A while back I had bought Max Payne 3 on super sale for my xbox 360, so I thought it a good idea to go back and play the previous two.  Even though I have the original xbox discs for Max Payne, and Max Payne 2, it seems that the backward compatibility was throwing up some hiccups for the original Max Payne.  Luckily Humble Bundle had it on super sale ($2?) so I got it for steam.

Max is a former NYPD cop, working undercover for the DEA when he gets implicated in a series of crimes; this after he finds his wife and child murdered by junkies (who we later find out were on some new designer drug developed for the US military).  The game starts off at the end, with the cops surrounding Max, and we immediately go into a flashback, 3 months earlier, to see how he got here.  What follows is an adrenaline fueled third person shooter (well, I suppose all shooters are adrenaline fueled).  Having been released in 2001, one of the key mechanics of the game is bullet-time, originally debuted in the film the Matrix.  By enabling bullet-time you are able to shoot more at your enemies, with higher precision, while avoiding their own harmful bullets.  Let me tell you, I used bullet-time a lot, like it was going out of fashion!

The game's graphic are very indicative of 2001.  Wheels on cars don't turn, the character's limbs seem quite weird and disjointed, and the facial closeups just look weird at times (even Max's smug smile!)  The game does have some interesting interludes both between stages and a during the various stages where the story is told in comic-book format (something that I enjoyed). In two of the stages, at the start, Max is drugged, and the first stage is his working through his feelings (I guess) while trying to get the drugs out of his system.  The game seems to break the fourth wall by having voices tease Max that he is just a character in a video game.

The game was pretty fun to play, and in the end (after about 9 hours of play according to Steam), Max gets to take care of business by eliminating the mafia folks that killed his family.  He does get arrested, but the game ends in a smug Max (I am guessing it's a smug smile, since his smiles at time seem like he is constipated) being arrested, but it looks like his undercover operation is known, so he won't be heading to jail.

 

Overall, this was a fun game., despite having the background audio play whenever the heck it felt like playing.  No achievements though since the game predates those. Time to play part 2...

Have you played Max Payne? What do you think?