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PC Games (Games) First Person Shooters (Games) Entertainment Games

Max Payne 2 Reviewed 201

Posted by michael from the slow-motion-review dept.
Some random reader writes "Max Payne 2, the sequel to the awesome original game released years ago, hit shelves three days ago. The first review I've seen thus far is at PCSynapse. It seems to be what fans want, give or take a few quirks. Overall conclusion - 'MP2 was not designed to be revolutionary - but more evolutionary, and in that apparent goal it has succeeded with flying colors.'" There's a selection of other reviews collated via GameTab.
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Max Payne 2 Reviewed More

Max Payne 2 Reviewed

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  • Gabe & Tycho are split (Score:5, Funny)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) * on Saturday October 18, 2003 @10:20PM (#7251644) Homepage
    Yesterday's Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] weighs in with its own review. :)
    • The "evolution" "revolution" thing is so stupid, because it bass ackwards.

      Revolution: Change comes, a few people die.
      Evolution: Change comes, entire species and bloodlines are wiped out.

      Max Payne, the original, was lame. A slightly above par third person shooter with terrible dialog, and a gimmick stolen from The Matrix.

  • For Those Who Haven't Played the first.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dirkdidit ( 550955 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @10:23PM (#7251663) Homepage
    Max Payne is one of those games where you literally forget you're playing a game. It's that good and realistic. The first one had a good, solid plot, which in my opinion makes a game worthwhile to play.

    It's going to be the longest short wait ever for me until Max Payne 2 comes out, I'm just hoping it's as good as it sounds and can live up to the reputation the first one got.
    • Bad to reply to your own posts, but by the long wait for me I mean that I preordered it online sometime ago and it just shipped out Friday so it's going to be sometime next week before I get it.

    • Re:For Those Who Haven't Played the first.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @10:28PM (#7251693)
      So being able to slow down time and reload a shotgun in less then a second is "realistic"? You need to lay off the pills boy.
    • Good post, but I'd argue the validity of the claim that Max Payne was 'realistic.' The graphics looked fairly realistic, the weapons were also good, but slowing the passage of time, popping pills to replenish health instantly, and getting hit in the head with a baseball bat several times and walking away moments later hardly qualifies as real to me.

      The game was excellent, though. It played like a well-written movie and was tons of fun. There were definitely times when I could almost forget I was playing a
      • getting hit in the head with a baseball bat several times and walking away moments later hardly qualifies as real to me

        Don't you watch wrestling?? Blunt object trauma to the head is nothing!
      • by making it too easy.

        the gameplay consisted of mostly save, enter the room, hit bullet time, shoot, save/reload, repeat.

        i absolutely loved the graphic novel presentation and the noir genre, but i didn't much care for the actual gameplay.
        • the gameplay consisted of mostly save, enter the room, hit bullet time, shoot, save/reload, repeat.

          You ruined it for yourself, by taking any challenge or risk whatsoever out of the game. Try playing a game without reloading when you get hurt or die. Makes it much more interesting.
          • dying wasn't the problem, with the bullet-time i would hardly die at all. but when i do die, i hate having to repeat the same old stuff, because there were no novel enemies or situations that haven't been presented before.

            i did the same thing in half-life, and i didn't feel that the game was ruined. the monsters spawned differently, and the marines sure as heck acted differently every time i'd reload, so it wasn't always the same old crap.

            so i don't think i ruined it for myself. i feel that the gameplay w
            • i feel that the gameplay was not well balanced nor thought out.

              Listen. Until you've got a game under your belt, which I severely doubt, seeing as game developers tend to use capitals(Attention to detail, you see), I'd rethink what you really mean to say. Well thought out gameplay doesn't nessessarily mean gameplay YOU find fun. The Sim* series of games are all very well thought out, and must be, because of the numbers-intensive nature of the games, where complex behaviours must arise out of simple contex
          • Try playing a game without reloading when you get hurt or die.

