| Max Payne Max Payne is best described as an interactive John Woo movie, when you see Max himself diving out of the path of bullets and blowing away enemies you'll probably be reminded of John Woo movie regular Chow Yun Fat, in fact Max Payne is one of the PS2's coolest characters coming only second to the ultra cool Dante. You also get the option to slow down the action in a manner similar to how Woo directs his films, with this feature everything is slowed down apart from Max's target giving him a huge advantage over the enemies and also if you watch carefully you are even able to see and dodge incoming bullets. For those of you who don't know, this fresh technique is known as bullet time and when Max Payne was released on the PC it was the most innovitive feature the action genre had seen for quite some time and now PS2 owners can experience it...well sort of. The reason I say that is because the PS2 version of Max Payne is in some ways a disappointment, don't get me wrong: it isn't a bad game in fact I would go as far as to say that it's one of the greatest of its genre on the PS2 so far, it�s just that some of the features that made the PC version such a winner (note: I have not played PC version but I know plenty about it) have either disappeared completely or have been dumbed down, this I put down to the developers fault and not the fault of the hardware as the PS2 is more then capable of running a game such as this, all it needed was a few more months or even just weeks of development and it would have been just as much of a classic as the PC original was, but sadly it seems to be a bit of a rushed job. I'll be discussing more on these disappointments throughout the review. The plot is sometimes compelling but at times it can be hard to follow as characters come and go and it becomes more complex, you'll certainly need bullet time concentration to be able to understand everything first time through, but to be honest a lot of the time I just wanted to get on with the action, sure Max Payne tells a pretty compelling tale but it isn't the kind of story that made me yell "what's going to happen next!" Most of these scenes are displayed in a graphic novel like fashion which is pretty cool but doesn't help although it does have an excellent script and well done voice acting, it would have been better off with CG sequences as it would have made things that little bit more interesting, but still there are enough twists and turns to keep you watching but there's certainly more interesting plots out there. It begins with the brutal murders of Max's wife and daughter at the hands of drugged up mad men and then continues as it follows his quest for revenge. The environments often look a bit empty which is probably a better thing as when the rooms are filled with objects and action the game tends to slow down to a halt for a couple of seconds, collision detection is also bad with enemies body parts constantly merging into walls. But everything isn't bad on the graphical side of things; character detail is almost as impressive as the PC version as are the satisfying gunfire effects from your many guns and the realistic explosion of blood when the enemies are hit. They may be little things but it's little things like that, that make it such a satisfying experience. It�s just a shame they couldn't have made it look almost identical to the PC version. The same can be said for bullet time itself as it just doesn't seem to be all that useful when compared to the PC version, on that version you could see almost every bullet whizzing by you but on this one they seem to be pretty difficult to identify making them almost impossible to dodge which is a real shame, but thankfully it can still improve your targeting. Bullet time is still a fantastic feature which adds a new dimension to action games, it's such a great feeling shoot-diving around a corner and taking out three enemies all at once without even a slight scrape but it's sad to say that the PC version pulls it off even better. Problems also arise when you can't save it at any stage in the levels, something which the PC version had and when you do die it can become terribly frustrating especially towards the end of the game when things get stupidly tough. so that means this version of Max Payne is actually harder then it should be, but when you do manage to complete it you'll certainly feel as if you have worked a bit harder than the PC version. Page 2 |
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