Guest Review 3 - Max Payne

Now, before you fill my e-mail with angst filled letters complaining how I’m about to tear a hole into one of your precious chosen ones, I am quite aware that max payne is, indeed, a good game. In fact, when it comes to "murderous heavenly justice upon all crooks" entertainment, this little piece of art comes only seconds to its successor, max payne 2. So yes, my previous tirade about how it’s a "shitty game" was a bit unfair, but remarkable enough to catch your attention and fill your cute little eyes with teary beads of hatred. Well, who am I kidding, you’re probably the only person reading this and you’ve probably never heard of the game anyway, so please, just humor me and pretend to be a little mad so I can at least feel accomplished about my rebellious ways. 

All that pity you felt at how poor my paint skills were has now been replaced with tremendous fury.

What makes it a good game you ask? Besides the fact that it’s one of the best action games ever made, forever marking the genre and even reinventing it with new mechanics (such as the "bullet time mode" which every regurgitated action game nowadays seems to abuse and mark it as a novelty) and having one of the most solid narratives you could probably see in an action/3rd person shooter game, I don’t think there’s anything else. You know why? Because there doesn’t need to be anything else. What can I say, I’m a simple person. Distinction and superiority over every other fast action game is enough for me. 

Gameplay:

Level starts, get guns, shoot baddies, and beat level, simple enough? Well, actually, there’s more to it than that. The base of it is that it plays like a fast 3rd person action game with a few gimmicks like hinted before, but the game will never tire you down due to the amount of different situations and challenges that you have to face. And since every new situation and challenge is based around the plot of the game itself (before you fling your common sense at me, saying that, obviously, every game should be like that, I welcome you to play 70% of the current action games on the market, where you’ll be saving sheep from the wolf, while the red riding hood is being raped by the real villain, the hunter. And then they’ll come around saying the game has more than 160 hours of gameplay, well, congratulations, if I put the game on pause and drool at the screen, I can make that game have an infinite amount of gameplay hours), you’ll always be hyped over what happens next and who you’ll be facing on your next showdown. 

It seems breakdancing was removed from the final version of the game due to crashing issues.

There’s also enough weaponry to last over the entire game, and also an adequate amount of "painkillers" (the med pack version of max payne, also a pun at his second name, har har, I wish I could be as witty as you) to make the game challenging enough without giving you a sudden break of "Mr. Hide" symptoms, causing you to fling your keyboard at your cat. And believe me; I didn’t use the word "challenge" enough times during this review. This game will love you tenderly if you give it a chance. While the A.I. isn’t anything spectacular, the way the goons are always on the right spot and sometimes manage to empty their entire Uzi clips on your left eye socket will make you smirk as you watch the "game over" sequence. So caution is advised at beginners (not too much caution of course, this is an action game for Christ’s sake, go play a rpg if you’re too nervous) as well as an adequate use of the Godlike gift from developers that is the "Quicksave" utility. You’ll also get help from the "bullet time mode", which makes time slowdown so you can properly fire a decent amount of bullets at the baddies before they can even scream your name, and is charged each time you kill an enemy. 

So yeah, by now this seems to be a pretty solid title concerning gameplay mechanics, so can we be in the presence of what we can call "perfection"? Of course not, what are you, 11? You must’ve had enough disappointments by now to realize that there’s no such thing in life as perfection, so where’s the catch? Well, first, if you’re a beginner in this game, I’ll give you some premeditated instructions. There’s ALWAYS someone behind a door, and since the only way to open doors in this game is to run into them, you’ll always be caught off guard if you go in flinging your top hat with one hand and a cane with the other. 

Expect to find this every time you open a door.

Also, some parts in this game will need some trial and error to get it right (I’m looking at you mansion!), so don’t get frustrated, if you die, just quickload, memorize where the baddies are, then fill their mouths with delicious 9mm Vicodin pills. My second rant is that, like always, everything that is too good will finish too fast (Yes, I’m a member of the proud group of "Premature ejaculators", I try to compensate by always volunteering for a "sex tag team" with their sisters, where she can replace me when I’m done, but they end up frowning down upon my idea. Go figure.), but at least its 5 hours of intense gun shooting stravangaza, where you’ll walk away with a smile in the end (Unlike sex, again).

Plot:

Now, let’s all be fair, it’s not like this is the next Dostoyevsky’s "Crime and Punishment". But it’s not really about what the plot is, but more about how the plot is unfolded for the player. The tale itself is of vengeance; Max Payne’s wife and daughter are killed by a bunch of chem. addicted buddies and he spends the next years working undercover to uncover who was behind this attack, as well as who is the real mastermind behind the drug "Valkyrie". When he’s about to meet a call from his associate, all hell breaks loose and he ends up going on a frenzied attack against everyone he thinks might be involved. So yes, even your common Steven Siegel action flick could cover this last description, but, like I mentioned, it’s really more about the presentation and the universe where the act plays, than the story itself. 

