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Max PaynePreviewed By: Kirk Hiner Preview Date: May 13, 2002
Be happy you're not Max Payne. First of all, as Max Payne, you would have a ridiculously stupid name. It's not even clever, really. I mean, with a name like Max Payne, how could you be anything but a fugitive undercover cop, hunted by the mob for infiltrating their world and by the police for a crime(s) you didn't commit.
You just gotta know that that spells trouble. The mob eventually finds out who Max is. Soon after that, one of the two men who knew about Alex's operation is killed while talking to Max. So now, with no family, the mob wanting him dead, the police wanting him in jail, and no one to believe his story, it's up to Max to clear his own name. Or maybe just change his name. Max Payne. Really. With a name like that, you have to think he's bringing all of this on himself. He may as well have been named Life Onlee Getsworse, Jr. But this game isn't so much about Max as it is about style. It blends the cinema noir detective movies of the 40s with Frank Miller graphic novels of the 80s with John Woo cinematics of the 90s. it doesn't matter if you're watching the cut scene movies, the still image transitions or playing the game itself, Max Payne will give you something interesting to see.
In this game, the enemies actually don't want to die. How's that for a novel concept? Quite often, they'll duck down behind an overturned table or disappear into a dark corridor, and they won't come out! If you don't get the element of surprise on them, then it's often up to you to flush them out. Enter bullet time. If the enemy is just around the doorway, guns drawn, you can strafe to the side and hit bullet time. You're now parallel to the ground, flying into the room in slow motion with guns blazing. The jump makes you a harder target, the slow motion makes it easier for you to target, and the whole thing looks really, really sweet. For the most part, bullet time only lasts until you hit the ground. Once you do, you have to get up. And as you get up, you're a sitting duck. Therefore, bullet time should only be used when you're jumping behind or into some sort of protection or when you're only up against one or two bad guys you're certain you can kill. I should point out that bullet time works when you're moving forwards and backwards, too, not just to the side. I waver on which move I think looks the best. Right now, I'll say backwards. You can also enter bullet time without jumping or shooting, but only for a short time. Once your bullet time indicator reaches empty, you'll come back out and have to wait for it to replenish before you can use it again. This comes in quite handy for evasive maneuvers when you've got multiple thugs firing at you, as it affords you time to think and dodge bullets until you find the best way out or to kill your enemies.
Yep, you also get characters like Vini Gognitti. What else would you want? If your hero is named Max Payne, you have to expect the villains to be named Vini Gognitti and Jack Lupino. The lines these guys say are sometimes sufferable, but they're delivered with verve. The New York accents are thicker than a bagel with a schmeer, and the actors hold nothing back in their performance. Well, except for Max, of course. He plays more like Joe Friday, speaking only in similes and reacting to everything with the same dry delivery. Continuing this tone are the comic book style transitions between levels. I'm guessing they're actually retouched photos with narrative blocks dumped in. They appear one panel at a time, keeping in synch with Max's narration read overtop of them. This deliberate pacing causes a melancholy, almost hopeless air to hang about the whole game. It also makes everything seem calm, countering it's violent nature.
But don't fear, Congressman Baca. The game contains a "parental lock" feature that disables not only the blood (after all, it's okay for children and teens to kill people in games as long as they don't see the blood), but also the sexual innuendo, mature language and such. Even without this filter, the game never gets that bad. Body parts remain attached to bodies, prostitutes stay clothed, and the word most often used by the mobsters is "friggin,' " not the more familiar alternative. The version of Max Payne I previewed was an early beta, and it performed decently. Even at the higher (but not highest) graphics settings, I experienced few slow downs or anomalies using an 867MHz G4 with a GeForce 2 graphics card. For those with slower systems, however, pretty much everything in the game can be tweaked to achieve optimum performance. The game did crash frequently, however. The good news is here is that it happened so often that it'll have to be fixed before it reaches final candidate. It's better the problems be glaring and nasty, after all, than intermittent and subtle. Max Payne is due for release in June, and our full review will be posted soon after that. In the meantime, you can check out the MacGamer preview or visit the official Max Payne website.
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Second of all, Max isn't having a good life. Returning from work at the NYPD to his home in New Jersey, Max discovers both his wife and daughter murdered by a gang of thugs all whacked out on a new drug known on the streets as "V." Blaming the drug for the death of his family, Max goes undercover to discover the drug's origin. He's so far undercover, in fact, that three years later only two other cops know what he's doing.
The embodiment of all this is "bullet time." I've learned that bullet time is the phrase given to those scenes in movies where the action slows to a crawl, allowing the viewer to actually see bullets and such lazily slide past the actors. This effect was put to great use in the film The Matrix, but similar (although less impressive looking) shots had been used many times before in various Hong Kong movies, Japanese anime and probably in other films I've never seen. In such movies, bullet time is just something wild to look at. In Max Payne, it's a strategic element.
Surrounding this cool visual effect is a gritty depiction of New York City (has there ever been another depiction of New York in computer games?). Although the tone is very much 1940s, the game takes place in modern day New York...I assume because the weapons are bigger. The levels play out like a confined Deus Ex, and the story is very linear. If there's no reason to enter a store, the door will be locked. Okay, I know what you're saying. "But Kirk, I always thought New York was the city that never sleeps. Why would so many doors be locked?" Fair enough. Stores are closed and the streets are bare, but the game explains this repeatedly with news articles discussing the horrible blizzard and how everyone should stay indoors. In real life, this works. When I lived in New York, we once got a foot of snow that the news reporters called "The storm of the century," which I'm sure would make anyone in Buffalo giggle like little schoolgirls. That night, my friends and I played football on West 96th St. because traffic simply disappeared. Luckily, we didn't get caught in the cross fire between Max Payne and Vini Gognitti.
After all, whenever you see the phrase "Nothing to lose" attached to a movie or game, you know that means an awful lot of killing will be going on. Max Payne holds nothing back in that department, or in innuendo. Drug and alcohol use, prostitution, cheesy soap operas...they're all covered here. At one point, you even shoot a man while his pants are down around his ankles. I won't tell you why they're down there, but I will say it had nothing to do with the drug use or soap operas.