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Parents should read this before getting there kids this game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: August 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Since a lot of the other reviewers have aleady told you about the plot, I won't. All I'm gonna say is this: GET THIS GAME! Incredible action and atmosphere! Slow-motion slugfests! Interesting plot! Movie quality cinematics! (there is a mix between cinematics and comic-book style cinematics but more of comic-book)

But not for kids. There is only mild profanity, but heavy violence. In this first minutes of the game, Max's wife and baby are gunned down. There is a lot of blood and you hear screams of people being tortured. Also, you find a few dead bodies of people who were tortured to death. One part comes to mind where Max finds someone who was beaten to death with a baseball bat. There is also some heavy drug content. Throughout the game you find needles lying around, druggies taking drugs and getting high in bathrooms, and max's family gets killed by people who inject themselves with drugs. The sexual content is somwhere between PG-13 and R. There are many refrences to prostitution and pimps (including numerous vibrating beds), sexual innunendo (which is very strong at times) and posters of half naked women on the walls. Also, there is a moment that comes to mind wherea woman is with a bartender in a bar all alone. The comic book style cinematic shows pictures that obviously hint that they are going to do it. (there is one quite crude picture that hints something I can't mention in this review, so be warned.) this game is not for anyone under 15 or so.

Anyway, if you are over 15 or so, buy this game! It will sure to please FPS lovers!

Awesome film-noir style action

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: July 26, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Finnish developers Remedy have been at work on Max Payne for several years now, and it's finally hit store shelves. It is a truly breathtaking achievement, not only in terms of the astounding visuals but also in terms of story and action.

The player takes on the role of New York detective Max Payne. In the emotional opening chapter, a prologue to the action, we see through Max's eyes the murder of his wife and infant child. Max finds hints that the murders were the work of a particular drug gang, and moves on to work with a drug enforcement agency for three years to find the leader. It plays out like a scene from a big-budget action movie. This sets the up the rest of the first "act" of the game, with Max in search of the leader of the gang.

Graphically, Max Payne features some truly amazing textures, very much photo-realistic. Controlling Max will be simple for anyone who has played a FPS style game, with one great twist: "Bullet-Time" gameplay. This is a feature where the player can slow down the game time, ala' "The Matrix," with a simple mouse button click. This gives the player a small tactical advantge, but it certainly does not distract from the already difficult gameplay.

The hardware requirements are fairly steep to enjoy the eye-candy at it's fullest. Although the minimum requirements call for a 450 MHz P3 or AMD processor, 96 MBs of RAM and a 16 MB video card, a more realistic requirement is a processor near to or above 1 GHz; a higher-end video card with 32 MBs of memory and above (this is the game that the GeForce 3 was made for!) and 256 MBs of RAM.

Max Payne has definitely been worth the wait.

Fun, nerve-wracking, edge-of-your-seat action

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

FIRST OF ALL: If you are turned off from buying this game because you don't have an experimental super-processor and a mountain of RAM, don't fret. I run the game on a 450 MHz PIII and 128 MB RAM and it's smooth as silk (at the lowest, but still gorgeous, graphics level). If you have the bare minimum hardware, it's very worth it to give it a try.

Atmosphere: It is a very mature game - not for the little tikes. The game deals with violence, sex, and drugs most of the time, not to mention heartstring-pulling drama. If you're OK with that, prepare to be immersed in a tense crime action-drama that feels like a movie and (mature) comic book at the same time. I find myself almost biting my lip at times playing this game. The suspense will have you sweating bullets. The voice acting, especially Max's, is also great. Max has that great "seen more hatred and darkness than any man should" kind of sound in his voice, but has a comforting "tough guy" sound as well. The only thing I can really compare this game to, in terms of immersiveness, is Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation, only with a richer setting.

Graphics and sound: The graphics vary between great and jaw-dropping, depending on the power of your processor and 3D card. In the slow-motion "Bullet Time", you can actually see the bullets coming toward and away from Max. The sound is also very well-done. If Max is a room away from two thugs talking, they sound like they are a room away. Overall, it makes you feel like you're there.