            I played Half-Life at the hardest difficulty, at the recommendation of a friend who's a much better gamer than I am. Finishing became a chore, and I was quick-saving after every kill, destroying my sense of immersion. I did that to some extent in Max Payne, but I had so much fun that it didn't matter. It's the only game I've finished twice. I'm looking forward to playing Max Payne 2, because the new slow motion should encourage more fluid, cont

          • The bullet time made the game really easy, but I believe its mostly intended for the visual effect, like a slow-mo scene in a movie. The bullet time actually made it seem like the bullets missed more. If they had not implemented it that way, it would have been more useful, maybe as a learning aid to help with the more difficult parts of the game.

      • ...popping pills to replenish health instantly,...

        Technically speaking, you didn't have a health bar; it was a "pain meter" (hair-splitting ensues). The pills were referred to as "painkillers". The point was that you were still injured, but the pills allowed you to ignore the negative effects because you were, in effect, hopped up on goofballs.

    • In Max Payne 1, you slow down time at will, recieve literally tens of gunshot wounds and remain standing, and, oh yeah, murder something on the order of maybe 1000 people, the penalty for which is winning the game. You're conflating that with reality?

      It's examples like that that senators and first ladies point to in horror when they speak of the epic of videogame and movie violence infiltrating our culture. For a long time I thought they were full of shit. But now I start to see how the uberviolent videoga
      • You know what else cheapens human life? Killing tens of thousands of people in REAL life, which senators and first ladies support all the time. Everyone in politics who thinks video games are so horrible are hypocrites. Anyone in the media who has ever celebrated someones death too. The only group which would stand a chance of not being hypocrites might be a group like Amnesty International, whose purpose is to eliminate such deaths orchestratred by man, and you know what? They've got more important things
        • Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious... I really needed to be told all that.

          Saying that one group of artists deserve legal protection, but another don't because their medium is too alien also cheapens human life.

          First, no it doesn't. That claim doesn't make any sense. Second, I don't recall "saying" that. In fact I can't remember ever making even a tangential reference to that idea.

          Video games don't cheapen human life by letting you kill lots of bad guys and letting you take a lot of bullets.

          Actually, I believe

    • --If you haven't played it already, I also recommend Deus Ex for immersion and playability. You can get it for ~$13 online.

      http://store.yahoo.com/cybercitysoftware/deusex. ht ml
      ) No affiliation, this is just the place where I bought mine. (
  • Thief was a game. Games that make you think and can build suspense like in a good movie. There seems to be a lack of real story telling and artistic talent at these game companies. The game are all cookie cutter now.
    • my buddy got a game that you are a blackops dude, and you have a few weapons, but you have almost no ammo, so you must be traly good at knocking out poeple and sneaking in the shadows.....some of the stuff is lame, like some of the shadows are a little two dark, but it is a good game.

    • Re:Games with guns are ubiquitous (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Obyron ( 615547 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @11:18PM (#7251895)
      > and can build suspense like in a good movie.

      > There seems to be a lack of real story telling and artistic talent

      > cookie cutter

      You've never played Max Payne, have you? ;) We're talking about a game that set a bar for what graphics should be in a FPS. Not artistic? Look at the amazingly cinematic way the levels are laid out. The action actually flows like a movie. Lack of storytelling? You don't have to listen to me to find someone who thinks the story was simply incredible.

      And "cookie cutter?" That's just laughable. Sure, the game follows certain basic FPS traits (lots of guns, physics gets raped), but to say it's cookie cutter is to say that Star Wars is bad just because it uses the hackneyed "anonymous farm boy turns out to be universe-saving hero" schtick.

      • Max Payne set a bar for graphics standards? Are you joking? What games are trying to look like Max Payne...Doom 3? Half-Life 2? UT2004?

