It’s been years since the events in Max Payne 2. Max is an ex-cop never able to get over the deaths of his family and is slowly killing himself with drugs and alcohol. Max gets a job working head of security for one of the wealthiest families in Brazil, and even after he gets a new job in Brazil he still drinks, even on the job. Max is a broken man. Will he be able to fix himself or was he doomed from the time he said yes to the job….
It begins with Max at a party working security and drinking on the job. As he and his partner Passos surveys the crowd, masked men storm the party and kidnap his boss and his bosse’s wife. As you work your way through the building and through some gun fights you manage to save them slinging bullets as you go. You think this masked group would have learned their lesson… not at all. They come back and succeed in kidnapping your boss’ wife and holding her for money, and this is where the story really begins.
Max and Passos do their best to get her back, and it takes them to a lot of locals around Brazil, from Nightclubs, to a Stadium to Office buildings, and even the Famous Favela itself. You will be getting into a lot of shootouts, but Brazil isn’t the only place you will travel. Instead of the dream levels from the other games, you do flashback missions which take you back to some Classic New York Max Payne. Which do very well to move the story along.
I just wanted to note that I believe the Cutscenes are done through Gameplay, because the transition from cutscene to game are very well done. Sometimes I didn’t even know it was time to start playing until I saw my health bar. I love games like that.
The look of this game is top notch. They really used their time wisely and made things look gorgeous. The level design is amazing.
As far as the people look, well they look about as good or better then Red Dead Redemption. The character animations is what really impressed me. The way he walks and starts into a run, the way his clothes move, the way he drops a 2 handed weapon to pull out dual pistols. His movement is phenomenal.
James McCaffrey voiced Max in the other games and originally they were going to go with an older actor to voice him, but thankfully that got McCaffrey to do it, and his voice for Max is really good. Its like Mark Hamill’s Joker, you know the voice so it would be weird if someone else did it. I’m not much of a music guy, but the music seem to match the atmosphere of the game. I got chills when I watched the intro and it started with that famous Max Payne tune… so cool! From gunshots to explosions, the sound is great. I don’t know of a game that has beat Battlefield’s gunshots yet, but this one is really close. When when you enter Bullet Time it’s cool to hear the distortion effects.
In the 1st and 2nd games you always ran everywhere and never walked. You couldn’t even take cover. Those games were good, but I’m glad they finally added a cover system and the ability to move slow and not run everywhere. This game has a new way of holding weapons which I found to be really interesting. You can carry two single handed weapons and a two handed weapon. for example lets say you have a 9mm handgun, an Uzi, and a Shotgun. If you switch to the 9mm he will hold the Shotgun in one hand and use to 9mm in the other. Same if you did it with the Uzi. Now here’s the cool part , if you switch to the Dual option he will drop the Shotgun and dual wield the 9mm and the Uzi. It makes for a really good time! This works so much better than him magically pulling guns out of his coat. Shoot Dodging his back and is better than ever. You can now even do it from behind cover which is very handy when you have enemies closing in on you. I was hiding behind a couch and there was an enemy hiding behind a wall in front, so I jumped forward using shoot dodge to see what would happen. Max leaps straight over the couch just as the guy popped his head up. As you can guess, it ended badly for the other guy. Throughout the game Max will enter Bullet Time on his own, your job is to make the best of it. Whether its jumping off of a falling water tower to the enemies below, or jumping on a cart and rolling down a hallway blasting enemies. There are many moments like this and each one is very satisfying.
When I first got this game I played the first mission, and was really happy with the result. I then wondered what the multiplayer was like. Let me tell you I got hooked right away. I’ll try to go over as much of it as I can. Multiplayer supports 2 to 16 players. When you go to choose a game it gives you a choice of “Free Aim” or “Soft Lock”. I always choose Free Aim, but if you want to know SoftLock is is similar to Red Dead Redemption’s aiming. There are lobbies for inexperienced people that are first starting out. They are titled “rookie”, but when you get high enough in rank they are removed from you list.There are several different gameplay modes. The simplest ones Death Match and Team Death Match which is what you would expect. Another game mode is called “Payne Killer”. In this mode its everyone against Payne and his partner Passos. If you kill one of them then you become them. Payne and Passos are a bit stronger than everyone else as well to help add balance. The last mode is “Gang Wars”, and it’s what I play most. In this mode, you play five games that randomly change. The team with the most wins at the end 5 games win. The modes you play will be any of these:
- Capture the Flag
- Assassination (Kill the marked player)
- Bomb Mission (Plant/diffuse)
- Domination
- Team Death Match with no Respawn
This game has different factions you can play as and you’ll get the option of customizing each of your faction characters. There are six factions in all, so you can customize up to 6 males and 6 females. When you play a Death Match or Payne Killer you can pick whatever faction you want to be, but in Gang Wars or Team DeathMatch you play as whatever faction you are on. As many shooters these days you can upgrade your weapons by getting kills. Each gun has at least 3 attachments to be unlocked, and each will bring something different, such as a lasers, stronger firepower, or bigger clip. There is also a wide variety of weapons to choose from. Multiplayer does include shoot dodging and bullet time. These features are handled through line of sight. If you see a player you can activate shoot dodge to help try to kill them, however bullet time will activate for them to help counter your shoot dodge. In addition, if other players witness what’s going on they will have the ability to shoot dodge and use bullet time as well.
In closing the multiplayer took everything great in the SP game and put it in multiplayer. This is by far one of the best multiplayer shooters I have ever played.
Being a Max Payne game players can expect blood, gore, and violence. It never really seemed to bother me, sometimes I thought it was kind of cool or even funny.There is partially in sexual content in the game. In Favela you enter a strip club and that’s where all the content is. it kinda bothers me, but in a way I it was almost expected. The other games were about going into the crime underworld, so I knew this game may go further. The good thing though is that none of this is in the multiplayer. The game does include pervasive strong language, which did bother me the most of all the content. Use of drugs and alcohol is also a prevalent theme,but that can be expected when you main characters is a drunk. Rockstar has been known to push the bar even further with every game. I think that they really need to start putting filters in the options. They could put a “BEEP” option, or for this game a “BlackBar” option would have be nice.
I am a fan of Max and so far I haven’t been able to put this game down much at all. I give it a 9 out of 10
for great gameplay, unforgettable shootouts, and one of the best multiplayer experience I have ever played.
