Max Payne: Everything Ripped Apart in a New York Minute

Written By Thomas Goodwin

Max Payne, the PC hit from Rockstar Games, has made it to the Playstation 2. This game, famous for introducing "bullet time" to the gaming community, draws the player into the action, giving him the feeling that he actually is Max Payne. With an intense, twisting plot, Max Payne is quite a ride from start to finish.

Max Payne's story is as perfect as though it came from an action movie. Max Payne, a New York cop, comes home one day to find his wife and child murdered by Valkyr addicts. Understanding crime and criminals, Payne realizes that someone powerful is called for his family's murder. Having lost all he cares for, he becomes a DEA operative. All information regarding Payne is changed to depict a life of crime, allowing him to work under cover within the mob. Unfortunately, the plan, at this point, fails. Payne's main contact, Alex, is murdered at a meeting between the two officers. With Alex dead, Payne as the prime suspect, and his cover blown, both the police and the mafia want his head. Max must survive, and ultimately triumph, over his foes.

Max Payne has many great points. The game looks excellent visually, and features terrific sound. The flames, gunshots, bullets, characters, and blood are rendered nearly flawlessly making for an extremely immersive and exciting experience. The weapons are absolutely awesome, my personal favorites being the Desert Eagle and the Jackhammer automatic shotgun. Perhaps one of the greatest aspects of Max Payne's weapon system, however, is the fact that Payne is competitive whether he wields a single Beretta or a Colt Commando. The default controller settings are also good in Max Payne. While they take getting used to, they make plenty of sense and are actually quite effective. With the implementation of Bullet Time, and non-stop action, any Third Person Action game fan will love Max Payne.

Unfortunately, even great games are sometimes flawed, especially when they are ported. Several cosmetic downsides can be found on the Playstation 2 of Max Payne. I could not help but notice the blocky, two-dimensional light emitted by the flood lights found during the bank robbery mission, for instance. Another visual flaw is the lack of any real effect when shooting lights, cameras, or a water machine. I would expect electricity to flow over electrical devices when shot, while water should flow from the water machine when it is fired upon. The greatest flaw, perhaps, is in the key feature of the game, Bullet Time. Unfortunately, during Bullet Time on the Playstation 2, the game world is not sufficiently slowed, causing blurred vision at times. The game, in general, does not seem to play quite as smoothly on the Playstation 2 as I expected, and at time, I experienced less than desirable frame rates.. Another problem with the Playstation 2 version of Max Payne is the lack of a custom controller setting. While the default controls are pretty good, and make perfect sense, each player has his own controller preferences. In this day and age of gaming, there is no excuse for lacking custom controller settings, especially in a third-person action game on a system as powerful as the Playstation 2. If developers are going to develop First Person Shooters and Third Person Action games for the console systems, they really need to start releasing a mouse and a keyboard, or finding a way to support USB versions currently on the market for the PC. The Playstation 2 version also has auto saving, rather than a save feature allowing the player to save as he wishes. I would much prefer being able to save whenever I like. I also experienced some rough load times with the Playstation 2 version of Max Payne as well, which I found to be somewhat irritating. This, combined with small levels, makes for a lot of time lost while merely waiting to play.

Max Payne for the Playstation 2 is an awesome game. The action is non-stop as players become Max Payne on his quest for vengeance. While it does have a few flaws, they are relatively minor and are isolated to the Playstation 2 version of the game. If you can get it for the PC or the X-Box, definitely do that. However, if you have neither of those two systems, get it for your Playstation 2. While not quite as good on this system, the game is still awesome. It is just a little more awesome on the PC or the X-Box.

Publisher   Rockstar Games    Developer   Rockstar Games   Platform   Playstation 2   Genre   Action

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