The Max Payne Review

The Max Payne Review

My initial thoughts

This game is rough. Holy shit. Which sucks because I really want to love this game but I’m not sure if I can with how it stands currently. I’m excited to write this out and really find out how I feel. Maybe I do love this game. Ugh. For clarity, I literally just finished the game. Everything from this point will be a bit more well thought out, but still typed the day of game completion.

Aesthetic

Graphics are overrated.

I have a blog/vlog post planned about my lack of care towards graphics. I’m not sure what order everything is coming out, but I’ll go ahead and save my breath for that write up. Just know that I put much more thought into aesthetics over graphics.

Structures are a perfect 10

Max Payne gets easy clout points for the forced liminality of being a PS2 game. Exteriors of buildings are coated in depressing wallpaper that acts as a backdrop to spot generic bad guys. Looking through windows or off balconies reveals empty streets. Across the way, not a single sign of life can be found. It’s like everyone that lives in the Payne world has either been evacuated from the map or simply keep their head down while all too familiar gun shots ring out in the snow.

Despite the barren exteriors, interiors are lively but diseased. Large rooms are lit by buzzing lights. Corridors sit a bit too long and wide to give any semblance of a place we may know. It’s in dark train stations, muddy warehouses, or grungy offices that the player finds the most stimulation. It’s the depraving nature of low poly corridors that make me feel as though I’m taking a breath of fresh air alongside Max when he first gets a good look at the New York snowfall.

Fashion is a 9

Admittedly, Max Payne uses limited character models. There exist only a handful of goon variations. Despite this, the feelings they portray in their dress cannot be ignored. Leather coats, cargo pants, heavy windbreakers, combat boots. Classic 2000’s grunts knew how to dress. Not only this, but we are introduced to a couple specialty henchman that seem fresh out of a vogue magazine. All black attire perfectly fitted to the bad guys give a feeling that we are fighting well paid bad guys who rank high up in their sets.

Even the generic suited mobsters and police feel like a nice addition. It brings life to the world and makes the well dressed even more standout.

The ambience is a 10

Picture this: A room of grunts lay dead. Blood gushes and smears against tainted walls. The night is dead silent. You walk over rusted carpet on a mission to find pain medication to ease the gun shot wounds on your chest. You swing open a bathroom door, unsure if death is on the other side. 

Someone’s in the bathroom.

You load your shotgun and examine the stalls. The voice continues. You definitely aren’t alone. You kick open the stall to find a man not prepared to shoot you dead, but instead whimpering while he sits in fetal position in front of the toilet. He means you no harm. In fact, he doesn’t acknowledge your presence. He grumbles to himself about his own death. You let him live.

Gameplay

Butteriness is a… 7?

If you go into retro games expecting smoothness in the controls, you’ll often be caught off guard. Max Payne is a product of its time. It’s clunky. Surprisingly, though, it isn’t very clunky at all. Movement feels nice and makes leading into shots quite easy. There isn’t a lot of tech in the motion, but what is there feels responsive and called for. The control scheme is easy. The frame rate dips dramatically at times, but less busy fights see very smooth gameplay.

Gun play is a 7

Max can roll and dive to align shots and slow time down to maximize his fire rate to shots landed ratio. Getting someone in your crosshairs isn’t all that difficult, even with a crispy first party dualshock. Gun fights almost feel like a mix between GTA San Andreas and GTA 5. The reticle always being visible gives you the freedom to find your shot while looking around walls and jumping. Add strafe diving mechanics that don’t hinder shooting ability or accuracy, and Max can enter a room like a god if you’re good enough.

Enemies are responsive for an old title and pull out interesting moves. They may strafe, take cover, dive, or chuck grenades at shy players. It gives the impression that Max is fighting enemies who are much like himself. 

I personally played with aim assist with aim lock and reticle snapping turned off. The game offers a great level of assistance without holding your hand.

Diversity is a 4

I’m a simple guy. I don’t need a hug arsenal of weapons and landscapes. I just need fun weapons in all provided categories and interesting arenas. I feel like Max Payne does this well. There were whole weapons that I didn’t use until the final level. There were some I didn’t stop using after I picked them up. No matter the situation, I felt as though every weapon was viable, down to the twin pistols you unlock in the first chapter or two.

Arenas were hard hitting as well. Buildings are fun to clear out and most are set up in fun patterns. Chapters being too similar to one another is what causes a point nose dive for this topic. I can’t tell you how many identical warehouses or office floors I cleared.

Difficulty is a 2

Rants were a plenty while streaming my gameplay. I became an absolute bitch over the mic. Regardless, tedious enemy placement and pre-planned grenade tosses and traps become more and more abundant. This is not real difficulty. This is trial and error patience tests. I don’t have patience. I do not like loading in for 60 seconds, skipping a comic cut scene, then sitting through a 15-second cutscene, just to spawn into bullets being fired at me or having the level test my memorization. 

Opting out of genuinely difficult situations in trade for Disneyland line simulators where I wait to respawn, so I may move more carefully around a corner, is the worst thing you could do for a non-completionist such as myself. I almost gave up countless times in my last couple hours of gameplay and never once because I felt properly challenged. Is it really a rage quit if I no longer feel like I’m playing a game? 

Audio

Sound design is a 6

Guns sound like guns. People sound like people. I give this a slight edge over a middle score because the blandness builds the aesthetic further. This is barely a 6 though.

Voice acting is a 3

Max Payne’s voice actor kills it, along with a couple others. My issue is everyone is very clearly reading from a piece of paper. Max has no tone and everyone else plays one note. Sure, the mobster dudes have life in them, but they’re playing a well established archetype. Hell, my grandma could play a zesty Italian mobster.

Story

I personally place the writing at a 7

I won’t bore you with my tasteless opinion on the story. I don’t play games for the story. Still, not a single cutscene was skipped, and that’s a big deal for me.

I liked the writing a lot. More than I care to admit. It’s cheesy and probably cliché, but hey, gritty 2000’s action is my thing.

Pacing is a 5

I won’t speak much on this either. I though the game was coming to an end like three times before it actually ended. Once I got to the end, I felt as though not enough happened. The loop of Max getting back at someone before finding the bigger fish was okay but a bit stale. Not to mention there was no final boss to fight.

I give this a five because I think I’d appreciate the pace much more now that I understand the story. I like the torment sections breaking up the violence and the downtime brought by traversing a cleared room of enemies. 

This story felt like a series of events more than a cohesive plot and that stops me from rating this any higher.

Conclusion

My final thoughts (part one)

Please keep in mind that I’m wrapping this up without sleeping on the game overnight. I’m doing so on purpose as to capture my fresh thoughts. I plan to return to this review for edits and a “final thoughts part two”

I like the game. I have more fond memories than not. 51% isn’t much of an accomplishment, though.

My final score (part one)

As of writing this, I have eleven ratings among four categories. The game averages a 6.36 in each category. Honestly, I’m very happy with that number. It’s a fun game that deserves more praise than ridicule. This is my first game review, so I can imagine I’ll get more in depth with my ratings.

TL;DR: Max Payne is a 6.5 Game