User Reviews (1 - 11 of 269)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Gritty aesthetics don't completely hide the straightforward gameplay

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: March 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Max Payne got immense praise when it was first released; PC gamer gave it a whopping 95%.Perhaps at the time it was easy to hail it's features. Many graphic features were excellent for the time. The graphic novel cutscenes. And (of course) the bullet time feature.

Looking back at it though I think that 95% is surely too generous a score. It has some serious flaws to gameplay. Firstly the structure is almost entirely linear (In fact as far
as I know it is entirely linear but I've only played it once) After a few levels gameplay becomes quite predictable. You *know* that there are going to be bad guys lurking around, if
not that corner, then probably the next one. And unlike some games, like say, Thief, there isn't any way of telling they're around until you run into them. There is no lean feature
and you can't run while crouched meaning that your only option is to either charge in guns
blazing, or use the bullet time to slow things down. However the bullet time isn't quite as
helpful as you may imagine. Certainly with the sniper scope it gives you a valuable edge,
but with a room full of 3 or 4 enemies it's often just as effective to charge in, keep
moving about to present yourself as a difficult target and aim for headshots. (You'll never
run out of ammunition in this game) The game soon becomes a fairly routine exercise in
clearing rooms of bad guys (who usually say old cliched gangster type things like "Ice him!"
and finding an exit to the level. There is no tactical subtlety at all in the game except for the bullet time feature. I might also point out that the game features one of the worst
grenade implementations I've seen. Only one throw range and a puzzlingly small blast radius. Throwing a grenade into a room will most often merely result in enemies escaping unhurt and rushing out of the room to shoot you while you're switching weapons.

One thing that you'll either love or hate (or at least like or dislike) is the whole idea of the graphic novel cutscenes. Various important points in the game will trigger off a comic
book style cutscene with a cynical world weary voice over from Max Payne. Although I can see why this might add atmosphere tot he game and appeal to a lot of people I personally grew a
bit tired of the constant stop-start pace of the game. Those looking for constant action will be disappointed.

On the positive side though the plot is genuinely engaging and I found myself wanting to
finish a level if only to see what the next plot twist was. However even this was spoiled somewhat by the stupid names of the characters, all to obvious play on words; even the main character "Max Payne". It's groan worthy more than anything else.
Special mention too must go to the fact that this game models vertical dimensions well. It's
rare to find a game that features more than 2 or 3 elevation changes, but by the end of the game you'll find yourself in a New York skyscraper 50 stories high having to edge along the
outside. Looking down at the city beneath you is liable to produce some palpable vertigo!

So, yes I think this is a 3rd person good adventure, and worth buying. But for all it's noirish style the actual gameplay is all pretty straightforward a lot of the time.

Awesome!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game has one of the most artistically fascinating and creepy sequences in a game ever. I will not spoil it, but if you have not played it, get this one!

biggest shame of the gaming industry ever.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 4
Date: November 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

this game came out half a decade ago. reviews on it stopped shortly afterwords. but to this day, i get enraged when i think about my awful experience in this game. coming to this review out of mild curiosity, and seeing the fossilized brainless fanboy droolings from 6 years ago in it, is the last straw.

in the name of the forces of light (and my seething resentment), i am digging up this games festering corpse, in order to properly ***** **** it into hell, where it belongs.

this, is the worst game ever made. to merely call it a bad game, would be like saying that getting stuck in a time warp in which you dying in a fiery, flying scrap metally 50 MPH car crash, once every 5 seconds, again and again, forever, is merely an unpleasant experience.

there have been many bad games made over the years. but this one would headshot all of those other bad games in 2 seconds flat. which happens to be the only type of combat that ever came from it.

not only did this game have nothing worth **** going for it, but it was full of irritation, pointlessness, boredom, depression, false promises, and some far more sinister offense against the mind, which was never distinct enough to identify. similar to something you might read in a lovecraft novel. only lovecraft would never have dared to traumatize the world with a book based off of this game.

the graphics were not good. they were depressing. they made me hate large cities even more than i already hate them. the graphics had the emotional effect of being swallowed alive, digested, and then passed by one of the band members of "emo".

if you want "graphics", than stop hounding game developers for them. look at a picture book instead. or, if you want to match this game to the mental development level that would find it interesting to play, a hello kitty coloring book.

the primary playstyle offered by this game, was to get you to reload the game as many times as possible. by being killed as swiftly and cheaply as possible. in a wide variety of infuriating, underhanded, downright smelly methods.

