Today I finished Max Payne. I haven't played it for something like a decade. I also played about 30 minutes of Max Payne 2. Both come as pre-order incentives for the pc version of Max Payne 3.

The Good

The game has aged amazingly well. The voice acting and writing is still better than most games today. Unlike inferior (and overrated) games such as Metal Gear Solid it's narrative is optional as well without constantly being pushed in your face at the expense of game play. As someone with excellent linguistic skills I appreciate how colourful the writing doez. It's deliberly overdone. I also appeacate how simple the game is. It has some minor platforming and puzzle like sections but for the most part it is a very simply process of slowing down time and shooting people in the face for being bad. One of the things I also like, the main villain is a woman. Not a sexyt babe dressed like a hooker like that juvenile metal gear solid series. Just a plain looking business woman in her 50's. You don't get into gun fights with her. She has no "super powers". The final fight is simply trying to stop her escape.

The Bad

While I appreciate the simplicity of the game play, it gets incredibly repetitive. With no sense of character progression or variation in enemy's or much difference in weapons, the gun fights can get tedious unless played in short bursts.

Another problem, the lack of character development. At one point this lady "Mona" dies (but not really) in an elevator. Max shouts "Noooooo!". Everything prior to this, she is barely in the game. In fact you don't even see her character model within the engine. She is so distance and sparse that you don't give a shit. This is the case with most of the mobsters as well. They show up for about 30 seconds before blowing them away. You have no attachment to them. Regardless of being horribly written and over-rated, Metal Gear Solid is actually better in this regard. Because Hideo (whatever) writes so much bullshit and blabber by the end of the game you know what the boss's shat out when they went for dump. Max Payne could have benifited from more character development.

Overall I really enjoyed this title and it gave me nostalgia in a good way. When I get the time I hope to finish Max Payne 2 before Max Payne 3 is released on the pc. Play some "Messiah" "Giant Citizen Kabuto" and other classic pc titles. One thing GOG is sorely lacking is "Legacy Of Kain". I can pick these titles up on amazon but they are expensive with lack of support. GOG usually sorts out the older title to run on modern spec machines, which is great.