Max Payne in all it's film noir glory on Gameboy Advance.
By now, almost everyone has played or, at least, heard of the two Max Payne games on PC, PS2 and Xbox. The big question is: "Can the GBA do justice to the Rockstar 2001 hit?"
Here's the anwser.
GAMEPLAY: Obviously, the solid mouse-and-keyboard gameplay couldn't have been translated in the GBA . But Rockstar came with a solution: 3D isometry. You get this way-back-over-the-shoulder view of the action, which stays true to the PC counterpart. Except that this view has its inconvenients. There will be several instances were you will be shot upon even if you can't see the opponents. Otherwise, all the essential functions are easily reached with the D-pad and the shoulder buttons. No complain here.
The targeting is maybe a little too forgivable and you need to get familiar with the layout, but once you have learn the quirks, Max will be as deadly as ever. All the power-ups from the original game are back. There's plenty of ammunition, painkillers and guns to be found in crates, boxes and on the body of fallen ennemies.
One thing, though, is that there is now a continue mecanism. You get four chances to complete each chapter (read, level). If you die, you'll start back no far from where you went down. If you fail four times, though, you have to start the chapter again. The Bullet Time is back too. It is quite well integrated in the GBA. The wolrd slows down considerably, yet Max still act normaly. Sounds are muffled and you can dodge bullets in a Neo-esque style. Trust me, you'll have to use the BT more than often if you wish to get to the end of the game.
The story is told in a comicbook-style slide show. Unfortunately, they look pixelated, which they are, and the colors aren't as vivid as the PC counterpart. Yet, the slide show is great and the story is well written and told.
GRAPHICS: For a GBA game, Max Payne looks quite good. The characters are all modeled in 3D and their animations looks good. This is especialy true during Bullet Time slowdown. The colors tend to be on the dark side, but they suit the game's theme. The gore is there too. The "M" rating is not often seen on GBA, but here it's quite true. When Max shoots, blood splatters, bodies fall down and groans are heard all over the place. There is also quite some sexual themes here and now in the game. Especialy at the Lupino's Hotel. But otherwise, it's the graphical violence that earns the "M" here. Definitively not for children, but we've seen worse too.
SOUNDS: The adrenaline kicks in, time slows down to a crawl and everything, every sound, seems distant and muffled. Bullet Time in action. Max Payne sounds quite as well as it looks well. Gun sounds are powerful and credible. Grunts groan and cries in agony when they meet their demise. Max too. The only real bad thing with the sound is the music. The incredibly good musics from the PC aren't found here. In fact, there is only two or three soundtracks and they alternate whenever fighting or exploring the world.
The story was dialogue-heavy on the PC. On the GBA, the cartridge limitations reared their ugly head when it came to integrate the speech. During cutscenes, you'll here the original voice acted dialogues. But during gameplay, you'll get a comicbook-style bubble in the corner of the screen.
VALUE: At the time of writing this article, the reviewer had not completed the game yet. It's not in my knowledge if the New York Minute and the harder modes are there. But all in all, Max Payne is a great game considering the limitations of the Gameboy Advance.