opponents that always know exactly where you are at all times, AND who possess the accuracy to almost always make a headshot against you? ESPECIALLY when you are up close to them, and their field of vision in which to see you, let alone accuratly aim at you, is supposed to be at its most limited?
and that is not when the opponent magicly materializes out of places where they have no reason to be. or places that they are not supposed to know to be, at just that EXACT moment in time. not that you could see them coming anyway, in the depressing darkness of this ultra-scripted combat, meat shredder game that you are being fed into.

opponents are not supposed to violently burst through windows and closed elevator doors, land on the ground, stabilize their center of gravity, get their bearing on their surroundings, notice you standing 5 feet away from them, aim at your exact location, and make a perfect head shot on you, ALL IN 1.5 SECONDS! and even if they could do it once (lame), then they are not supposed to do it OVER AND OVER AGAIN, LIKE CLOCKWORK! (ultra lame).

the 2 main things that the developers were doing over the 4 years of development, was watching porn (likely snuff films, if their game development style is any indicator), and inventing ******** ways to kill you. they certainly didn't spend 4 years working on the boring, pointless storyline, the ultra-brainless maps, the non-existant strategy use in the game, or that moronic excuse of a game feature called "bullet time" (after 10 mintues of playing, i re-named it "cheat time". because it ammounted to cheating against the computer. and it wasn't even cheating that gave you much of an advantage, because your opponents STILL had that ******* godlike awareness, flawless accuracy, and in some cases the hitpoints of 3 elephants which were all high on speed).

this game was about as enjoyable as working at a customer service station, at which you take abusive, stressful calls from angry customers all day.
accept such a job wouldn't be as tedious as playing this game (not as much pointless button pressing or endless savegame reloading), would involve more strategy than this game (defusing angry customers), involve more mental capacity than this game (listening skills and conflict resoluation skills), be more entertaining than this game (you could play with a pen and paperclips while you are being screamed at), be more educational than this game (you might learn new methods of insulting other people), be less mentally traumatizing than this game (the customers can merely yell at you. they cannot kill you from out of nowhere every 5 seconds, hundreds of times, like these opponents), and would compensate you for your time with a paycheck (you could eat at a restaurant with friends who don't **** you the **** off like this game does).

now as for YOU, reading this on your computer screen. if you thought that this was a good game, than you are a prime candidate for sterilization. your vile, easily amused, unthinking kind is directly responsible for the encouragment of truely horrible games like this filthy creature of the abyss. as long as subhumans like you are in a position to influence game development companies (and the penny pinching investment entities which practicly tell them how to make their games thse days), software atrocities like max payne will stay an ever present threat in the practicly dead PC gaming market. infact, scum like you are DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the dark age of PC gaming which we are currently in, and will likely never recover from ever again.

so, to summarize my graffiti on the tombstone of this great satan of all games:

the forces of evil won control of the PC platform, it is all your fault you empty-headed *****, get yourself sterilized for the good of all mankind.

* and then max payne 3 was released. and the world ended as a direct result *

Amazing!! Excellent !! Best game i ever played !

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I just love this game. I just love the way it interacts with you, specially on the streets of NY in the night under the snow. I just love that environment. Excellent!! Cheers to the developers !!

Should have finished it and released it in 1999

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 10
Date: February 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Back when the game was started and developed, it was technologically way ahead of its time. Too bad that by the time it came out, other games with game engines like Max Payne's or even better were already out and dampened the already losing popularity. On top of it, the story finishes in a New York Minute so darn fast and then the interest in giving it another play is all sapped out. Would have been better if the story had been more dynamic rather than linear ! And don't count on the sequel to be any better as it copies another game engine to soup itself up barely !

Started out ok and did get some traction but when the game's over, so is the fun

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 15
Date: November 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I didn't find myself coming back to the game as it got more boring after the first time. The tougher levels were not all that difficult either so I don't regret having bought a cheap and used copy and will be happy to sell mine and put this crap behind. Overall, the game's not worth the money and neither is the sequel. Don't let the liars and hypers mislead you on how really great either of the Max Paynes are. Get it cheap and used and see for yourself.

Max Payne is a first-person shooter classic...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you've never played Max Payne before and you love first-person shooters then you owe it to yourself to buy this game. It's cheap now, so there's no reason not to own it before it's out of print.

Max Payne is a gritty story about a cop just doing his job. His wife an baby are murdered and it throws his world into turmil. As you can imagine, he wants revenge and he gets revenge many times over.

What makes Max Payne unique is that it uses John Woo style moves and action. This was the first game to feature "bullet time", which allows the player to slow down the action and perform fancy dive and jump moves while blasting their weapon at a target in slo-mo. Couple this with a good story and vengeance and you have a winning game. You get sucked into the world of Max Payne and you can't help but love it.

