I'd previously played both games in Remedy Entertainment's newer series, Alan Wake, so I was confident in the developers' ability to create an entertaining third-person shooter. Obviously, though, the two franchises don't really have much in common aside from the presence of firearms, the fact that each game is named after its protagonist, and the amount of time you'll spend looking at the back of each protagonist's head.
Max Payne, for example, is insanely, ludicrously, hilariously violent. It was even a bit awkward, I must admit, to start playing this game less than a week after a particular mass murder which called into question (for some) the effects of violent video games on young people. Personally, I don't think games like this one are harmful at all, but the subject was still on my mind. This is exactly the type of game, I thought to myself, that would start a misinformed media frenzy if it were ever discovered in the bedroom of some kid who had gone and shot a bunch of people.
If someone told me that Max Payne, of all games, might desensitize players to violence and make them more likely to commit violent acts, I'd respond that the game is just too damn silly to have that kind of effect on people. The game doesn't take itself very seriously at all, and while some might say that's part of the problem, there's just no way that anyone could get real ideas about harming people after playing a game in which most of the shooting is done while jumping in slow motion. If a killer in the making were going to get ideas about how to commit a mass murder from a video game (which is unlikely), or if such a person actually wanted to train for such an act using video games (which is extremely unlikely), he or she would probably be found playing a more realistic shooter.
Max Payne has absolutely no respect for the concept of realism, and everything (including the violence and the motivation for violence) is consequently so tongue-in-cheek that, to me, this particular shooter almost seems like a parody of its own genre. (It some parts it even becomes a parody of itself.) Like the gameplay, the story is pretty grim, in a lot of ways — it involves drug use, corruption, government conspiracy, and a ton of murder — but there's enough humor and absurdity in the telling of that story to lighten the mood, just a little, if you're paying attention. More importantly, the ridiculous, contorted expression on Max Payne's unmoving face destroys the serious tone of the opening cinematic. I couldn't hold it in; I had to laugh. In fact, that happened a lot throughout the game, not necessarily because it was meant to be funny but because the stuff happening on my screen was so insane.
The type of carnage that occurs throughout Max Payne is only a couple of steps beyond cartoon violence. There's a bit of blood spray and some flailing when the bad guys fall down, but that's it. They even stay in one piece when they're blown up with grenades, which makes it more hilarious than tragic when a thug tries to toss a grenade at you and ends up killing himself. I should also mention that Max Payne isn't the only one with a goofy face. All of this is due in part to the outdated graphical capabilities of the game, but the developers clearly weren't aiming for realism in any case. The only hint of realism throughout the entire experience is that the protagonist is by no means invincible. If you're playing for the first time, prepare to watch Max Payne die over and over again, sometimes from a single gunshot without any warning.
Part of what made the game interesting for me is that the main character, though certainly a bad ass, is pretty fragile for an action hero. I played through the game on the easiest difficulty setting (because the others are initially locked), and the game still killed me plenty of times. Unlike some other video game protagonists, Max Payne isn't exactly a bullet sponge... and unlike some other video game villains, the ones here aren't always terrible at shooting, so you won't be feeling so great if one of them manages to shoot first. You can fill up your health bar by finding painkillers and eating them like candy — another aspect of the game which is so absurdly unrealistic that it's hard to see it as anything but lighthearted humor — but the painkillers don't work instantaneously. If you start getting hit with bullets, and the guy who fired them isn't already dead, you're in big trouble, and you'll probably be watching your own slow-motion death before you can head for cover.
The reason Max can survive to the end of the game, taking down hundreds of heavily armed bad guys along the way, isn't because he's tougher. It's because of the advantages that you, as a player, have over the game — actual intelligence, the ability to quicksave and try again when you die, and the ability to know what's coming when you do so. The game is very scripted, so it's rather predictable. If you immediately die when you walk into a room because some thug with a shotgun was waiting or you on the left, you'll know to turn left the next time you enter that room. If you get blown up by a grenade that comes flying around the corner as you walk down a hallway, you know that the same grenade will be thrown in the same spot the next time around.
Since playing the game for the first time without dying over and over again is virtually impossible, you'll have to rely heavily on quicksaving. In some places, you'll only succeed through trial and error. You can always improve your reflexes and practice your aiming, but you'll win by knowing where the bad guys are and by turning to shoot them before they appear.
The player also has the ability to jump in slow motion, shooting in mid-air, and this is the game's big gimmick. Having trouble with a particular gun fight? Try using bullet time. While it certainly isn't the end-all game-winning move, as the slow-motion feature in F.E.A.R. was, it's still pretty useful. Then again, the game was designed around it, so it's really all but necessary if you don't want to be hopelessly outgunned. Like quicksaving, it's a crutch, but it's a crutch you'll probably need to lean on in order to beat the game. If you refuse to use those crutches, you'll be putting yourself through a lot of unnecessary punishment.
In any case, despite the occasional frustration, Max Payne was a pretty interesting experience. To be perfectly honest, I didn't expect to like it very much, for some of the game's most noticeable attributes are associated today with bad game design — the scripted enemy behavior, the excessive reliance on a single gameplay gimmick, and what might be called artificial difficulty (in the sense that the player will die frequently through no fault of his or her own and must rely on save scumming to progress). But the game is still fun, in its own way. Furthermore, while much of the game is a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek embrace of senseless ultra-violence, Max Payne is still known for its great writing.
The plot isn't the most imaginative, but the protagonist's monologues — though a bit too heavy on the metaphors — are very well done. They affect the mood and the atmosphere of the game in a way not often seen in shooters, and the neo-noir graphic-novel style storytelling makes the game truly unique.
Obviously, the game is pretty outdated now, so I'm not sure how strongly I should recommend it to the average player. You certainly won't see the beauty in this 2001 game's ugly graphics if you can't compare them to the uglier graphics of the late '90s and beyond. But I hope new and future fans of the series will keep returning to this game despite its visual shortcomings. The franchise is still alive with the past year's release of Max Payne 3, and it's always best to play an entire series in order rather than simply skipping to the newest game.
Then again, I haven't yet played either of the Max Payne sequels, and I honestly can't say whether the latest installment bears any resemblance to the original.
