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Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Date: Saturday, January 3, 2004
Author: Ballsdeep
Provided By: None
Page: 1 of 1
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Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (A Film Noir Love Story)
MSRP: $49.99
When the first Max Payne was released in 2001, gaming fans drooled over the innovative game play. Payne found a way to deliver a new style for 3rd person shooters by introducing "bullet time". Since then, Rockstar and Remedy games have been working to not only make the action better, but defeat all the games that ripped the game play over the next few years (*cough Dead to Rights *cough). Although I enjoyed some of the games that came afterwards, there was no substitute.
I noticed this game on the shelves one day and immediately picked it up remembering the first time I executed bullet time and chuckled like a little kid. I couldn't wait to see the improvements since I've seen the game industry come so far since the late nineties. From the looks of the cover and the limited articles I read before the release, I could tell the game was heading for a more in depth story line (schizoids beware) and a revolutionized game engine by Havoc.
The game claims to be A Film Noir Love Story. I have always been a fan of the Noir genre but didn't know it existed until Max Payne brought the definition to my attention. Here is what the dictionary said about noir-
noir (pronounced) nwär (adj)
Of or relating to the film noir genre.
A genre of crime literature featuring tough, cynical characters and bleak settings.
Suggestive of danger or violence.
[Short for film noir + Sense 2, short for French roman noir, black novel.]
GameInformer magazine explains that Film noir literally means "black cinema" in French. This genre evolved in the 1940's with movies like The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Big Sleep (1946). Film noir comes to cinema these days in the form of Memento (2000) and L.A. Confidential (1997). Even though the first Max Payne did a great job hitting this environment, this sequel tends to focus on it.
The Fall of Max Payne uses the redefined Havoc physics engine. It's the same engine from the first Max Payne, but of course upgraded trying to redefine the 3rd person shooter genre all over again. Remedy claims the most improvement in the engine was aimed at perfecting bullet time. For instance, the enemy now die like rag dolls which adds an eerie realism in certain instances. The most notable effect that presents itself throughout the whole game is the ability to interact with your environment. Everything moves and functions. When you dive into a room matrix style, everything is subject to being hit or knocked around. It truly is amazing blasting a thug full of holes and seeing everything in the environment be affected by the direction your foe falls. It would be rare to see the exact same death sequence repeated.
The game play and controls are basically the same as the first Max Payne with the exception of a special move. I won't spoil it for anyone but when you're in trouble, the special attack is sure to pepper the surrounding thugs with all the ammo you can shoot. All the movements of Max are for the most part fluid, but I find that jumping feels kind of awkward, and that's not fun on those levels that require ninja like jumping precision. As I moved through the first couple levels, I realized the game pace was more and more like the first Max Payne. Running room to room blasting the crooks whom you hear every time before entering, however, the game developers added a few computer characters that follow you and become your partner at hand in sticky shootouts. I am glad to report that the computer AI is very well modeled. I really hate when games put a computer partner for you to play with and you end up wanting to shoot them instead of the bad guys because they won't go the way you want them to.
The replay value is basically determined by the type of gamer you are. There is only one game setting for you to play the first time though including difficulty. Once you beat the game, they open another game type you can play. I think the changes are primarily on available guns and different bullet-time measures instead of changing the story line. It would have been prime if they could get the story line to change depending on your actions because gamers like me can only handle so much of the same "enter shoot, next room please" type of game. So if you have played the first Max Payne over and over after beating it, then the replay of this game is high, but for gamers more interested in playing through a great storyline with a lot of action, it can be captured by playing it once.
 
Since it claims the title of A Film Noir Love Story, it comes packed in a cardboard DVD case. The full install of the game takes up a little over a Gig and a half on my hard drive and uses some of the latest technology in copy protection called SecuROM New. This basically allows the application to use "trigger functions" that check the CD authenticity multiple times throughout the program instead of earlier versions of protection that only police at startup.
The recommended system requirements are as follows:
1.4 GHz Athlon or 1.7 GHz Pentium 4, Celeron or Duron processor
64MB DirectX 9 compatible AGP graphics card with hardware T&L support
512MB RAM
1.5 GB hard drive space
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
DirectX 9.0
Keyboard and mouse... DUH!!
All around I recommend this game for anyone who enjoys games where you shoot people. Though I prefer first-person shooters, this has to be the best third-person shooter I have ever played. The graphics are some of the best I have seen and the new Havoc engine is tip top for the environmental interaction. If the pace of the game was a little different than "enter room then shoot, enter room then shoot" I would have a little more respect in seeing how they were trying to do something different from the first title. Basically it's the same Max Payne but on steroids. I would have liked to have seen more interaction with the enemy, like not knowing they are the enemy until our conversation or deal goes sour (then let us blast them!).
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