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The flesh of fallen angels...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

No, I don't know what that term means, but considering it's been used in both games, and it sounds cool aside, why not?

I loved the first game with its gritty, gunslinging, crime-noir approach to gaming, but this time around, Remedy knocked it clear outta the park. They managed to keep all the good parts of the original, and they completely fixed up everything I didn't care for.

For instance--bullet time now refills itself automatically. You can't imagine how much difference that makes when you're facing down a building full of Russian gangsters. Another thing--Max doesn't look like he's fighting a constipation-induced migraine anymore while wondering "What smells in here?" That weird look on his face always ruined it for me in the first one. Now, he kinda looks like Bruce Campbell, but believe me, that's a major improvement.

The story's more twisted than a corkscrew factory, to use the game's vernacular. It starts with one murder, then escalates into assassination attempts, corrupt cops, gang wars, wild shootouts, rampant property destruction, and borderline psychotic nightmares. Take a crime noir movie, mix in a murder mystery, add a dash of police drama, then marinate the whole thing in adrenaline and grit, and you get the general idea.

Max himself is fueled by equal parts survivor's guilt, duty, determination, rage, justice, willpower, and more than a little attraction to Mona Sax. You feel for this guy, make no mistake. Even if you didn't know what happened to this poor guy the first time around, you'd sympathize with him by the time the credits roll at the end.

Mona Sax? Now THAT'S a woman. In the words of Vladimir Lem, she's a stone fox. She's also the kind of hot little number Angelina Jolie's tried AND FAILED to be in at least three movies. She's pretty handy with a gun, too, or at least as handy as you are--because you get to PLAY as her in a couple of missions, which I thought was a very nice touch.

Several characters from the first game return this time around--Jim Bravura, Vladimir Lem, Vinnie Gognitti, even Alfred Woden--but now, everything's changed. You won't know who your friends or your enemies are anymore. And the sole new character, Valerie Winterson, Max's partner...well. She brings all kinds of baggage. In fact, she's one of the central characters in the story.

Did I think this game was a little short? Well, okay, a little. But considering that's the only complaint I have about it, so what?

Can't wait for Max Payne 3, personally. I'm wondering how they can improve on this one, and besides, I want to know what kind of moral purgatory Max gets put through next.

Excellent Sequel, better than 1st, but wait for lower price

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: October 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I won't get into too much. I'll try to make my points brief but clear.

If you never played the 1st Max Payne, go out and get it. I think it is $10 a Wal-Mart or Target. It is good and well worth playing first. Once the price of MP 2 drops down, grab it and play it. You will appreciate the improvements.

This game is great. The graphics are awesome, especially running at 4X antialiasing and anisotropic. The battles range from easy to surprising and tough within each chapter. The cut scenes and dream sequences are annoying and get OLD fast! In their defense: they are original, well done - they give you a break and a chance to calm down, so that your adrenaline can get going all over again. I believe that 50% of the cutscenes and dreams/movies could have been dropped without hurting the game or story line.

In "detective" mode, the game was too short. I blew through it in 6 hours. Over the past year, I have noticed many game developers banging out games that are finished in 7 hours but they are still charging $50!!! Send a protest e-mail to them and wait until the price drops to about $30-35. Be proactive and let them know your sick of being jerked around.

Now, to be fair, I blew through it quickly on the easy "detective" level. Once you solve the game you can select a harder setting. Now it is taking me a lot longer and I love it!

Pros - the graphics, the improved gameplay, the effort to provide a story/plot, the enemy AI can really be tough sometimes, and the awesome slo-mo rag doll death scenes!!!

Cons- the enemy AI is so-so(they still blow themselves up and stupidly race around corners! Too much storyline and way TOO MANY cutscenes and annoying dream sequences that waste time.

I enjoyed Max Payne 2 but I do believe anything over $35 is way too much for most games. Wait for a price drop after X-Mas, then grab it!

Maybe Im stoopit

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: November 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Everyone says this game is so short. People complain because its only 8 hours of game play. Well Ive been playing for weeks and I still havent finished it. Maybe its the way that I play. The game is so engaging that I love to play every combat scene over and over until I get it perfect. Then I save and go a little further. It usually takes 4-5 times going through each area to get everything right.

People who complain about the length of this game are like people who complain about the small portions of food at a 5 star restaurant. Its quality, not quantity, folx. Max Payne 2 is not like McDonalds. Take smaller bites and savor the experience.

