Max Payne manages to push action/adventure shooting into a whole new exciting dimension.
The story of Max Payne is ultimately one of revenge. Max was your average NYPD Detective until he came back to his New Jersey home one night and found that his wife and daughter had been brutally murdered by drugged-up madmen. It's never a cakewalk for these poor computer game characters is it? Through the game, you attempt to work out exactly who murdered them, and specifically why, so that Max can finish his ultimate vendetta against them. As a character, Max is extremely well fleshed out, and can be seen as suffering from acute "Survivor's Guilt", determined to either bring justice to the deaths of his loved ones or die in the process. You play as Max, and see everything from a third-person perspective, poised just behind him. The various locations you visit are nicely detailed and presented, if a little on the small side. The entire game is set in and across the boroughs of New York during the worst blizzard of the century, which is causing travel chaos across the city, giving the game a rough, cold and gritty edge; perfect 'film noir' territory. All of the locations wonderfully are varied, characters great and storyline incredible, but the main drawback to this game is that it simply isn't long enough, in that it will take you under ten hours to complete. It gives you an amazing rollercoaster, but leaves you still wanting much more. It could easily have been double the length it turned out to be.
One thing that makes Payne unique is the use of 'Graphic Novel'-style storyboards in place of most graphical cutscenes. This has of course been done in many Japanese role-playing games (where the storyboards are your typical cartoonish rubbish), but never before with this sense of style and purpose. These are fabulous pieces of artwork, many of which you probably wouldn't mind hanging on your walls, especially the drawings of New York in the snow. The voice acting during these scenes and the rest of the game is uniformly superb, with the voice of Payne being excellently produced to give him a hardened and tough yet ultimately sad personality. Payne is someone you can genuinely sympathise with, and you are able to cogently understand why he has to annihilate half of New York's criminal underworld to discover the truth behind the gruesome murders. It is this almost 'film noir' style that makes Max Payne a joy to behold and play through. Moreover, Max has some outstandingly great lines, and is one of the most quotable games I know: 'He was trying to buy more sand for his hourglass. I wasn't selling any.' As such, it becomes an instant classic in my book.
Easily Payne's forte however, is shooting. Max can use some of the very coolest moves this side of a John Woo movie. You can turn on and off 'Bullet Time' where Max speeds up but his enemies and time slows down, making it much easier to shoot and aim, so multiple enemies can be taken down in seconds. Furthermore, Max can shoot-dodge, leaping from cover to cover in slow motion, obliterating everything in his way. You can also dual-wield pistols and Uzis, which makes the moves look even more cool when Max soars slowly through the air. There are generally a very nice variety of weapons, from standard pistols to pump-action shotguns and beyond. The only problem with the weapons is that Max can only hold rather limited amounts of ammunition, so it is best to conserve your firepower for when you are really in need of it. The AI in-game is pretty smart, as they will duck behind cover and throw grenades every-so-often, and will only occasionally blow themselves to smithereens. Only sometimes can you find serious flaws in their intelligence, such as when they run stupidly right at you and start clubbing you in the head.
It there is one weakness of Max Payne, it is probably the surreal dream sequences. Max being the horribly tormented soul he is, throughout the game he is plagued with a series of dreams that would have made even Dr. Sigmund Freud ponder what they were really about. Whilst I am not disputing that the dreams themselves are an interesting addition to the game, which allows us to delve into the inner workings of one of gaming's most complex characters, the problem is that you can still 'die' in these dreams. This, naturally, does not make the slightest bit of sense! Surely Max would just wake from the dream, similar to how one wakes if they 'die' in a nightmare. There is one particularly frustrating point in a dream where you must navigate extremely narrow ledges and jump across gaps in slow motion. Falling off results in 'death', and this can happen quite often. Max really needs to book himself a meeting with a therapist once in a while.
Nightmares aside however, Max Payne is a revolutionary step forward in shooting gaming, though it is very difficult to pinpoint can exactly why. Perhaps it's the great story, perhaps the varied and realistic locations, or maybe simply because it is such darn good fun. Rest assured, when you play it everything will be explained, at least in your own mind.