Max Payne
Review of Max Payne
Max Payne is a good man living in a very bad world. His identity is a mystery even to himself. What would you expect from a fugitive undercover cop in New York. His story is dark, sad, and twisted. Will the cards dealt to Max defeat him or make him stronger? Will Max seek revenge? You betcha…just like a tornado…so don’t get in his way.
Max’s world crumbled the gloomy day he entered his household and startled the drug addict thugs that just killed his wife and baby. Blood everywhere….on the walls….on the floor, a scream, a babies cry, then dead silence!! To tell you the truth, the opening was very disturbing but there was no turning back at this point. Gameplay now begins; Max needs to take out these bastards. As gameplay progresses the plot thickens. The story is basically told using a Graphical Novel. The novel appears throughout gameplay and introduces new characters, plot twists, and clues that Max will need to uncover. The graphical novel reminded me of a comic strip. The words are displayed in a test box above a still picture. Max tells the story in his own voice, word for word.
Max Payne is not your ordinary shooter style game as it offers so much more. For starters it has a deep storyline (which I described above), unforgiving control, and the new Bullet Time effect. Let me further explain beginning with the unforgiving control. This means gameplay has no tolerance for mistakes or near misses. It has to be the most realistic shooter I have ever played. Just like real life, your aim needs to be “RIGHT ON” in order to take someone out. If you miss….you will most likely get blown away. The player needs to act quickly getting out of the way or start running like hell. There is an option called Auto Aiming and Auto Lock that can be turned on to help the player’s accuracy. This will help the player until they get the hang of things. Believe me you will be blown away quite a few times because it takes some practice to master unless you are a sniper at heart. Bullet Time is a really cool feature. Max has the ability to slow down time. This comes in handy especially when you want to dodge a bullet. Yes, its kind of like the effects used in the MATRIX, who would think we would see this stuff in games? Anyway, using the Bullet time aid can really impact how well you do in the game especially in those freaking tight spots like a bunch of enemies attacking at once, so get used to using this feature.
Max cannot beat his enemies with his good looks so he has some cool weapons to assist him. Eventually, he will have about 15 different type weapons at his disposal. To name a few he has a Beretta – 9 mm semi automatic handgun, a 12 gauge pump-action shotgun, a Desert Eagle-a high power handgun that is extremely accurate, and a Molotov Cocktail – glass bottle filled with deadly liquid. Enemies really dislike the taste of this cocktail…hehe! Max after all is human so he feels pain. As his pain meter rises, Max will slow down and even limp. It is time to pop a PERC…well it is some kind of pain-killer (good shit I imagine) because he perks right up after popping a few. You can even hear crunching sounds when he pops it…this cracked me up.
MP is a nice looking game and also has some decent sound effects. The scenery is dark but so is the story. The characters are nicely animated but the frame rate seems to drag a little. The loading times are also extremely slow which really upsets me because there is no reason for it. As far as sound goes, the voice acting is great and the guns shooting off, bullets ricocheting, etc. is done real well.
OUR PLEDGE: We promise that we have fully played 'Max Payne' before writing this review. The scores given above are our honest opinion and were not influenced in any way by the manufacturer or distributor of the game.
This review was written by Loretta Mattie © Absolute PlayStation
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