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Game Type: Action (3rd Person)
System Requirements: Windows 95/98/ME/2000, DirectX8, PII 400, 96 Mbytes RAM, 16 MB Direct3D Graphics Card
Game / Developer Homepage: Remedy Entertainment & 3D Realms
Order Now: Max Payne (PC)
PreOrder PS2 Now: MAX PAYNE (PS2)
Game Notes:
  Take Payne to the Max with this new 3rd-person action shooter from Remedy Entertainment and 3D Realms. You are Max Payne, a one man army with nothing to lose, blasting your way through the seediest spots in a wintery New York City. There are no super weapons here - just superior reflexes, aided by a Matrix inspired feature called "Bullet Time".
The story is presented in a comic book fashion, and includes alot of cut-scenes and dialogue between the gun blazing action. I don't want to spoil too much of the story for you so i'll just give you the gist of it, since this whole game is based on a well laid out story. You play an undercover police officer who three years ago lost his wife and baby daughter. With a friend in the DEA pushing him to go undercover, and no family to take care of anymore, Max bows to the pressure and becomes a hood, working his way through the mob in pursuit of the source of a new drug called Valkyr. His case takes a nasty turn as he becomes framed for the murder of his friend and police contact, and the mob is tipped off to his undercover status.
Gameplay:
Max Payne is a 3rd person shooter, which in most cases make me cringe. Due to the fact so many 3rd Person games use bad camera angles that cause you to be looking everywhere else but where you want. However this is not the case with Max Payne, you get a great feel with their Max-FX engine. Even if you strictly like First Person Shooters your bound to like Max Payne, they seem to blend the best aspects of 1st and 3rd Person games. Only once in the game did I find my head getting in the way of where I wanted to shoot.
Max Payne uses a Matrix inspired system called "Bullet Time" that allows you to slow the game down. Turning on Bullet Time allows you to aim with deadly precision in the middle of a dive while dodging the enemy's bullets. It truly is a gaming experience that you have to try yourself to really appreciate it. You won't be able to use Bullet Time constantly - there's a limited amount of Bullet Time that is replenished with more kills. I just hope with the success that Max Payne is headed for doesn't lead to every game developer adding and over using this type of feature in their games.
You have a wide selection of weapons at your disposal, from lead pipes and baseball bats, through desert eagles, dual or single berettas, Ingrams, a Colt M5, grenades, a grenade launcher, Molotov cocktails, a sawed-off shotgun, a pump-action shotgun, the Jackhammer and the sniper rifle. My favorite weapon of choice would be using dual Ingrams, if not for the pure visual effect of 100's of rounds fired in seconds during Bullet Time, but also very effective when needing to take out a room full of thugs.
One thing that will save you time is using the quick save button (F5) at the right times, if you
get through a big gun battle in good shape, that would be the perfect time. Otherwise if, or
shall I say when you die, you'll have to replay the big battles and you may not come out of it
in good shape the second time around.
We used two different test machines for the review, one was a PIII 533Mhz with Win98, 512mb RAM and a Elsa GeForce 2 GTS (32mb). The second system was a PIII 866Mhz with Windows 2000, 512mb RAM and a 3D Prophet DDR (32mb). With the Win98 system we had no problems with installation or gameplay, we also put the v1.1 patch on at a later date and had problems. However the Windows 2000 had many problems, the game would crash after you reached a certain chapter. We used the v1.1 patch and the game wouldn't even load, so we reinstalled Max Payne, DirectX 8 and switched from the slightly out of date drivers from Hercules to the most recent Detonator drivers from NVIDIA. We didn't use the 1.1 patch again for the Windows 2000 system and things ran fine from there on in with the new video drivers. So when all is said and done you might not want to patch your game if your not having a problem, especially if your a Win2000 user with a Geforce card.
Graphics:
On both these systems we ran the graphics at 1600x1200x16 and not once was there a hint of lag. This is attributed to the well design of Remedy Entertainment's proprietary Max-FX engine. It's robust, fast, has plenty of eye candy features, and can maintain good frame rates with plenty of action on-screen, even with our 533Mhz system. Special effects like explosions, fires, bullets and bullet trails are really a site to behold. Max Payne easily outdoes the competition in any area where those are involved. When it comes to fire effects, other games aren't just not in the same league. Fire doesn't look like a flat texture anymore, it doesn't feel stuck on - it looks alive and flowing. The muzzle flash from guns looks impressive as well, particularly if you bust out with dual ingrams and find your screen flashing like a broken movie projector. The one thing that was a bit of a disappointment was the fact there are no facial animation's for Max, he always has the same grimace on his face, but I can live with that considering all the other eye candy.
Summary:
Max Payne in my opinion is the best 3rd Person Shooter out to date, it has a very easy and natural feeling when playing for a 3rd person game. It has an intriguing and original story line but is rather on the gruesome side from time to time. But Max Payne does have it's downfalls, the biggest being the lack of Multiplayer. Without multiplayer the game doesn't hold much repetitive play value. I suspect with the success that Max Payne will have that there will be a sequel that will incorporate some sort of multiplayer aspect. But with all the fantastic eye candy and cool features like "Bullet Time" Max Payne is one game action gamers must simply try.
ScreenShots: (Click To Enlarge)
       
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