Gameplay and features: One of the coolest features of the game is the slow motion, officially called "Bullet Time". Bullet Time can be used at any point, since there is no break between action sequences and looking around. However, Bullet Time is limited. It slowly drains while it is activated, but you get a little more to refill it a bit whenever Max downs an enemy thug. The slow-mo really adds an extra "wow" factor to the action sequences. This isn't just Tomb Raider with thugs, drugs, and Baretta slugs - this is a game of Matrix-like action tied together with a Usual Suspects-like story. The controls are very simple and do not detract from the game whatsoever.

My advice: Buy this game if you have at least the bare minimum hardware. Wait until it is dark and quiet to begin playing it. Prepare to have all of your emotions thoroughly smacked-around and sent through a rollercoaster ride of action and drama.

One of the best games this year

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Given that this game was under development for so long, by the time it shipped, I really wasn't interested in it. Then I watched one of my coworkers playing it, and I immediately went out and bought it. For the following couple of weeks, I did little else.

This is one of the most interesting games I've ever played. The storyline wasn't terribly original, but it was presented in a very effective manner. I especially enjoyed the graphic novel scenes that separated each chapter. Also innovative were the levels where you took part in Payne's nightmares.

Of course, the big thing that everyone is talking about is the slow motion sequences. Some of these are activated by the player, and besides looking cool, they allow you to overcome some situations that would be almost impossible otherwise. The other time slo-mo comes into play is when you kill the last enemy in a particular area, when you see them flying through the air with a grimace on their face - a very nice touch.

The game is very violent, which won't be a problem for many gamers, but it's something you should be aware of. Also, as has been mentioned, the game is fairly short, which may disappoint some people, although finishing the game the first time unlocks new play modes. Overall, though, if you want something different from the standard shooter fare, you won't be disappointed with Max Payne.

Excellent stress relieve for a very casual gamer

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I haven't played much of any PC games in a few years, but recently was given Max Payne. Well, I find it to be a very good stress reliever. It is a shooter with excellent graphics and a very very lame story. After a few levels, I ended up just clicking through all of the story sequences and focus on movements and actions.

What I like the most is that I was able to play through the whole game and only once got stuck and had to consult one of numerous walkthroughs available on the net for free. Granted, I played the lowest difficulty level of the three. After, I completed the game, harder levels were unlocked, but the only difference with what I played was the increase in the number of bad guys and their resilience. The story and scenery remained the same.

Another thing I liked, was an extreme ease of operation - mouse and a bit of keyboard with no extra special keys/movements to memorize.

I also liked ability to save at any point, and utilized it pretty frequently.

Amazing graphics, even for my non gamer computer.

The game is about 95% shooter. With 3% labyrinth type of movement during the "dream sequences" (which was completely annoying) and about 2% of puzzles, which was fun to figure out.

On the negative side, terrible story and a few dream sequences are about the only flaws I can think of.

Good luck!

Max Payne- Better than Quake, Half-Life and Unreal

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: August 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

OK, when I took this game home and installed it, the only problem I found is that you can't use the arrow keys to turn, you have to use the mouse. But soon I adjusted and it turned out to be very useful and more effective than the keys. Now onto the game itself. Max Payne is a DEA cop whose wife and baby were brutally murdered by junkies high on the fictional street drug Valkyr. The game starts with a cinematic sequence of Max standing on top of a tower block in New York holding a sniper rifle. He starts explaining how he ended up there. The game levels are seperated by graphic novel type pages. I first thoght this couldn't be as good as 3D cutscenes, but I was wrong. The comic book pages add depth and grittiness to the story. During gameplay, Max has access to a nifty little feature called Bullet-Time. There are two ways of using this- by pressing ALT while standing still- this will slow down time and enable you to dodge enemies more efficently. The second way is pushing the right mouse butoon while moving in a direction. This puts you into a slow motion dive in that direction, enabling you to dodge bullets otherwise called shoot-dodging. While in shoot-dodge mode you can move the mouse, turning you in real-time therefore pulling off amazing rolls. The in game enemies are quite smart, they hide from you and throw grenades. The only glitch is that they sometimes shoot there teammates- which is quite funny. The damage inflicted on enemies ny you is quite realistic- with only the beefed up characters and later game-enemies that require more punch. This mistake is made in almost EVERY game with 'boss' characters, although some Mods (modifications) of games correct this mistake. When comparing Max Payne to other action games- Half-Life, Unreal and Quake. It is more realistic-if you get shot at close range with a shotgun you die, it's graphics are better- I suppose this is true about (almost) every new game but Max Payne's graphics are superior compared to Half-Life, in some bits of Max Payne, when you kill an enemy, you will see a cinematic shot of him dying with great facial expressions and you can shoot just about anything in the game environment and it will be destroyed- in one level an alarm is going off and if you shoot the alarm, it breaks and Max says 'Thank you'. Max Payne ships with 3 level editors- a level editor, a character editor and an effects editor. Although the manual states these are easy to use, they aren't really and you will have to find a tutorial on-line. The only downside to Max is that there is no multiplayer, the reason for this is that bullet-time in multiplayer would confuse other players. All in all, Max Payne is a brilliant game with good graphics and gameplay, a little on the short side but great levels. However, Max Payne is not meant for younger players, the drug scenes and blood/gore is particulary graphic. I hope that helps anybody deciding weather or not to buy this game.