This actually seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe if I could just find someone to fund it...

The plot is presented in a cartoony noiresque amount of panels that besides making the game look sexy as hell, really drag down the player upon the torment that Max is feeling and how he copes with all the current situations fling at his face. You can also interact with several objects during gameplay that will explain several details about the plot and its characters (presented with the same panels mentioned above, of course). Oh, right, the characters. Every single one of them, from the ugliest goon to the final criminal mastermind are really charming (you can sometimes hear the baddies discussing an everyday subject within themselves, like how a girlfriend left one of them, and you can’t help but feel pitty during those 4 seconds between your outburst of violence and their consequential demise) and if you can’t at least grin at one of them, you’re either a cold hearted killer, a weeaboo who only laughs at glorious Nippon anime and Disgaea or probably both. 

Warning: Weaboos might find it offensive that someone decided to color the pictures in this comic.

Graphics:

If you’re reading this section for anything other than mere curiosity or in hopes that I suddenly feel the urge to divulge the cure for AIDS, then you’re a gigantic faggot. No, seriously, the game was made in 2001; take a guess at how the graphics will look like? But even though they’re old, they’re still quite good even at today’s standards (Unless you count cruise boat navigation lights directly aimed at your globes and 100 different types of the color "brown" as good graphics.). Still, I have to use this section for something don’t I? Well, there actually is something hilarious about the textures in this game, mainly the faces of the protagonists (both max payne and the enemies). If you still haven’t seen them, then please, by all means, take a seat right here as I guide you through: 

The Top Three Faces of Dementia

Number 3

It’s a well know fact that whenever you trip on tomato juice, you’ll end up with Beelzebub in your body. And yes, I actually thought he was standing up again after being shot, you weren’t the only one. 

Number 2

I was going to write something hilariously random and out of context, but I really am at loss of words to describe what’s going on here.

Number 1

Just look at him, isn’t he the cutest constipated vigilante with a vendetta you’ve ever seen? I’ll really never understand why they modded his face like that, he really looks like he just had a threesome with his fiancé’s 2 sisters while smoking their father’s pipe. 

The commoners couch;

 

You know what’s funnier than baseless, opinionated and unfundamented criticism? Baseless, opinionated and unfundamented criticism that wasn’t written by me! So please, just go ahead and laugh at all these poor sods whose sad opinions pollute the internet: 

y exact reaction to some of the reviews I read around the internet.

Everyone, stop the presses! Sourav M. at Metacritics has something really important to add about this game! His contribution might just be the revolution the game reviewing community was waiting for! 

Great. 

I really understand how Max P. at Metacritics feels. I mean, it’s not every day one faces it’s first of many disappointments due to previous hyped opinions. And believe me, when one suffers from trisomie 21 like our friend does, finding out that Santa Claus is just really your drunk uncle wearing a fireman’s outfit, will only lead to the first of many depressions. 

All the hype over nothing. This is supposed to be the best game for the PC. Well, it doesn't compare to "Half-Life." 

Tomrock101 at Gamespot complains about pointless killing in an action game and how this game is illogical. Yes, I just showed you the perfect example of how "irony" works on our lives. Maybe I’ll get lucky and this guy will be killed by a lance wielding Dr. Spock, thus, forever marking the concept of "irony" on our language books. 

Review For The Original Max Payne

Good 3 Points

1. Gripping Gameplay
2. Exciting
3. Nice range of weapons


Bad 3 Points

1. Bad Graphics
2. Bloody
3. Pointless Killing

Overall

Not good enough. It didn't wow me. I don't want to play this again. It sucked to be honest. Got boring after a week. Going round shooting people, Not a logical game, A Terrible Illogical game in fact. Its got flaws,glitches and too much blood. Its quite disgusting. 

Eddyking3 at Gamespot marks this game as one of the best shooters of his collection, hinting about how it’s "A game that you can't stop playing. Simply marvelous." He gave it a 1 out of 10. No, seriously, I wish I was joking. Go see it for yourself if you doubt me, I’ll just leave a sample anyway.

Gameplay is fantastic, making it the best 3rd person shooter I've seen. You'll often know where you'll be going, but the games way of making mazes at the prologues can be frustrating. You'll always get yourself to look at a walkthrough to solve them.

Enemies get genuinely harder as the game progresses, shooting and eating up more ammo then eiarlier ones. They evolve to thugs, gangsters, junkies, crime bosses, mercenaries and killer suits; all going to the same objective, to eliminate Max. They don't put up much of a fight first, but later you'll see them using actual military strategy, by ducking, taking cover and diving. 

Conclusion:

 
Let me guess, you just skipped the entire review up until the conclusion and now you want to see the final verdict, don’t you? Well, I don’t blame you; all I ever see from reviews are the images anyway. Fine, here you go, I won’t give you a score because scores are for idiots who want to pretend to be professional, I’ll just hint you at what you should be doing now instead of reading this: You should be buying it.