        You're just some Max Payne fanboy.
        • That's not what "set the bar" means. Max Payne (and to an even greater extent, MP2) truly does set an example for any FPS seeking to be realistic (at least in graphics). The MP developers have clearly sought to give the player the feeling of being in a movie, and in that, they have succeeded. True, the physics are not quite true to life, but name one action movie in which they are? Max Payne is actually more realistic than most action movies I've seen in that the hero dies, at least temporarily :)

  • It's a good/fun game, but... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's short. Think of it as an interactive movie trilogy, and expect to spend as much time on it as you would watching a movie trilogy. That said, the gameplay is fun, and the story is good, and you can always go back and replay it.

  • Succeeded in not being revolutionary? (Score:4, Funny)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @10:24PM (#7251673)
    Wow!

  • Another review. (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheFlu ( 213162 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @10:25PM (#7251678) Homepage
    There's another review here [nerdtreehouse.com].

  • My favorite mass review site... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by frekio ( 70389 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @10:28PM (#7251694) Journal
    is GameRankings.com which has a lot of MP2 reviews here [gamerankings.com]

  • Why I love Max Payne (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @10:38PM (#7251739) Homepage
    As someone who does artwork for games, Max Payne is just great; gameplay-wise, not much new going on but as far as visuals, stylistically Max Payne is a major cut above the rest. Before Max Payne, stylism was there in FPS games, but not in the quanities as it was in MP. Throughout the game, I felt like I was fighting in a grungy, bleak and lonely version of NYC, much like the one depicted in comics and movies. Then include their photo-realistic textures that gave everything such grit and depth, and you end up with a visual masterpiece. Max Payne is not great because it brings revolutionary changes to the table, but because it raises the bar for the quality of art in games and not only that but the thought behind the stylization, not just 'because its cool'. Lets hope that other games follow suit (Doom3 is another example of good art direction and stylistic techniques.)
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Even thought the environments seem really nice in DooM3, I have to disagree with the good art direction claim in regards to the monsters.

        I'd even go so far as to suggest that the art direction on the environments is lacking. There seems to be an absence of subtlety when using the new technology. I know, id isn't known for its subtlety, but there's a difference between over-the-top demon-robots and rooms where every single thing is polished to a high shine. It just looks bad. Or no, worse than bad -- it l
    • include their photo-realistic textures that gave everything such grit and depth, and you end up with a visual masterpiece.

      I don't have them installed, but I remember Kingpin and Return to Castle Wolfenstein as having terrific textures. Doom 3 looks like it will raise the bar, technically. I think they're using a technique similar to that of MicroWave [evasion3d.com], which takes detail from a high-poly model and turns it into a texture for a low-poly model.

  • Best thing about MP2 (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is the fact that the model for Mona Sax [spenceradvertising.com] is hot.
    • She's got that gimpy altered-face look. The sort which could only belong to an American glamour model (I REALLY hope she's actually American, or my post is completely broken).
      • I don't know specifically about Kathy Tong, but America has to scour the rest of the world to find its gaunt glamour models.

        They sure as hell don't find them wandering the ailes at WalMart.

        So your post is broken at its conceptual core.

        KFG

  • Realism? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DirkDaring ( 91233 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @10:44PM (#7251765)
    "Fans will love the new realism this lends to the game, as the enemy shoots out your cover right in front of your face, or when you find yourself knocking over stacks of crates in search for ammunition or painkillers."

    Woah. And I thought I was the only one who hid their ammunition and painkillers inside stacks of crates. Now that's what I call realism!
  • So maybe the physics aren't quite up to what HL2 is supposed to offer, but they sure are neat. Knocking a bucket with a plank in it off of a ledge offered me more satisfaction than any part of the plot. See, it fell off, then bounced, then the plank came out! And it was the real deal, no scripting. Another highlight of the game was having an bum (armed with dual 9mm pistols) say in a slurred, drunken voice "I'll cover you from here!" The story is still awful in an amusing way, if you're wondering.
    • So maybe the physics aren't quite up to what HL2 is supposed to offer, but they sure are neat.

