Sound: 8
Gameplay: 8
Replay Value: 6
Reviewer's Tilt: 9
Overall: 9.0
Once in a while, you'll kill someone in this game and the gameplay will purposely freeze, the camera twirling around the victim while he falls to the ground, blood slowly splatting on the walls. Then the gameplay will continue, and you'll get to play some more. It's so much fun to pause the game while shooting, to see bullets frozen in the air. For even more fun, zoom into an enemy with your sniper rifle, and shoot. Watch the bullet travel in slow motion to its target, hitting him right between the eyes.
Sounds pretty doesn't it? Well, that's because it is! Max Payne is the most original game I've played in years. It's a whole new breed of action game, and I'm proud to play it every time.
What makes this gem sparkle? The graphics is the main thing. If you can find better graphics on a PC game, then I'd like to know what PC game it is. If you've seen a video game that's more interactive, let me know, because this is the most interactive game ever for the PC. Shoot mirrors and tiles in bathrooms, shoot barrels of wine just to see some wine splatter out, or press the buttons on vending machines to have a bag of chips fall to the floor. You can shoot pop cans just to find soda fizz out of them. Jump through windows, shoot the tops of propane tanks to find a huge explosion....it's all included in this package! The interactive graphics are also served up with some sweet looking gritty rooms. This looks just like New York. There are some excellent fire sequences as well, namely the restaurant scene in which fire tries to engulf you and trap you in a restaurant. Molotov cocktails, when thrown, cause a nice fire effect as well. Everything about these graphics shine, and there was hardly any slowdown. I play my PC games on a GeForce 2 64 MB graphics card, and it still ran great.
The controls are surprisingly easy to learn. Plus, they're customizable! Combat is simplified to your liking, and bullet time can be easily activated by a press of the Right mouse click. What is this bullet time, you ask? It's the thing that let's you fight in slow motion, and it's quite useful. You won't have trouble contolling Max Payne because it handles so well. Smooth controls are a must in action games, and Max Payne executes them quite nicely.
Okay, now for the bad. The game is too difficult. I couldn't beat it without cheat codes, and that's just sad. Hey, I died on the first level numerous times. So I had to add the codes. It wasn't too sad, but I regreted doing it. There's also some minor graphical glitches here and there, and some annoying framerate issues.
Max Payne is the PC action game of the year. I enjoyed this game immensely. Everything is so refined, especially the graphics and controls. This game is a must for PC action gamers.
