Max Payne

Max Payne
$19.99
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Max Payne's wife and baby daughter were slain by junkies hopped up on a dangerous new synthetic drug. For three years, Max has worked undercover to find the source of these drugs, and, just when he's almost got it figured out, somebody ices his superior and pins the murder on him. Now it's payback time as Max faces off against the Mob, the police, and much, much worse. Max Payne has jumped from the computer screen to the PlayStation2 and there's going to be hell to pay.

Max Payne uses extremely realistic graphics to showcase a gritty film-noir-inspired New York City. Payne stalks subways, tenements, nightclubs, and even government installations as he takes his vengeance out on a horde of gun-toting bad guys. Taking a page from the visual style of famed director John Woo, as well as The Matrix, Max Payne lets the player launch into a slow-motion mode generally known as "bullet time," which makes dodging enemy fire and dishing out your own return fire a breeze, all while leaping side to side. While this looks extremely cool to do, it also evens the odds and can only be used for limited amounts of time, making it a strategic as well as aesthetic option.

And speaking of aesthetics, the game is packed with exciting moments, weapons, and locations, even if the enemies get a little redundant after a while. The level design ranges from inspired (a multilevel parking garage) to humdrum (a warehouse) and several levels actually take place in the twisted wonderland of the hero's warped psyche. The graphics are state of the art, though admittedly the PlayStation2 doesn't have the power to render them as well as the Xbox or PC, but most people won't notice the difference. The introduction scenes consist of painted photos presented in graphic-novel style, which is a stylistic choice that pays dividends, even though t

♦ Experience a relentless, story-driven game as Max fights for justice while uncovering plot twists and twisted thugs in the gritty bowels of New York during the century’s worst blizzard

♦ Photo-digitized textures, radiosity lighting, hardware T&L and painstaking detail combine to create super-realism

♦ Play It Your Own Way puts the most powerful, easy-to-use game editor ever released in your creative hands

♦ Blood and violence

Visitor comments about Max Payne

“I still think that Max Payne made a connection to the players that no other game has managed to clone to date (maybe because no one has really tried cloning the storytelling of Max Payne, not even Max Payne 2). For one when it came it was the first game to ever feature 100 photo-realistic textures, and it introduced "bullet time" to the world. But what always captured me and made me consider Max Payne to be one of the greatest games ever made was never the bullet time or the (for it's time) fancy graphics. No it was all about how I felt the characters were believable and I found the noir graphic novel style to work, very well. I really saw Max to be a tortured soul doing everything not to go insane. The question if he managed to stay sane or not is debatable especially after the somewhat forgiving beginning of the second game, but then again I am not nominating Max Payne 2.”