It's not a waste of money by a long shot.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: August 15, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Ok, I know that a lot of people have hangups about this game. Some say that it's too short, or all it has going for it is bullet time. (bullet time, in case you don't know, is the matrix like effect that you can toggle to slow time down without affecting how fast you aim, it's pretty mind blowing) They, however, are entitled to their opinions but I think they're wrong.

Graphics: The graphics are the best I've ever seen on any platform. You need to have a pretty juiced up system, but if you do, you'll be astounded. Even if you don't they're still amazing. There are a few quips, when people pull their guns out of their shoulder holsters, it looks as though they're gingerly holding it by two fingers until they level it. Also, Max's face could use some more animations. He has three: just standing there with a smirk, squinting because of muzzel flare or explosions, and an unhappy one when he's dead. But the shear attention to detail with everything else makes those non issues. You can see the bullets whizzing by your head, the gun recoil expelling the empty shell, the spots where blood sprays will stain the wall or ground appropriatly, not just a sprite.

Gameplay/Control: I use the typical WSAD approach to gaming which is default for MP. You can configure it however you choose but I've heard some people complain about the lack of joystick control. Max is very easy to move around and especially with bullet time, you have no problems aiming. The only downfall is the reticule is a small white dot which at times is hard to spot. It would have been nice to have a larger crosshair. Basically, if you've every wanted to be in a John Woo movie, now's your chance.

Story: I must admit that I haven't finished the game as of yet but I've gotten pretty far and I'm not too disapointed with the story. It's told in a graphic novel/film noir approach and, given that the writers are gamers and not pulitzer winning novelists, it's pretty good. The point of the story is to empathize with the hero. So many games nowadays having you not giving a rats behind about the main character. A shame.

Sound: The sound is great. I think the gunshots should be louder than they are but there are mods out there to help with that. The music is very mood setting and the voice acting is fabulous. Many games have been ruined by poor voice actors but this one is enhanced by it. Some of the written dialogue is a little cheesy but not when it is spoken aloud by these guys.

Anything else: I usually play a game all the way through before I download any mods for it. (a mod is a file that can alter certain aspects of the game, either visually or sound) But I'm definitely looking forward to fininshing so I can try out some of the very cool mods out there for this game.

Overall: This is a very dark, very violent game, definitely not suitable for children. However, it's definitely going to be in the running for Game of the Year.

Head and shoulders above the crowd

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: August 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I'm not sure why Justin didn't like this game: I found it to be astonishingly fun.

Sure, it's a shoot-em-up, but what separates THIS one from the others is *style*. This game has gobs of style. You're not just shooting up bad guys like in "Die Hard", you're shooting them in John Woo style, complete with sweeping trenchcoats, acrobatic gunfights, and slow-mo (which John Woo was doing YEARS before "The Matrix", BTW).

The action by itself is very impressive, but most impressive is the way it integrates flawlessly into the storyline. While the plot is pretty well mapped out, you feel part of it. This game ALMOST feels like a role-playing game with lots of combat.

Also, I love the little touches in the game. Almost every object you see is functional. A toilet can be flushed. A TV can be turned on. A soda machine dispenses sodas. They really paid attentions to details.

