02. Max Payne

(PC/PS2/XBOX/GBA, Remedy, 2001)
If you were Mr or Mrs Payne, don't even pretend you wouldn't name your son Max.
Vengeance is my all time favourite theme in films, games and comics, Justice is a close second, Vigilantism brings up the rear.
Anybody want to take a guess what I think of Max Payne?
Released in 2001, Max Payne rocked my world, probably the last game my age old PC could run at full spec. I bought the game from the shop I was working in at the time and spent all my time every evening for weeks playing through the game again and again and AGAIN AND AGAIN AND....

Anyway, for those not so inclined, Max Payne was a third person shooter by Remedy Interactive. Max is a homicide detective who one day returns home from work and wanders straight into a home invasion. The resultant tragedy leaves his beautiful wife Michelle and his baby daughter dead and leaves Max a broken, ice-cold man. Tranferring to the DEA, Max goes deep undercover in an attempt to bring down a underworld boss, but a mysterious leak causes Max to become trapped in a situation where he has lost his identity and is now a wanted felon. Max has no choice but to go totally rogue. Without his badge, Max chooses to bring down the underworld the only way he can, in slo-mo and spraying masses of hot lead in harm's way.

The player takes Max through a noir style story, the narrative played out through a gravelly voice-over and comic-book style cut-scenes, word bubbles and all. The big gimmick that sold the game was the introduction of Matrix style "Bullet Time" Max can slow the scene down whilst simultaeniously moving in real time, allowing for brilliantly cinematic, John Woo style gun battles and twin gun diving mayhem. This effect has been milked to death now and is as commonplace in gaming as having a "Jump" button, but at the time was an groundbreaking and very, very cool feature, setting the game apart from the plague of generic shooters on the market at the time.
Max makes his way through the story, racking up a huge bodycount of wacky and not so wacky gangsters in a tale of betrayl, revenge and Norse mythology. There is an army of untrustworthy and sick characters to gun through and even a femme fatale who is the closest thing Max may have to an ally. The voice acting is over the top and the scripting often needlessly over-wrought, but it still feels right for the game's clear comic-book influences. Satisfying sound effects, bleak music and dark lighting all help add to the classic "Noir" look and theme.

A very so-so sequel disappointed me a few years later, and a film released in 2008 was decidedly meh. A third game has been in development hell for a while now and repeated changes in production team, character design and storyline leaves me feeling that it is probably going to be really horrible, should it ever ACTUALLY get finished. Clearly, many other Payne fans feel the same way:
The original game is nearly ten years old now, that makes me feel REALLY ancient. Despite the fact that so much of Max Payne has been copied and over-produced by many lesser games, the game has a very special place in my heart and easily saunters its way into my top ten of all time. Max Payne is a game I will go back to again and again, even if it's graphics, themes and effects are now quite passe. As long as Max cries for retribution, I'll be there to guide him to it..

Because vengeance is timeless.