Max Payne 2 takes action shooters to a whole new level of reality with a dark story and a classic physics gameplay.
Max Payne 2 starts with unknown time after Max Payne 1, where Max Payne has joined NYPD again and has been doing the quiet job until his past haunts come back as a nightmare in the form of his love,Mona Sax,the fatal assassin.
Max Payne 2's story has been divided into three parts,each part having it's own fair share of 6 to 7 chapters. Each of these chapters vary in length with some being very big to most being quite small. The story in Part One and Two is a flashback of the events leading upto the superb Third Part.
If you haven't heard of Bullet-Time,then here's a recap. Bullet-Time is a mode in the game which is initiated by default right-click of the mouse button. In Bullet-Time the time slows down and and makes Max move at the speed of a bullet. You can clearly see the bullet flying through the air creating ripples around it.
All this is more impressive than it sounds. You will find a variety of weapons of your liking ranging from pistols like Desert Eagles, semi-automatics like M4, to heavy-fire guns like Kalashnikov. There are many other weapons too like Pump-Action Shotgun and Dragunov which display one of the classiest graphical physics in real-time game.
When you are equipped with any gun especially a M4 or a Pump-Action Shotgun, hitting your target with a good accuracy would result in the time automatically slowing down to show Max Payne doing a 360 degree turn and then blasting the enemy with the weapon.
If you are in Bullet-Time, then you can do a 360 spin very easily. In case of a Dragunov,the sniper rifle, the path of the bullet shot from it is shown every time you get a succession of hits (accuracy). This thing is very impressive as it begins with a slow movement of the bullet being shot from the sniper rifle and then suddenly speeds upto an astonishing pace and hits the enemy.
Many of the times even the death of an enemy is shown in form of these slow-motion where he might be shown falling down from the roof etc. The main strength of Max Payne is that all the above said things do not take away the real action of the game. Max Payne would actually be a hard game if there had been no bullet-time as Max can die within a few shots of the impressive AI. But,bullet-time will make this game very easy and you will be flying past the chapters and parts in no time.
There is also a Jumpstrafe action which like in Matrix style slows down and Max Payne Jumps and Strafes in slow-mo to shoot the enemies.
Storywise, Max Payne is more impressive than many of the shooters these days. It shows a complex series of betrayals and dark wishes of the people in the form of a comic strip type of story. This is indeed how unique the developers progress the story between the chapters and parts and nicely set up the setting and atmosphere of the next level.
The story is centered at the depressed Max Payne,who often finds himself at the wrong place at wrong time and everything in his life has gone downhill till hell. However, he still keeps living everytime he wishes to die. Everyone around him start to die and more darker secrets of Max Payne are revealed in the brilliant third part.
The atmosphere is another strength of the game where it outclasses any great shooter. It's dream sequences with it's blurred and hazy graphics create an effect that amazes the gamer till reality. Another one of the great moments is when we go to Mona's hideout, a deserted horror-house which is so thrilling to experience.
Often,one might feel that Max Payne would have been even more better as an FPS but,then the Bullet-Time always looks good in Third-Person.
Voice acting is simply superb with Max Payne,Mona and Vladimir Lem's voice being brilliantly enacted.
There is a lot of false mature content in the game like the comic-strip kissing scene between Max and Mona or it might be those sleazy TV soaps that can be heard through the TV with a few clips in between.
Once the game is completed you can replay it at two more harder levels-known as the Hard-Boiled Action and Dead on Arrival.
More than that there is a special mode of speed-running known as New York Minute. Plus there is an insane deathmatch mode in the designated maps where enmy spawns and respawns in the mode known as Dead Man Walking.
In Dead Man Walking, you will face a whole tsunami of enemies and must survive for as long as you can. An average gamer can survive till around 2 to 3 minutes as the enemies just multiply irrespective if you kill them or not.
At the end, Max Payne 2 is a brilliant shooter that truly deserves it's name in the Third-Person shooters. If you are looking for an action game that will impress you beyond your expectations, then every bit of penny spent on Max Payne is worth it.