OK well, its time for another review, this time I'm going for a video game, and the game of choice this time is the classic third-person shooter, Max Payne, which was released back in 2001, and became a top seller, as well being critically acclaimed for its stylish noir-esque visuals and its gumshoe type narration. So let's have a looksee at it....
The story begins back in the year 1998 with NYPD detective Max Payne (voiced by James McCaffrey) arriving at his home to find his wife and baby have both been brutally murdered by junkies. After the funeral, Max decides to transfer to the DEA to stop the spreading of a new drug that is on the go, Valkyr (which the junkies were on when they killed Max's wife and child). The story cuts to three years later when Max is working as an undercover agent inside the Puchninello Mafia family, who are responsible for trafficking the drug Valkyr. Max receives a call to meet one of his fellow DEA agents at a subway station in New York, where Max get's tangled in a shootout with some mobsters. Max soon after meets with his best friend, Alex, who is a DEA agent, who tells him there is a mole inside the Punchinello crime family, however without warning, Alex is suddenly killed by an unknown assassin. Max is left to the fight off the remaining mobsters in the subway station and eventually makes his way out onto the streets. By this time, the mob have gathered that he is an undercover cop, and they use him as a fall guy for Alex's murder, which also makes him a fugitive from the cops. And from here it get's much more complicated as Max get's further entangled in a plot that sees him fight the mob, as well as try and uncover who was behind the hit on his family.
Max Payne was without a doubt a bit of landmark in terms of gaming, as graphically it was one of the most stunning games of its time, with high resolution background environments, and Max Payne's near photo-realistic face (despite the fact its just that one smug expression!). It also was the first game to use the bullet time effect, which was popularised in the Matrix films, and its style also lends heavily toward the look of John Woo action films, the Hong Kong action film director. The gameplay mechanics are also quite simple as Max simply runs around, leaping, crouching, opening doors, as well as diving to the ground in slow motion when he goes into bullet time mode, where time slows down and Max takes advantage of that to take out his enemies. The game also makes more than just a passing nod to the Matrix films, as we see in one of the later levels where Max enters the lobby of the Aesir corporation building, it resembles the lobby scene in the Matrix film. The Aesir corporation baddies even look like the agents from the Matrix as well, so its safe to say that they were paying a bit of homage to the popular sci-fi trilogy.
Gameplay wise things are pretty simple in Max Payne, its simply just a case of run, point and shoot. What is pretty impressive along side the use of the bullet time effect, is also the array of weapons on display that Max can use. In the game Max can use single or dual berretas, a desert eagle, shotguns, sawn-off shotguns, single or dual ingram uzis, grenade launchers and of course heavy assault rifles. Max can also use melee weapons such as a crowbar or a baseball bat (which he has a rather unpleasant encounter with later in the game) as well as explosive items such as grenades and molotov cocktails. So you will never be short of a weapon in the game (or of ammo for that matter either!).
On the acting front (or voice acting front) the cast are all excellent, even though they are mostly unknowns. But James McCaffrey puts in a great performance as Max Payne, as he delivers all his lines in a real deadpan manner, and plays Payne as the perfect anti-hero, who always has a quip to hand when he enters a room of bad guys, one of which is after he guns down some bad guys in a bank vault, he answers the phone "We come to you live from the crime scene!". The dialogue also is written very much in the style of a crime noir thriller, which is brilliantly conveyed in its numerous cut scenes, which are done in the style of a comic book. The supporting voice actors also provide quite a few moments of amusement throughout, especially the mobsters who have inept conversations with one another such as "If I was a vampire I would move to the North pole, where its just one big long dark night!". Also rather amunsingly there is a scene in the game where Max forces one of the mob guys to get him inside the mobsters launderette, and the man at the door asks him "what's the password? John who????", and the other mobster says "alright, alright, John WOO!!".
There are also other amusing moments in the game with the baddies chatting about stuff such as their favourite movie endings "Butch and Sundance, now that's an ending!" says one of them, and the other says "never heard of it!". And the game also get's a bit self referential as in one scene in the game where two of the Aesir bodyguards (dressed like agents from the Matrix) talk about a cool video game effect called bullet time, and how cool it would be if they could do that for real, just before Max goes into bullet time mode to shoot them!
The game however isn't without its flaws, as for starters while it still looks impressive graphically for its time, 3D gaming definitely has moved on alot since then. And while the environments are pretty much 3D, Max's movement feels almost like 2D as the static camera angle only let's you see him run from behind and you can't turn the camera 180 degrees to see him from the front. The movement also feels a bit clunky too, as it is all too easy to let Max run side to side at weird angles, as well as the way he keeps moving when he hits a wall (a problem many of yesteryear games suffer from such as Tomb Raider etc). And worst of all when Max moves its hard to keep him in a straight line, which is particularly frustrating in scenes where Max may have to walk over a high up walkway, or planks of wood high up, as if you nudge the controls the wrong way, Max will fall to his death.
Also another criticism that can be aimed at it are the character models, as their faces are just static photo-realistic shots of people, and their lack of animated facial expressions for the characters models is a bit of a letdown. You also see when you are fighting the baddies they also move awkwardly from side to side, and there is no natural movement to them in the game either. You could also argue in regards to Max's health in the game, that regularly necking down painkillers to help him when his health bar goes down, isn't a good idea, as surely he might at some point overdose, and in the short term is nearly just a lethal to him as getting shot!
But despite all that Max Payne is a really entertaining third person shooter and to this day it is still great fun to play. The game also benefits from a really good atmospheric score, written by Kartsy Hatakka and Kimmo Kajasto, which resembles the type of cop thriller music you would get in such a film of the time. And if you enjoy shooting bad guys in cool slow-mo, and blowing shit up, then this game is definitely for you (and if you are a fan TPS fan, and haven't played it yet, where have you been???????!).
So I will leave it there the now.
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