      I agree but should we really be comparing the physics to a game yet to be released? Aren't we just comparing to hype then? I know you trying to stave of what seems like the enevitable response from lamers and this really wasn't your point either :) but i just thought it interesting they way you phrased it.

      • I probably should have put emphasis on "supposed." Yeah, I was afraid of someone responding and saying "but HL2's will be better!" Old habits die hard. It's not just comparing to hype, anyway, with the leak out. Of course, since I haven't touched the leak myself I'm only relying on secondhand information.

    • Re:Physics! (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They use the same physics engine (namely havok). So the physics are every bit as good as HL2, but they might be "used" in a different way (eg. the gravity gun in HL2).
  • Max Payne was an excellent example of how you can integrate a compelling story with a great action game. If you liked that, and are looking forward to playing this one. I would highly recommend playing Mafia. Great story, graphics, and variety in the gameplay.
    • Mafia was cheesy and had annoying controls. max payne is not an FPS too but the only reason I mention that is because I wish it was. Don't get me wrong though it's a 9/10 so far (1/3 of the way through). But if it was a FPS it would be a 10/10 ;)

    • Eh, my attitude towards Max Paine can best be described as tepid. I'm sick to death of the whole FPS genre. Wow, a story, but how is it on the repeat single-player? How many times have you gone through and beat it. Is it the type of game you bust out once or twice a year just to go back through?

      And multi-player, well multi-player has not changed much in years. Except for improved graphics and stylistically, the gameplay has been pretty static(Although vehicles have gotten better).
      • MP!=FPS (i know i know semantics :) still i dont think replay value applies to MP I would be happy to play it once or twice a year to go through it again because the story is what is good about it. It's funny because you knock some games as being more of the same but can't seem to recognise what's different. It almost sounds like you just don't like games. On the other hand I think that I do agree with you in that there is room for improvement. The game designers i think need to think out of the box m
        • Hah, I knew someone would correct me on that the second I hit submit.

          I do like games, but that's fading, everything seems like a rehash of something else with nothing new really added, well to me anyway. No real innovation, everything seems to want to be "cool." There have been a few games out in recent memory I found fun, but those were mostly console.

          Deus Ex was fun to me, MP wasn't. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it was the noir genre, or the fact that I'd played Deus Ex first and the entire "The Ma
    • Are you fucking kidding? Max Payne is -nothing- like Mafia except that a) they both deal with organized crime, and b) they are both 3rd person shooters to some degree.

      Mafia was slow, repetitive, and had no ability to save between checkpoints. Not only that, but the game was really, really long, and sometimes savepoints were a good 30+ minutes appart, requiring - at the very least - that much gameplay time in order to get anywhere. It was tragically difficult, you got all the weapons within the first couple
  • Machine - 1Ghz, and still the reviewer said that tha game ran perfectly. That is impressive and commendable, well done devs.

  • More Reviews (Score:3, Informative)

    by MunchMunch ( 670504 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @11:59PM (#7252027) Homepage
    Just a few more reviews for everyone:

    GameSpot [gamespot.com]

    IGN.com [ign.com]

    FYI, both reviews seem to think its a lot better than 'evolutionary.'

  • I can definitely see some of the game's flaws:

    Too short, too linear, too easy.

    However, the rich plot, the voice acting, the music, the ambiance serve to make this a worthy game to play. And they finally got Bullet Time right. In MP1, you had to use it so sparingly that it was almost useless. The Quenten Tarantino feel to the Bullet Time cinematics were awesome. I would have preferred a little bit more play between cutscenes, though. Seemed like just when you got going, you had to stop for a three min
  • Max Payne 2 is, as you would expect of a sequel, much like the original Max Payne. Both games are short by game standards, and Max Payne 2 seems even shorter than its predecessor. That isn't a complaint, merely an observation. Max Payne 2 is a lot of goodness packed into a tight package. It does leave you wishing for more. Firstly, I am going to skip over AI, graphics, and sound. Any other review of the game can tell you about this, so let it suffice to say that they all come together to produce a great ga

    • Re:My mini Review (Score:3, Informative)

      by James Lewis ( 641198 )
      God, I forgot the paragraph returns. Try this for easier reading:

      Max Payne 2 is, as you would expect of a sequel, much like the original Max Payne. Both games are short by game standards, and Max Payne 2 seems even shorter than its predecessor. That isn't a complaint, merely an observation. Max Payne 2 is a lot of goodness packed into a tight package. It does leave you wishing for more.

