It’s well over a decade since the release of the first Max Payne game, but his franchise is now
a multimillion pound best seller, his character revered by critics and loved by
fans. So what was it that made Max Payne so special way back in 2001? And, 12
years on, how much of the game’s legendarily gritty noir has been tarnished by
the inevitable force of time?
It’s something of an understatement to say that Max Payne,
of the New York Police Department, is not a lucky man. Just a few minutes into
the game his wife and child are brutally slain and his best friend and
colleague murdered. From there Max Payne
becomes as bloodbath as our psychotic antihero sets out on a quest to avenge
his family. It’s not an original or particularly interesting premise, but the
game’s storytelling is intelligent enough for this to be easily forgivable. Payne’s
tale is told through an impressionistic graphic novel format rather than
animated cutscenes, with a dark, seedy art style and brooding voiceover
performances from James McCaffrey as the lead.
Max Payne is, if nothing else, an action game. Max is a near indestructible killing machine,
wiping out waves of enemy thugs with a wide variety of weapons and dozens and
stunningly effective painkillers. There’s no shortage of opponents; Max’s body
count numbers in the hundreds by the game’s conclusion, but as shooting the
same enemies in similar situations is the backbone of the game, it does become
a little tedious. It doesn’t help that only a few enemy character models were built,
and coming up against a clone army highly damages the game’s style and believability.
It’s therefore fortunate that the actually gameplay mechanics are largely excellent,
and the first ever use of Matrix esque bullet time in a video game proves to be
a useful and impressive feature. The game’s graphics are certainly outdated,
and there are sticky animations and utterly ridiculous stationary facial
models, but this is forgivable considering Max
Payne’s age and how excellent the recent Max Payne 3 looked.
Better than bullet time though is the game’s intense
neo-noir style. Set in a snow-coated winter New York, Max Payne thrives on seedy hotels ridden with prostitutes and back
alleys full of mobsters, creating a blackened atmosphere well ahead of its
time. There are also some deliciously nasty supporting characters and a plot
that twists and turns delightfully over its lengthy three parts, helping to add
to this ambiance. The game is unafraid of displaying its influences too, there’s
plenty of banter between guards as they discuss classic martial arts films, and
the deliriously violent ending in which Max storms the headquarters of a villainous
corporation seems a direct homage to the final shoot-out in The Matrix.
It might be visually showing its age, but Max Payne remains
an expertly crafted slice of gothic entertainment, packed with pop culture,
stained characters and levels of violence to rival Grand Theft Auto. Max’s character is both terrifying and oddly
likeable, and it’s no wonder GTA’s
creators Rockstar Games bought this iconic franchise.
8/10
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