Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Max Payne

Written by Omer Ali on June 28, 2001

First Impressions: Oh the Payne, the Payne of it all.

Lately, Rockstar Games has been producing PS2's best games, such as Smugglers Run, Oni, and State of Emergency, which all have been at the top of the best selling list of games for the system. Off beat games are at the heart of Rockstar's creativity, and Max Payne is no different. It's not your ordinary run of the mill action game; this title takes the mill and burns it to the ground. Burn baby, burn!!!

Max Payne is something that you would expect to see in a John Woo movie. It's more of a movie than a video game, but it mixes the best of both worlds very well. Max Payne follows the story of Max a DEA agent who's family was killed by some drug dealing mobsters, thus pushing him to join the DEA and go undercover in the mafia. As in every undercover cop movie things go terribly wrong. Max's boss gets killed and he gets pinned for the murder, but Max's problems don't stop here, the mafia gets wind of his true colors and they come looking to inflict some real pain. From here on in Max must stay one step ahead of the cops and two steps ahead of the mafia, as he attempts to solve the mystery of his boss and family's death.

Max is a true action hero; he has the rugged look, the cool threads and the badass attitude. Max has had his family killed and his boss' death blamed on him, this give him the nothing to loose attitude, which show extremely well in this game. Max Payne looks as if it was lifted straight from a John Woo film. I think this should be John Woo's next movie.

Max Payne is a third person action shooter title that at its least plays like a basic third person shooter, but that's at its least. Max Payne has some cool twists that really make playing this game fun. The most noticeable part of this game is the camera shots. At certain points in the game, when Max will do certain action moves, the camera will spin around Max a-la-The Matrix. Max will also be able to do some cool action moves, like shoot while jumping backwards or shoot while diving. The coolest feature though is that at times, when Max shoots his sniper rifle, the camera will follow the bullet in slow motion all the way till it hits its mark.

The atmosphere of the game will revolve around the big apple, New York. The creative team made every possible attempt at making the entire Max Payne world look and feel like the real NYC. Everything from the subways to the Bronx have been added in the game and made to look as much as reality as possible. Do we really want to know what New York's smelly and filthy subway's look like?