Max Payne

Title: Max Payne
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: July 23, 2001
Date Played: 2001
Time Played: 20 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
I remember firing up Max Payne, having no idea what the game was about and being amazed by the smooth gameplay and absolute badassness of Max.

Ive always loved Die Hard movies, and for some reason Max Payne always made me feel like I am playing as John McClain. I dont know what it is, maybe its the smirk that both McClain and Payne share. This game was so innovative, it was perhaps the first 3rd person action game that I actually liked. It was the first time I came to realize that first person shooters werent necessarily always better than these console-like third person perspective ones.

At the time most games ran at 800x600, some even at 640x400, but Max Payne allowed you to crank up that resolution to the maximum your monitor supported, and the amazing thing about it was the fact that the textures instead of looking washed out ended up looking better and better to the point where playing the game at 1280x1024 I was utterly convinced that this is it, we have reached the maximum... there is no way games can look any better. And although some feel that Max's face is cheesy as heck, I felt that it gave him character, plus who cares about what grimace he made, look at him, looooook... he looks like a real person... do you see that? Isnt that amazing?!!??! This was also when games started implementing environmental damage, bullets started chipping walls and leaving realistic looking holes, a new era of gaming was unfolding.

Graphics are not the only thing that made Max Payne stand out, it was the addition of Bullet Time, although the concept was not entirely new, it was seen in The Matrix 2 years prior to the game's release, it was the first time I have seen it in a video game, and oh boy it was a whole new ball game.  Sure bullet time looks sweet in the movie theaters, but this was you who was shooting the rounds, controlling the motions, aiming... nothing ever felt like this before.  In Max Payne you are able to do a jump in any direction and trigger bullet time, it felt so rewarding, and fun. In fact it was so much fun I played the game all the way through several times. Remedy Entertainment (the developer) did such a good job balancing little things like enemy health, the amount of slowdown during bullet time, player animations etc etc, that the whole thing felt perfect.

Story in Max Payne is pretty interesting as well. Death of his wife and hunger for vengeance drive Max Payne to hunt down and kill those who have done him wrong. The levels are laid out and designed well, except for the dream sequence level, which is a love it or hate it type of level. I just know that in 2001 at 16 years of age it freaked me out.

Max Payne is a great game, it is one of my favorite games of all time, it changed my view on 3rd person shooters, showed me how much fun Bullet Time is in video games, and allowed me to be John McClain for several dozen hours. I havent touched it in years (8 years at least), so I can not necessarily recommend it since I have no idea if it aged well. But I think it would be just as enjoyable today as it was back then, and graphically it looked amazing back then, it probably still looks alright. With 3rd game around the corner I would say go for it, grab it off Steam (dont play the down-rezed low framerate console versions) and give it a whirl.