Mona Saves Max - Max Payne 2

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My Kind of Fire-Fighter

You'll know it's love if she gives mouth-to-mouth while you're bleeding to death.

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Many people often forget that Max Payne 2 has the tagline: "A Film Noir Love Story." The cover shot, which shows the silhouettes of the titular cop and his lover in an embrace while clutching automatics, is truly the best one-picture summary of the game's story. While some have decried Max Payne 2's plot as ham-fisted and awkward, the fact remains that the driving force behind the ballet of gunplay in the game is the tension between Max and the femme fatale assassin, Mona Sax. Star-crossed lovers who find themselves on opposite sides of the law, Mona and Max constantly contend with conflicted inner feelings, while working to uncover the conspiracy set up against them.

Would you dive into a burning building to save someone who didn't trust you?

As the story unfolds, Max finds himself more and more dependent on a woman he's attracted to but is never quite sure he can trust. For much of the game, the duo battles together. More specifically, each covers the other as he or she shoots through construction sites and warehouses teeming with bad guys. Despite working as wingmen for each other for much of the time, Max continues to battle doubts in his head about Mona through the entire course of the game. She seems to care about Max, but whose side is she really on? The main villain, Vladimir Lem, also does his best to sow the seeds of distrust in Max by suggesting her involvement in the murder of Max's family in the original Max Payne.

But any doubts you may harbor about Mona's loyalties evaporate midway through the game's final act. While attempting to kill Vlad, she witnesses the villain set off an explosion in her hideout, where he's left Max for dead. Mona selflessly plunges headlong into the fiery building, where she fights through flames to pull Max's broken and bloodied body from the raging inferno. It isn't the cleanest act of love, but it certainly isn't any less meaningful, especially given how much Max outwardly distrusts her throughout the game.

-Bob Colayco

The Ending of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

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She's Fickle. Sort of.

A fitting end to an interactive fairytale.

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One of the sweetest and most enduring aspects of Ubisoft's masterpiece, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, is the relationship that develops between the prince and Farah. The two are royalty on opposite sides of a war, but they're forced to work together after the evil Vizier unleashes the Sands of Time, which ravage Farah's palace into a zombie-filled dungeon that features fiendish environmental puzzles. Though their relationship starts off chilly, with the two trading snippy jabs at each other, the prince and Farah eventually develop a mutual affection. At one point in the story, the two find themselves trapped in a dark hole with seemingly no way to escape. There, Farah relates a story about how she and her mother made up a secret word that would bring her comfort in times of hopelessness. Although initially dismissive of the story, the prince makes careful note of the secret word.

The prince catches Farah off guard with this smooch.

The prince eventually reaches a point where the only way to save himself and Farah is to rewind time all the way back to before the Sands of Time were ever unleashed. This gives him the opportunity to sneak into Farah's room to warn her of the Vizier's evil plans, and the impending doom, before the Sands of Time are ever unleashed. But because their long adventure together never happened in her mind, the prince finds that winning Farah's trust is difficult. His attempt to steal a kiss from her is rebuffed at the end, even after proving the Vizier's treachery and saving the day. Apparently, Sandra Bullock was right when she said in Speed, "Relationships based on extreme circumstances never work out."

Though he doesn't get the girl in the end, the prince gives Farah something to think about when she asks for his name as he leaves her bedroom. In a particularly inspired moment, the prince replies "Cacolukia," which is the secret word that Farah supposedly never shared with anyone. This made for an ending that was not only cute and hopelessly romantic, but also clever.

-Bob Colayco

What's Your Take?

What did you think of our choices? Can you think of better examples from modern games? Or do you think that older games presented love and romance in better fashions? Sound off in our forums by telling everyone what you think are the most romantic moments in gaming.