Max Payne has fun moments, but it literally only has about 2 or 3 hours of genuine action.
User Rating: 7.5 | Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne PC
If there was an award for most overrated game of the year, then Max Payne 2 would certainly be my pick. It has some great moments, and it has some great qualities, but it has some glaring flaws that nobody has mentioned yet. If this game had more than 3 hours of actual action, then I might feel differently, but as it stands, it's BADLY lacking in content. The game takes only a half day to play through despite having TONS of filler, in the form of cutscene after cutscene after cutscene after cutscene. The action is constantly being interrupted with cutscenes. In addition, there are a few dream sequences, and a handful of other levels with no enemies that add little to the game other than downtime. I'm not a big fan of short games, but I don't mind so much if the action is nonstop (Red Faction 2 is a perfect example). However, the action in Max Payne 2 is not nonstop. It's choppy and unsatisfying, at least until you get about halfway through the game. The game also forces you to reload your saved game hundreds and hundreds of times to get past all of the "ambush" encounters (i.e. encounters where you walk into a room and spend a save game just figuring out where all the enemies are). This is why half of the gun fights remind me of the sniper city level from "Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast", where you have to reload the game at least once for every enemy so that you can point your guns where he is the next time that you play that encounter. The bad camera angles in this game mean that the enemies will always get two or three shots at you before you can figure out where they are, regardless of whether you are in bullet time. This can be a problem with all shooters, but it is at its worst in a 3rd-person shooter like Max Payne 2. The game is very unforgiving with health, so one unseen enemy can wear down 90% of your health in 2 seconds. That's why you are constantly reloading your saved game. Bullet time should eliminate the need for trial-and-error, but that’s not what happens here. The AI for the game is abysmal. Enemies will yell "take cover" when you throw a grenade, and then just stand there. Frequently, they will blow themselves to bits with grenades. They don't duck back and forth behind cover, or run away when they are badly hurt. Compared to the other shooters on the market like Halo, the AI in this game is vastly inferior. So, the game makes up for it with constant surprises and ambushes. This simply gets downright annoying after a while. The original Max Payne had this problem, but it is worse in this game. The graphics have highs and lows. They suit the game genre perfectly, but they get very drab and repetitive after a while. Every area is some run-down building or warehouse drenched in greys and browns. The best part of the graphics effects is the way that the screen gets all distorted and washed out when you initiate bullet time. By and large, the special effects for bullet time are spectacular, which means that you will never get sick of it. The characters in the game look excellent, especially Max and Mona. I have mixed feelings about bullet time 2.0. You get a lot more of it, and it slowly regenerates without killing enemies, but it seems to have been powered down since the first game. The colors drain from the screen when you initiate it, and I can't overemphasize what a cool effect that is. You also reload almost instantly, and the animation for it is an awesome mini cutscene. The generous supply makes for some great battles, since if you are killing bad guys, you can stay in bullet time for 20 or 25 seconds without running out. On the other hand, it's harder to hit enemies in bullet time this time around, since Max still moves at full speed. It's still hard to hit an enemy while you are strafing when you click on bullet time. There are a few nice levels in this game, but for the most part, they are uninspired and weak. The exception is one bizarre, interesting area which gets worn out when you visit it three times. For some strange reason, the developers went bonkers with scaffolds and wooden planks. There are a lot of areas where you have to navigate a narrow walkway while shooing a guy above or below you, and you end up falling to your death. Did I mention that you will be using the Quick Save, Quick Reload keys a lot? Max Payne has the best implementation of rag doll physics to date. Rag doll physics combined with bullet time makes for some killer sequences. As I stated previously, the game does have its moments. Sometimes you get some really satisfying sequences, where you overcome tall odds and blow away five guys and dive behind cover while you blow away the sixth. These are the parts that I was looking forward to, and unfortunately, I didn’t find enough of them. There are just too many Quick Save+Quick Reload 15 times in a row sequences, and too many empty levels. The game is short, but it does have at least some replayability, thanks to some dialog, secrets, cheats, and other extra goodies that you will miss the first time around. I have been having fun with some stuff that I found in the forums. "Dead Man Walking" is a lot of fun to play as well. Still, this game isn't going to challenge "Serious Sam" or "Deus Ex" in the value rating any time soon. I knew going in that it would be a short game, and that is why I only got it on sale. I expected to have more fun while playing though, and that is why I am extremely disappointed in Max Payne 2. This game is way too short for full price, and there isn't enough great action to make up for it.