Max Payne is a huge game. By the end you'll have killed hundreds of people in your quest for the truth. It's plenty of action. Even though by today's standards the graphics look a little dated, it was top of the line for its time, with reflective floor surfaces and flying wall debris.

Another cool thing about this game is you can use cheat codes and slow the action down to a stop, then move it forward one frame at a time. You see, with Max Payne the bullets are actually flying out of the gun at the target, so when you do super slow-mo you get to see the bullets in mid-air heading for their target. Using the time cheat you can watch bullets hit targets and debris flying all over the place in realistic fashion.

Long story short, it's a must-own game for FPS fans. There's no multi-player, but who needs it when you have all the action you could want.

Also check out Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. It continues the story, has updated graphics and the characters' mouths move when they talk. It takes Max Payne up another level. However, the game is somewhat shorter than the first installment. Get both of them today!

a very well done game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

3 stars is pretty good for me as i have yet to give a game 5 stars and i would say max payne is maybe 3 and a half. i wont really go into the plot much of this game as its always the easiest info to come across. i'll just give you my positives and my complaints that lead to my score.

positive:
a good story!,
i find video games woefully deficient in this regard normally and when people talk about good stories at best i think it is relative. i am still waiting for a great story, but found mp to be one of the (few) reasonably solid ones. as a fan of cutscenes i thought i would miss them more than i did (the story is told through quite good graphic novel panels). the ending in particular is notably satisfying, with the gameplay integrating well and interestingly with the action itself to produce an actual, mostly reasonable, closed ending conclusion (shockingly rare in computer games!).

you can save the game anytime.

looks pretty nice for a dated game, not beautiful, but can be stylish.

good gameplay balance and feel, i liked the voice acting and characters, film noir theme worked quite well (i enjoyed the lack of monsters!) interesting progression of improved weapons, gameplay mechanics sound, self adjusting difficulty levels a little bit of an odd concept, but actually worked pretty well (the game adjusts the difficulty level according to how you're doing), i like my games a bit on the easier side of things and the level of challenge here was really pretty good for me. i had really only a couple notably frustrating times (one a run through a burning building), but i've had worse. also, i LIKED the length of this game! it is a common complaint that it was too short, but i find very few games are actually anywhere good or interesting enough to hold my interest all the way through as they all end up as more of the same after awhile. 12 to 15 hours (a guess, i don't exactly recall) is a very good length for a shooter and seemed just right for max payne.

you might also enjoy that this game should work on even a pretty dated system today (i found the game very stable with its patch), and that you should be able to get it for dirt cheap.

negatives:

the extremely interesting bullet time feature, while cool, actually gives no advantage that i can tell. if anything it was a disadvantage mostly and you're better off just barging through or in (they fix this in max payne 2, but do worse on other accounts).

there are alot of locked doors as in "hmm this door is locked, i'll try that one, oh, i tried that already."

the gameplay is not notably diverse, shooting, navigating, a bit of light puzzle solving. the gritty urban world is okay, but not all that interesting to explore or anything.

conclusion: this is a very good meat and potatoes action adventure shooter. it will not blow you away but is pretty fun and as good as pretty much anything else in its genre (taking into account its age which probably means less than most of us "newest thing" addicts are inclined to admit). i recommend it.

Re:yeah!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: February 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

to this day, this game still kicks! awesome graphics, awesome gameplay, etc. If your into games like this one, Pick this one up. a+

Fun but a little limited...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Yeah, I know, I'm 3 years behind the curve here, but I've finally gotten around to loading the Max Payne CD I've had sitting around forever.

There's lots to like about this game; the cutscenes (which I usually hate) are in an entertaining graphic novel format that's well done & you can skip it if you're replaying after being killed. The voice acting is much better than most games. I love a number of the details such as the guy who was about to receive oral gratification from a hooker when Max barges in, shooting at you with his pants around his ankles. I laughed out loud at that & other similar details. The bullet time feature is especially helpful when you're faced with groups of bad guys, & the environment is probably the grittiest I've ever seen in a video game. The fact that Max pops pills to keep going is also a nice touch; no health packs laying around in corners in this game!

What I don't like are the linear aspects of this game. When walking down a street or a corridor, there may be 4 doors visible, but only 1 will open. There's no opportunity to explore your environment, & no curves; everything is square or rectangular. The gameplay of Max Payne is a shooter at it's most mindless; there are no choices other than which weapon you'll blow people away with & whether you'll do it in bullet time. Considering that Max Payne was released after Deus Ex & No One Lives Forever, with their fully realized worlds & multiple choices in strategy makes the developers simple-mindedness a little disappointing.

If Max Payne had the depth & variety of Deus Ex, it would rank as one of the best games ever made. Instead, it's simply a fun & inventive shooter.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions