.


Genre: Third-Person Shooter/Action/Adventure/Graphic Novel
Platforms: PC, Xbox, PS2
Publisher: Remedy
System Requirements: 700 MHz Intel Pentium III Processor 128 MB RAM 32 MB Direct3D Compatible Graphics Card DirectX 8.0 and a DirectSound compatible sound card are required as well,basically even a low end PC today will run Max Payne.
Price: Currently about 200-300Rs