Maximum Payne, Minimal Enjoyment
Max Payne is taking it to the MAX! Yet strangely the rest of the game feels rather… minimal...
Max Payne 2 stars the most depressed, miserable, hard luck cop this side of Noir City, Max. It is his job to clean up the streets and protect the people from the tyranny of the cleaners. Along the way there will be intrigue, drama, and danger. There is all the flash and subtly for a great graphic novel here, but not enough substance for a great game.
The presentation in The Fall of Max Payne is top notch. The game looks and sounds great, but the story and particularly the characters really steal the show. All the characters in the game, no matter how big or small all have unique personalities, and are given great dialog to deliver. From Max, to Mona the fem fatale, to Vlad the Russian, even the drunk living in your apartment building gets a chance to shine. The story is no slouch either, though it does at times feel like its infringing on the gameplay. There is probably one to many scenes in the game when your just walking around in a dreamscape or fun house with nothing to shoot. Then again these scenes add to the dark, weird, and overall cool noir vibe the game emits, while the shooting doesn’t add much of anything to the overall experience.
In the end of the day, Max Payne 2 is a third person shooter. And though the shooting is brimming with style, it just isn’t exciting or fun. Granted Max is one bad dude, who can dish out maximum pain to multiple foes in mere seconds. The first time you slow down time and reload your shotgun while spinning, then splatter a guy who is standing just outside of a window is undoubtedly cool, but over time it loses its luster. The problem is it’s the same scenario every time. You are going to enter a room, activate bullet time, and shoot everyone dead before they get any rounds off at you. Rinse and repeat. The two best parts of the game are actually the usually dreaded escort missions. Playing as Mona as she covers Max with a sniper rifle, or Max trying to keep Captain Baseball Bat Boy’s head from exploding, are without a doubt the best parts of the game. Its too bad there aren’t more interesting scenarios like these to complement the style of the shooting, and keep things fresh a little longer.
Max Payne 2 is a vintage case of style over substance. Even though the game is short ( seven hours and that’s if you take the time to watch the soap opera playing in the background, Lords and Ladies… not that I did…) The gameplay becomes pretty stale early on. The game does indeed have a style that most games can’t even come close to approaching. The developers created a dark, gritty world with a lot of attention to detail, which makes the game worth playing, if not just for the spectacle of it all. But here’s hoping that next time the enemies can take it to the max and challenge the dearest of all my friends, Max Payne.