      Firstly, I am going to skip over AI, graphics, and sound. Any other review of the game can tell you about this, so le

      • after a while the lines start sounding a bit cheesy
        IIRC, they specifically aimed for the cheesiness in the first game. All text was written in the style of a pulp detective story. I think the same is true for the second game. It's intentional and I believe it worked great for the first game.
  • Aside of the interesting story and gameplay, one of the reasons I like MP2 is the fact it's using a licensed version of Havoc, the engine for Half-life 2. The first time I got into a major firefight involving grenades, rifles, smgs etc, the room afterwards actually LOOKED like a major firefight had just occurred there. Objects were blown all over the place, bullet marks and char marks from explosions... It makes the experience more immersive and enjoyable. Sure the overall game is short, but it's very sw
  • Translation: Everyone who spoke up about any new ideas has been fired and replaced with a quiet, imaginationless drone. The rest of the work was outsourced.

    Maximum revenue, minimum cost, almost totally riskless, and none of those edjicated types interrupting meetings with newfangled ideas.

    Just the way corporate middle management likes it.
  • with MP2 was that it was WAY too fricking short. I finished the thing in well under a third the time I did the oridinal. it was a waste of my friends money.

  • Too bad the review does not touch this question. While I loved the bullet-time effect and the general "noir-esque" storyline in "Max Paine", I really HATED acting in all the cut-scenes. Most of the villains are unintentionally funny, they are not scary at all. It is common among the game developers to employ theyr friends and family as stop-gap "actors", but I've never seen as horrible acting in a computer game. At least Walton Simmons in "Deus Ex" is really scary - he creates a memorable character, just li
  • 8 hours of interactive film(it's not really a _game_, you have to play it on the easiest setting first too).

    retarded boss sequence at the end(i prefer that if i can see somebody that i can kill him/her in a 'game', rather than try to guess what the script writer thought that i should make. this is the problem with games that resemble more like a film than a real game, you have to be an actor but you dont have the script). if you're having trouble there think about max payne 1's ending(and look for hotspots
  • the game imho was to short and to easy. yes i know that as soon as it was finished you could try it on a harder level, but that was too boring, because the game was exactly the same so unless the demo blows em away i think ill pass
  • I loved the first Max Payne. I played it straight through the night I bought it, and still remember the adrenaline rush that it induced. It was dark outside, it was dark in the game, and there was no feeling quite like jumping around a corner and headshotting 3 punks in a fraction of a second.

    I just downloa- er, legally obtained- a copy of MP2, and I've started playing through it. Like people have said, it doesn't seem to be anything terribly new. I have, however, noticed a number of improvements in g

  • I'll leave it to Gabe and Tycho to talk about [penny-arcade.com] Max Payne 2.

  • Graphics: same or just a little better
    Sound: same
    gameplay: a little better (you get to play with some guys on your side a few times, you get to play with mona too)
    replay value: worse. The game is even shorter (about 8 hours). Although it has some more playing modes.
  • Max Payne 2, Doom III, Half-Life II...yeap, good FPS games with emphasis on gameplay and visuals are coming!!! what a good year it must be!!!

    Aside from that, MP is one of the best games ever. The sequences where Max has nightmares (and the player must complete) are absolutely stunning and brilliantly executed.

    By the way, am I the only one who turns bullet time off ? it is impressive, but not while really playing the game.

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