Brilliant - The Most Gripping Shooter Ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: March 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Max Payne 1 blew my mind; but Max Payne 2 took it three steps further and left me in utter disbelief; it takes the shooter genre way over the top to glorious new heights, improving on every aspect of the game several fold; better level design, better graphics, incredible 3D physics engine, better acting, better character models (I think the new Max is MUCH more convincing; having a 20 year old play Max Payne as in Max Payne 1 was a little hard to believe).

There is no game with the ambiance, the style, of this super Noirish thriller. It deserves an Academy Award. If you want a shooter, this is it! No hesitation required; you will be thrilled and engulfed by this stellar achievement!

Practically perfect.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: October 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Minor bugs not-withstanding, this game is a visual feast. It has AI that stands out as an effort beyond any other FPS style game yet. The incredible fluidity of plot was much better than in the first. The comic-book cutscenes were more worth watching this time around. I ran this on an athlon 900 with windows xp ,a geforce 4 4800 ,and 1 gig pc133 ram and it ran *almost * perfectly with EVERY feature cranked all the way up. My specs are far below the recommended specs on the box. Game length? Anyone who says they finished this in under 10 hours is missing out on the true grit of this game. The background conversations in the jail cells, police officer interrogations in the background, and 'noone lives forever' style conversations between the bad guys at the 'top of the stairs' or, wherever they may happen to be. As long as you stay out of sight, you can hear some juicy gossip that just may clue you in to the next step in this 'noir' mystery. I aced the game,covering all extra -and very enjoyable- features, in about 17 hours. If i had skipped all the worthwhile extras, probably about 10 or 11 hours would've done it. But, the beauty of the MAX PAYNE 2 world is that it is much more complete than the first. Including some haunting dialogue ,spoken by max himself from the first game, that will come back to haunt you in nightmares. There is one incredible 'escape ' moment near the start of the game that sets the scene for the whole game. This is more of an interactive movie than a 'shooter'. And, a funhouse moment in the game that will make your jaw drop. More than a pleasant surprise is this game. It is a shocking one. Rockstar games have outdone themselves once again. Now, i'm going to wait 3 or 4 years for MAX PAYNE 3. I will hold my breath. Don't miss this program. The inner circle may be calling you. G'night max.

A nonstop action ride, better than the original!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The Max Payne series will be always remembered as the game series that forever revolutionized gaming. With cinematic cutscenes, brilliant graphics and a realistic physics engine, Max Payne 2 capitalizes on the success that characterized its prequel. The new and improved bullet time lets you get into larger firefights, new weapons make gunfights more entertaining and also bring in an element of strategy into the game.

What steals the show is the storyline though. Although it could be called more compact that the original storyline, the new plot is darker, more engaging and has more twists than one could imagine.

Max Payne 2 lets yop play in Max's dreams, and also as Mona Sax, which refreshes the gameplay somewhat. Enemy AI is more advanced, and they can damage you as much as you can damage them.

All in all, Max Payne 2 is one of the finest action games ever made, one that actually makes you able to feel the anguish of the protaginst; it is a must buy for all gamers.

Nothing new, but still fun.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: July 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I being a fan of the first Max payne, because of its storyline and gameplay, was not disappointed by the sequel. Although there was nothing new to the game, I still found it quite fun. I enjoyed the dark storyline and settings. Not to mention that the bullettime feature was somewhat improved. And even though this game is single-minded (running through every level mowing down countless numbers of mobsters), the compelling story and intense firefights compensated for this.
However, Max Payne 2 has little replay value. In my opinion Rockstar copped out when it came to adding replay value. All they did was include an alternate ending which can be unlocked by beating the game on the hardest setting. Pretty much you play the exact same game again to get 5 minutes of difference in the end. What really made me mad was that my friend found the alternate ending on kazaa by typing in "Max Payne 2 alternate ending". He got to see it in two minutes, while I spent five hours replaying the game to get the alternate ending.
Although the game provided good entertainment for a limited amount of time, it isin't worth spending $50 on. Especially since it is short and has no replay value. Either borrow it from a friend or rent it.

