Max Payne (video game)
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| ♥ | This article is dedicated to James McCaffrey, the voice actor of Max Payne, who died from multiple myeloma at his home in Larchmont, New York, on December 17, 2023, at the age of 65. (March 27, 1958 – December 17, 2023) |
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 One thing you can count on: You push a man too far, and sooner or later he'll start pushing back.
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Max Payne is a third-person shooter video game released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, MacOS X, Game Boy Advance, iOS, and Android. The game was developed by Remedy Entertainment. While the Windows version was published by Gathering of Developers, Rockstar Games published it on other platforms. A Dreamcast version of the game was also planned but got canceled due to the discontinuation of the console.
Plot
The game centers on former NYPD detective Max Payne, who attempts to solve the murder of his family while investigating a drug trafficking case involving a mysterious new designer drug called "Valkyr". While doing so, Max becomes entangled in a large and complex conspiracy, involving a major pharmaceutical company, organized crime, a secret society, and the U.S. military.
Why It Rocks
- It was one of the first games to feature the bullet-time effect popularized by The Matrix. When triggered, time is slowed down to such an extent that the speed at which bullets and other projectiles move is slow enough to be seen by the naked eye. Although Max's movement is also slowed, the player is still able to move and react in real-time, allowing them more time to plan and react to enemies. This is something that would later be used in other shooters like Chaser, F.E.A.R. and Red Dead Redemption.
- Max Payne is a tragic but badass character with a lot of quotable lines. Most of the quotes became a meme
- "One thing you can count on: You push a man too far, and sooner or later he'll start pushing back."
- Great voice acting especially James McCaffery as Max.
- The game has Dynamic Difficulty. Depending on how well the player is doing, the game will adjust the level of aim assist and enemy health, adding more of a challenge if you're doing well and giving you a bit of a break if doing badly. This is disabled on Hard Boiled and Dead On Arrival difficulties, which permalock them to the hardest levels.
- Amazing graphics for 2001 standards that still aged great to this day, it accurately recreates certain real locations from New York like the Subway.
- The game has a more primal version of motion capture as the faces of characters will change emotion via using pictures of the actor's faces.
- For cutscenes, the game uses real-life pictures of the actors making it look like a graphic novel, which looks great and adds to the noir theme of the game.
- The mobile version functions exactly like it does in all other versions with some claiming it to be better optimized than the PC build.
- Great story about a detective who uncovers a grand conspiracy related to the murder of his family.
- The game has some dark moments like when you witness the murder of Max's wife and newborn as well as the dream sequences that reflect on what happened on that night.
- Great soundtrack, especially "Byzantine Power Game" and "Just Forget About It".
Bad Qualities
- The PC version of the game has issues running on newer operating systems: the music is compromised and missing in the game. Fans have created specific patches that fix the problem; they can be found on the internet for download. Also, if a Windows Vista (and newer operating systems) user installs a compatible Creative sound card in their computers, they can fix the sound problem with Creative's own ALchemy program.
- Speaking of the PC version, the French version of the game sold with Steam is infamous for always crashing at specific points of the game (including the loading screen between the first and second levels), and French Steam users can't buy the bug-free English version of the game. Despite this bug being well-known and reported to Steam, it has never been fixed. It is possible to manually correct the problem by replacing the level files with uncorrupted ones.
- The console versions are inferior as all of the chapters are divided up into sub-chapters. Or in the case of the Xbox version, only additional loading screens with none of the new chapter names.
- It also suffers from bad framerate issues, stiff controls, and long loading times.
Reception
Max Payne received very positive reviews and was praised for its exciting gunplay and use of noir storytelling devices, with some citing it as one of the best video games ever made. The game won lots of accolades upon its release, including the BAFTA Award. AllGame praised the game's atmosphere, level, and sound design while stating that the "story is, at times, predictable and full of clichés" and that "Unlike Half-Life, where the action is integrated perfectly with its simplistic, yet appropriate story, Max Payne frequently yanks you out of the game and forces you to look at a badly-drawn in-game 'graphic novel' and listen to the mediocre dialogue. The review also noted a lack of replay value or multiplayer modes. In a mixed review, Edge praised Max Payne for successfully integrating the bullet time mechanic into its core but criticized its linear and shallow-level design. While the graphics were generally praised for high-resolution textures, the character models lacked animated facial expressions (IGN criticized the titular character's "grimace on his face that makes him look constipated")
Trivia
- The name "Max Payne" is a play on words, indirectly suggesting "Maximum Pain".
- Televisions around the environment will give plot information or strangely mirror Max's current situation.
- During one of the dream sequences, Max can find a piece of paper that tells him that he's in a video game to which he will say: "The truth was a burning green crack through my brain. Weapon statistics hanging in the air glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. Endless repetition of the act of shooting, time slowing down to show off my moves. The paranoid feel of someone controlling my every step. I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of." A pretty humorous moment for such a dark game.
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