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Review Praetorian (aka Rob Darling)- August 14, 2000
Remedy Entertainment comes screaming out of the gates with their debut and much-anticipated Max Payne. It would appear they've done everything right. There have been jokes floating about the facial expressions of Max Payne floating around cyberspace since the first screenshots of 2001's newest hero were released; try telling that to Remedy now. With gameplay, pacing, plot, and voice acting nailed down to a tee, Remedy's Max Payne is leading the counter-attack of the single player genre, and it's doing it in style. Story A young, New York cop living the American dream: a wife and baby in the suburbs, a promising career ahead, a world of possibility. All this is torn to hell when Max Payne arrives home one night to find pistol-toting junkies in his house. Arriving moments too late, Payne must endure the double torture of having his wife and baby stolen from him in a seemingly senseless crime. Waiting until his family is buried, Payne transfers to DEA and goes undercover to infiltrate the most notorious mafia family in New York City. After three years, he gets his first break- and in the same night the only cop who knew he was a cop was murdered before his eyes, his cover is blown with the mafia, and he becomes a fugitive from the law and an enemy of the mobs. With nothing to lose, Payne sets out to unravel the mystery of the designer drug Valkyr, to avenge his family's death, and to hopefully find some peace. The story unfolds with in-game moments, but shines in its innovative presentation of cutscenes via a "3-d graphic novel". The graphics take a little getting used to, but the surreal effect of the artwork combines extremely well with the voiceovers and filme noire-style writing, both of which deserve high praise. Pushing the limits of drama almost to the edge of "cheese", Max Payne's plot is a dark, well-written piece of narrative riddled with analogies and a resigned sardonic tone that conveys Payne's heavy heart. Pop-culture allusions galore make for a realistic feel to the game- John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat, and The Usual Suspects, among others are alluded to throughout the narrative. The voiceovers are delivered flawlessly, with a semi-gravelly voice that seems out of place only at the very beginning of the story, when Payne is still blissfully unaware of the hell he about to be thrown in. But now I'm knit-picking...
Graphics Engine & Sound Our test system was a far from cutting edge Athlon 700 with an aging and hard-driven GeForce256 behind it, but the game ran near-flawlessly in 1024x768 at 32-bit colour. The only choppiness I ever encountered was in a particularily hellish room that was quite full of (extremely nice looking) fire- if I zoomed in with the sniper rifle in this room, some choppiness managed to work its way into my game. That was the only time... having said that, this game also happens to be gorgeous, with beautifully rendered and widely varying enviroments, excellent animations on both Max and all the AI characters, and a very immersive and complete graphical experience. One of Max Payne's crowing achievements in its graphics engine is the fact that every path of every bullet or piece of buckshot fired is traced by the game's physics engine, instead of a mere "hit or miss" style employed by most games. This is amazing to see in bullet time (see "Camera/Controls" for more on bullet time), as bullets trace their paths past Max, towards enemies, and all over the place in an amazing ballet of metal.
As for the game's sound, "perfect" is the only word that comes to mind. From the chilling, nostalgic music to Max's incredible voice acting to the sound effects for explosions, weapons, et al... From the ambient noise in locales to eavesdropping on unsuspecting baddie AI conversation, Max Payne delivers a complete aural experience.
Weapons The world/Puzzles Max Payne is, for all its glorious level design and plot, a very linear game. There are a few hidden caches of weapons here and there, available to the astute gamer, but for the most part there is only one possible path to take through the game. The "puzzles" are just complicated enough to make you feel as though you've accomplished something when you solve them, but easy enough as to not keep you out of the action for too long. AI Max Payne's enemies aren't too bright, and so the AI doesn't need to be terribly incredible, especially given the linear nature of the game. Having said that, the enemies succeed very well in giving the illusiion of intelligence, with scripted moments such as a mobster running away to warn friends and await Payne's arrival happening often enough to keep away from the "mindless Rainbow 6" AI syndrome, while still providing plenty of baddies full of (stupid, unwarranted, "last-thing-they'll-ever-do) bravado. They are quite good at "hearing" Max, and so "sneaky" can be a difficult proposal. Who wants to be sneaky, anyway? Controls/Camera The controls are dead simple, and it's amazing how easy it is to execute Max Payne's signature feature, "bullet-time". With a simple mouse-keyboard combination, users can have Max dive left, right, forwards, or backwards. This is great to jump into a room, come out from behind cover during a firefight, avoid a grenade explosion, and essentially dodge bullets. The best part is that the game kicks into a sort of "slo-motion" when Max dives, while still allowing the gamer to aim and fire in near-realtime. While this may seem like "cheating", it definately makes busting out some crazy John-Woo style shit a much more doable entity. I, for one, did not get tired of diving into slow-motion, watching a couple bullets whizz past my shoulders, and emptying a Desert Eagle clip into 3 separate baddies, all of them dead before I hit the floor. The camera is typical 3rd person action adventure, sort of hovering a few feet above and behind Max's head. Particularily annoying is the fact that when backed into a corner, all the gamer can see is the back of Max's head. Many other action adventure games have incorporated an option to make the main character semi-transparent in these situations to avoid that problem, and it's puzzling as to why Remedy left it out. Furthering the "action movie" feel of Max Payne, certain baddies are scripted to die in slow-motion, with the camera doing a 360 degree rotation around them. Particularily satisfying was the discovery that I could keep shooting during this time, which made for some extra-cool slow motion deaths.
Difficulty / Replay value The biggest complaint out of the gaming community seems to be on the length of Max Payne. I will admit that I finished the game on its standard difficulty level in about 15 hours of play, which isn't really alot. The games standard difficulty (the only one available until you beat it once) claims to be able to react with you, and make things harder when you're doing well and easier when you're doing poorly, but I was able to essentially breeze through the worst they could throw at me. Beating the game at its standard difficulty unlocks the second hardest level, as well as "New York Minute" mode, in which you only have a certain time limit to finish each level. The second difficulty is very challenging, and I can only imagine that the hardest is near-impossible. Although after beating the game once, the burning desire to finish it again is somehow missing. I attribute this to the game's stellar story, to which you already know every twist and turn, and so are less drawn to religiously keep playing. However, even at 15 hours of gameplay, that 15 hours is so well-polished and so genuinely fun that the game is well worth the purchase price. An interesting and decidedly smart move by Remedy was to package an incredibly easy to use level editor with Max Payne, which should add greatly to future replay value. They are actively embracing the mod community as well, and although there is no multiplayer capabilities (bullet - time would be impossible), there are definately some bright spots on the horizon if mod makers can stick it out in a single player world.
Max Payne is one of the most flawlessly crafted, well-written, polished-to-perfection gameplaying experiences I've ever had. For the pure fun value, this game has got it all, and is easily the best release of 2001. It's a testament to Remedy's debut title that in a time of multiplayer-madness, they could put together a single-player third person game that has captured every gamer to have touched it and not let them go until the game's completion. In this time of diversity, many gamers don't have the time to dedicate to a Final Fantasy-esque epic of a single player experience; Max Payne delivers flawless and perfectly-paced gameplay from start to finsih- no filler, no bull, no mindless time consuming puzzles to make the game seem longer. If you don't have this game, what the hell are you waiting for?
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