Also, there is a lot of wit in the game. There are a number of visual and auditory jokes -- too numerous to mention -- and frequent homages to the genres that spawned this game.

If you like shoot-em-ups, this is the best one I've seen!

MAX Looks GREAT!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: August 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I'm writing this because I sincerely want others to benefit from my mistake. The little bit of Max Payne that I did see looked terrrrific, however, it crashed on me shortly after starting. Then it crashed again and then again. I didn't read the small print on the bottom of the box. The MINIMUM requirements for the PC version are.... a better than agerage 3D card and 700mhz PIII or equivalent and they're not kidding. Don't take it home and slide it in there unless your machine has got the goods or else you'll wind up slapping your machine up side the head listening to the air being let out of your baloon. Those requirements are pretty high for any game but this one looks like it's worth it. My PC has a 400mhz with a 2D integrated card and although Deus Ex ran great on it, Max Payne couldn't even get out of the driveway

Incredibly difficult!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: July 30, 2001
Author: Amazon User

3D Realms is one of my favorite companies because of Duke Nukem and Shadow Warrior, so when I saw that they made Max Payne, I immediatly drove to the store and picked up a copy.

When I started Max Payne, truth be told, I was amazed at how SLOW the thing ran. I used to think that my Pentium 700 was a good computer, now in order to get the most out of Max Payne, I need a gigahertz computer. Sheesh! Anyways, after turning down some details, I got the game running pretty smoothly.

The details on the game are very polished, and the locales in New York City are represented very realistically, from the run-down slums to mob boss mansions. The storyline, which is about a renegade cop whose entire family was murdered, is represented by what looks like water-colored comic strip panels, and it adds a nice touch to the game. The storyline is also one of the best I've seen in a shooter game next to Half-Life. The "dream" levels, which occur when Max Payne is knocked unconscious by whatever, are also quite disturbing! The innovative feature that will probably be the best in the game though, is something called "Bullet time." In bullet time, everything is slowed down, but you can aim the gun in real-time, very much like the popular movie, "The Matrix." This is a VERY cool feature. Sometimes when you blast away the last person in the room, it will zoom to him and show him falling slowly to the ground. And of course, when you use the sniper rifle, it zooms to the bullet's point of view. VERY cool.

Unfortunately, now we get to the negative parts of the game. First of all, as I said before, you need a machine with some SERIOUS horsepower to get the most out of Max Payne. Don't even bother with this game unless you have at least a Pentium 3 processor with a 32MB video card and 128MB RAM. The second thing that considerably dampened my experience was sound issues. I have a SBLive! Value sound card, and for some reason, the sound was very faint, unless I turned my back to the source of the sound, then the sounds came in clear. Wierd, and very annoying when the shotgun goes *piff!*

The third and most annoying thing about Max Payne was the difficulty level. The game sports a features that makes it so the difficulty changes according to your skill. For instance, when you first start the game, it takes a few hits from the handgun to kill anything, and if they hit you, you take a little bit of damage. That's okay, but Max Payne's idea of changing difficulty is making it so the enemies take more hits to kill, and you take less hits to kill, so by the time you reach the end of the first act, it takes two, maybe even THREE direct shotgun blasts to kill anything, and all they need is to get two, maybe even one good shot off of you to kill you (and head-shots don't count, by the way. It still took me two shotgun blasts to do the job!). Didn't this crap go out with Goldeneye for the N64? It is flat-out REDICULOUS in crowded enclosed rooms, especially one at the end of act one, with enemies continually pouring out of alcoves in the wall. And the end boss of the act took about FIVE shotgun blasts, and he STILL managed to kill me! Bullet-time became useless because the enemies still hit me even in the middle of a sideways leap. Even after all of the dying on act one, the game did not let up on the difficulty. I got so frustrated at the game I nearly threw it out the window. The only other software that did that was Messiah, and guess what? They ALSO had an innovative feature, just like Max Payne did! And if you beat the game, it opens up even HARDER features? My god!

Overall, I found Max Payne to be graphically superior to many other games, and the Bullet-Time feature is excellent, along with the storyline. But unfortunately, the overwhelming difficulty level and the really high system requirements only earns it three stars in my book.

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