Max Payne 2 : Games : Web Wombat

Guns, girls, blood, gore, fruity language, slow mo, Havok physics and a well-worn leather jacket; no, this isn't E3 2004, it's the sequel to Remedy's hit shooter Max Payne, cleverly titled…you guessed it…Max Payne 2.

However, because of an increased production budget, Remedy can now afford to have a secondary title, in this case "The Fall of Max Payne"

And it's a pun, too, because Max Payne 2 is set in Autumn. You know, fall!

*dives for cover*

As with all good film noir tales, there weren't exactly that many characters left standing by the end of Max Payne.

But believe me when I say that the intricately woven plot of The Fall of Max Payne (TFoMP) raises the bar for computer generated body counts to a new high, but I'll let you find that out for yourselves, rather than ruin the experience for you.

Speaking of raising the bar…

Graphically, everything from fully intergrated ragdolling to mo-cap animation and Pixel Shader 1.4 skinning is here to be taken advantage of, with those sporting big fat Radeon cards catered for extensively (dynamic volume calculation, anyone?).

Graphics, sound, gameplay - just words really

Gone are the days when Max Payne faced (no pun intended) the world disguised as Sam Lake, Remedy's writer in residence, for now is the era of 3D skinning, with American actor Timothy Gibbs lending his visage to the graphics novels that make up MP2's between-level narrative sequences and also to Max's extremely high poly ingame model.

Special mention must go to Remedy being one of the first developers to get ragdolling to work realistically. Hitman 2 take heed, for flying bodies is not exactly what we were looking for.

All the characters that somehow managed to stay alive until the end credits rolled are back and more, um, polygonal than ever, with old favourites Vladimir Lem (voiced by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis), Vinnie Gognitti, Alfred Woden, Jim Bravura and sexy assassin-for-hire Mona Sax playing pivotal roles in the dark world of intrigue that Max inhabits.

Updated also is that wonderfully Woo-flavoured gameplay feature, Bullet Time, with speed reloads a nice addition (you try reloading a pump action shotgun shell by shell in slow-mo) alongside the ability to get further into The Zone.™

I think I should explain this one.

Basically, you start off with a supply of Bullet Time, which puts you and everyone else around you into slow motion. However, if you achieve a number of kills in rapid succession, the Bullet Time gauge becomes more and more yellow.

Nice muzzle flare

When you use this new and improved Yellow Bullet Time™, Max will still be in slow-motion, but those around him will be moving slower and slower as you rack up more combo kills, giving Max a serious tactical advantage over his opponents, of which there are many.

Said opponents range from 'cleaners' (think La Femme Nikita) to balaclava-clad mercenaries and both the Italian and Russian Mafias.

On a gameplay-related note, I'm sure everybody will be pleased to hear that the extremely irritating 'follow-painfully-thin-white-line-in-the-dark-listening-to-baby-crying-noises" sequences from the first game have been replaced with nightmare levels that actually work.

Shocking, I know, but I must worn you that the motion blur used in these nightmares is quite effective and those effected by motion sickness would be well-advised to grab a 'level select' code, because some serious rocking and rolling has been known to go on during these hallucinogenic run arounds.

Levels are large and exquisitely detailed, with the same attention-to-detail present in the textures and modelling as was paid to the original Max Payne. The soaking rain, back alleys and side streets seem all the more authentic for the love that has been poured into their creation.

Interestingly, while MP2 looks damn fine on a high-end beast machine, the code is optimized so well that even on a relatively pre-historic PIII 1.3GHz with a kinda low-end GeForce MX440, everything plays nice and smooth at 24fps with a minimum sacrifice of image quality.

"You can run, but you'll only die tired..."

It's nice to see that, in this day and age, somebody out there in the game development world is dedicated to making sure real people (e.g 'the majority of the world') with realistically decked-out gaming machines (not Cray supercomputers, like EA seems to think) can play new games too.

Bratta-tat-tat, kept in line with the whole 'upgrade' theme are the weapons; old favourites like the sawed-off shotgun, dual Berettas and MAC-10s have received the once over with 3D Studio MAX, the end result much prettier boom-sticks for Max to play with… Oh, dear Lord, did that sound wrong.

The inclusion of the SVD Dragunov as a faster-firing alternative to the Sniper Rifle is thoughtful, but the real joy comes from the Dual Desert Eagles, an improbable but oh-so-cool weapon choice, and the *drum roll* Heckler & Koch MP5, complete with mounted scope.

If anything irks me about The Fall of Max Payne, it's that the game is just too damn short, with veteran gamers capable of finishing off MP2 in around fifteen hours. Then again, it's a glorious fifteen hours, and I think that, all things considered, I would much rather prefer a solid and enjoyable fifteen hour game to a mediocre forty hour behemoth.

From alleyway to Upper East Side penthouse to abandoned funhouse and back to the curb again, The Fall of Max Payne is a rollicking rollercoaster ride made up of equal parts violence, grit and gunpowder, and would have to be one of the best games in recent memory.

Game: Max Payne 2
System: PC
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: Remedy
Distributor: Take 2 Interactive

Rating: 90%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Max Payne 2 is on the shelves now.

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