So I just finished Max Payne about a week ago and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne about five minutes ago. Here are my thoughts about both of those games, and where the series as a whole is going.

Bullet Time!

• Max Payne as a series is dripping wet with atmosphere, droplets of story running in rivulets from mouths of your enemies. The televisions spout nonsense that reflect the situation around you. And when everything goes black with gang wars and mob bosses at each others throats, he shows up.

• The gunfire ripples around you in slow motion as you dodge incoming fire from all sides. You pop that one guy in the face only for another to show up. Diving at him will knock him down, but not for long. He gets back up, you fire again and again and again. They're still firing at you; one false move and you die. Don't worry it happens all the time, hit F9.

Yeah, that's pretty much the only two bullet points I could come up with. Anyway, I wanted to talk more about where Max Payne 3 will take the series.

Bullet Time Two!

• I'm worried that Rockstar can't pull together the same atmosphere and character that the Remedy managed. Specifically, Max Payne as a character was never a blank slate character to explore other characters. Unfortunately, Rockstar seems to know no other way to write main protagonists then to simply make them do a bunch of dirty work for a bunch of dirty people. This coming from the guy who has only played Bully. As long as they get Max's character right and soak the environments in throwaway story bits that flesh it out, then nothing below matters.
• A cover system for Max Payne?..... Did they even play the first two?
• Only two weapons seems like a strange (but understandable) choice for a Max Payne game. You shoot so many bullets in the first two that having multiple weapons ensured you never ran out of ammo. Hopefully ammo will be plentiful.

Anyway that's what I got, I'm out.