RE: 14-year olds shouldn't write reviews...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: June 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Excuse us sir but people have a right to give as many stars to a product as they want. There's nothing wrong in pointing out the flaws of a product as much as you guys want to desperately hype a product so that it sells big even though the quality actually stinks. If you want to criticize truth tellers as 14 year olds, then keep it up. Likewise we can easily counter your baloney by saying that 4 year olds like yourself who knowingly lie to the public about a product and give it 5 stars shouldn't be writing reviews either. Just look at how far down in price Max Payne 2 has fallen, from $50 to $20, more so after more dissatisfied customers posted honest reviews of the game to counter all that false hype earlier. As an ex-MP2 customer who bought the game, played it, and then sold it on ebay because it was no better than the first game, I actually agree with those who gave 1-3 stars on this game.

Having said that, yes it's a noir love story all right. Unlike the first game, Max Payne makes himself look more guilty even though he was actually doing the right things in Max Payne 2. There's no nightmare levels unlike the first game but there are more slow moving levels not to mention a level where you just go through a simple maze without any enemies. Unlike the first game where only twice you lose your weapons, in this game you end up losing your weapons all the time even though you can probably make do without them up to a point. As for Mona also playing, at first it looks interesting but after playing one level of it, you realize that playing Mona is no alternative to Max himself except that she gets the Dragonuv instead of the Sniper Rifle and that she has fewer weapons than Max himself. It would have been nice if the developers would have actually designed Mona to able to punch and kick (kung foo anyone?) enemies in addition to using guns alone. As for the audio, at first the speeches are fun to listen to. However, as you progress through the game, the audio is redundant from background music to speeches from your opponents. Like the first game, Max Payne talks to himself more often than not although you can start up a dialog with certain characters in the game other than your opponents of course. To say that this game is flawless is to believe that fool's gold is real gold.

If you liked the first Max Payne, you may or may not like Max Payne 2. However, as some have honestly pointed out earlier, if you did not or now do not like the first Max Payne, don't expect much from Max Payne 2.

This is the best action game you can get for PC

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: October 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is the best action game you can get for PC right now. The game picks up after the first game and Max works at the NYPD now and has aged as well as other characters from the previous game. As you can tell by the cover art on the box, the story has to do with a girl, Mona. I don't want to tell you much about it, because I don't want to ruin the really deep storyline.
When you start up singleplayer you will notice that everything looks like it did in the old game but with way improved graphics. Which isn't a bad thing, because the way the HUD looked in the last game looks great in the new one also. Everything looks sharper now. The bullet effects look great, shells hit the floor as you fly through the air with two pistols firing away at a nearby enimie. You will also notice the physics. The physics are the best in any game you will see so far. You can shoot back an enemy and he will fly into a big pile of boxes and brooms with ragdoll physics and while he falls to the floor, the last bullet you shot hits him in the arm and it spins him backwards and falls over the ledge two stories above the city pavement.
This game is awsome. I am not exagerating one bit when I give this game 5 stars. The only gripe I have is, this game can be completed in about 8 hours (Rockstar will release a map editor later, so users can create there own missions) and even on a High End machines the load times aren't long, but longer than they should be. But this game is simply, outstanding! Go buy it now!

Grat game but just too short.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: October 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Before reviewing this game I'd like to start with the only thing I didn't like. The game is just too short. Took me a couple of afternoons and a saturday to finish it.

That being said I must say that it was quite a great game. And despite being so short it will be worth playing it again and again.

If you've played Max payne before you will immediately fit in with the game. The improvements aren't much. The graphics are somewhat improved but, in my personal view, they're not much of a leap forward from the previous max payne although the textures in particular have been much improved. But the best aspect of the game is that it has the whole package, that is great sound, gameplay, graphics and story. After several years of only having "shoot 'em up" games one gets rather tired. Great graphics can dazzle the eye but at the end of the day what I'm looking for in a game is sheer enterntainment value (I'm looking at you Unreal 2!). But this game is much more than shooting. Sometimes you have to do some exploring and other times think about what to do. The story is quite nice as well....specially with the "addition" of Mona Sax (Move aside Lara Croft! This is one "lovely" lady). One of the things I like the most are those missions where Mona has to protect Max and that in which Max has to protect a guy from the mob who got dressed up in a cartoon character suit with a bomb (abolutely hilarious by the way). Of course, all that which was great about the first game is present in this sequel.

So conclusion. A great game but unfortunately too short. But don't let that drive you away from this game. It's short but quite fulfiling.....Max Payne 3....please come soon!

A footnote. If you haven't played the first Max Payne I recommend you do so. Not only is it also a great game (and quite cheap nowadays) but you won't understand much of the story of Max Payne 2 unless you've played the first one.

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