Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

It may deserves 10 points but I'm sorry for this. But the first game was better for this one it is clear. It continues with its own style but style of the first game was better than this. Real good story continues with better graphics, sounds and playability. I didn't gave a 10 points but I know this is a golden game. Just perfect.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003) is like a puzzle waiting to be solved. The pieces aren't in the right place, which leaves the game player to figure it out. Instead of giving us a straightforward action game, it successfully builds mystery. This "film noir love story" is a better improvement over the original, and the characters, the plot, and the setting are better this time around.

Max Payne no longer has that "constipated grin" on his face, but a face that is filled is with all the loss and anger that he once suffered in the past. By now he's a brooding cop, and he has every right to be one, since his wife and baby child were killed in the original.

The message of film noir is that there are no real heroes. Max Payne is not the typical cardboard cutout action hero. Here is a man so cheerless, that he doesn't even form a smile, and we can understand why. He also shows a "survivor's guilt." Having taken his revenge in the first game, Max is not satisfied with what he has--due to what he sees as his "crime" (surviving) going unpunished, and due to the fact that, even though he has claimed his revenge, his family is still dead, and he is still alive.

One night, Payne responds a hostage situation in a gun workshop run by men in jumpsuits. He stumbles upon Mona Sax, a femme fatale presumed dead after the events in the original. Payne learns turn too late when Mona warns him that they are both in danger. A sniper hits Max's apartment, and Mona escapes, with Payne setting out to find the person who wants him dead.

We are also introduced to several characters from the original, including Lt. Jim Bravura, Max's boss at the NYPD, and Alfred Woden, a dying senator and a member of the Inner Circle. There is even a subplot involving a Mob war between Vladimir Lem and Vinnie Gognitti (who, this time, resembles a foul-mouthed Joe Pesci character). The mob war subplot may sound unnecessary, but it's crucial to what happens in the story.

I liked the original Max Payne (2001), which was released in 2001, and I thought it was the benchmark of action-packed video games. I liked the dialogue, the intense action, the graphics, and the locations it used. But I like Max Payne 2 even more. This is a game that gives life to almost all of its characters. Like Max Payne, the characters are able to express their feelings and thoughts to each other, and there is a big surprise as Max finds out who's after him.

Max Payne series creator Sam Lakes keeps the player involved with his characters We're not just playing a typical action game where we shoot mindless bad guys, but we're learning about the characters as well. Even the villains in the game, get to share their stories.

I also liked how the characters' lip movements were convincing and how they moved along with the way they speak. They also do some convincing movements, such as ragdoll-like movements, which allow the enemy's body to move around like a limp corpse.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is a great video game, but it shares the same flaws the original once had. There is a lack of character variety; a lot of the characters such as bodyguards, thugs, mobsters, and police officers look essentially the same, and once again it resembles a John Woo movie with its handgun leaps and ridiculously high body count. And the firing sounds for the weapons in the game sound unrealistic and could have been better.

I also think the game is also a bit too short, whereas the original was like playing a TV marathon. But what it lacks in quantity and length, it pays for with quality.

The New York settings in each level looks convincing and great. My favorite is the New York Police Department, where Payne is able to interact with other characters such as suspects and police officers. Even the streets of New York, during the mob war levels, resemble a war zone.

The narration in both the game and the graphic novel helps to not only move the story, but to provide humor or reaction to an incident. The narration by James McCaffrey (who also voices Payne) is great. Instead of sleepwalking in his dialogue like the original, he actually moves along with the words.

And fans will probably agree with me that Mona Sax is one of the most sexy 3D heroines out there. If her voice (perfectly provided by Wendy Hoopes) doesn't get to you first, her appearance certainly will. She is endowed with a high poly count and blessed with some very smooth motion-captured animations.

The beauty of the unfolding storyline of Max Payne 2 is that the player is never really sure if Mona feels the same way Max does, or if she's luring him into a trap--unless some heartless game reviewer ruins it for you. Being the highly trained killer that she is, playing as Mona is just as easy and equally lethal as when playing as Max. One wonders and hopes if their will be a spin-off to such a great series.

But will there be a "Max Payne 3?" Maybe. But to make another would seem difficult, especially after what happens in the end of this game. But Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne still remains the best in the series. This is not only an action game. It's about love, life and death in a city facing chaos.

I am blown away. I knew they had attempted to make this as theatrical and true to the roots of film noir as possible, but the depth and emotion in this is simply amazing. Some people have complained that it is too short (I personally beat it in perhaps five or six hours), but this only enriches the experience because it moves along at a rapid pace and manages to come across more as a movie than a video game.

They used real actors for the game and the cut scenes are more realistic than in the first game (which looked more like a comic). One thing that took a while to get used to were all the differences in the characters, as well as Max Payne's new physical features in this game (noticeably, his face). The previous game's model was based on "Max Payne" creator Sam Lake, whereas in this game they actually hired an actor to model Max on. I do miss the original face of Max because I had grown so accustomed to it, however -- I think overall this one looks more beaten-down and destroyed, emotionally and physically. He also looks a lot more like the typical cop character from a police movie, which I think works to the game's advantage.

The first game followed Payne after his wife and child were murdered -- another aspect I preferred in the first since Max's revenge motives were more hard-boiled and raw. In the sequel, he's basically got a price over his head because he knows about a secret organization that is splitting in two over a mob war -- and he teams up with a femme fatale from the previous story (whom he thought was dead) to take them on.

What's so great about "Max Payne 2" is how involving and engaging it is while still managing to be perhaps the smartest and deepest video game ever made. The characters all seem real, the action is never really THAT far-fetched (at least not in comparison to the original) and, believe it or not, the love story between Max and Mona Sax is entirely convincing.

The finale, just like in the original, is breathtaking and climactic.

Is "Max Payne 2" better than the original? Well, that's hard to say. I think, technically speaking, yes, it is -- however, there are certain aspects of the original that I cling on to, as well as the novelty of the first game and how utterly blown away I was when I first played it. The first "Payne" did also seem slightly more gritty, but it lacked a lot of the depth that is present in the sequel.

I'm big on revenge themes so the concept of the first game appealed to me more -- Max isn't really avenging anyone in this game until the last few minutes, which is a bit disappointing. He's more of a wanted man on the run. However, these are things necessary for the development of the game, story and character himself.

Gamewise, I preferred the first game's weapons and they didn't sound as fake as the ones in "MP2" (which pop rather unrealistically when you fire them).

On the other hand, I prefer the bullet-time in "Max Payne 2" FAR more than in the original -- it looks awesome in this one. You can also do cooler spins and slow-motion moves while you're in bullet time as compared to the first game.

I have to be perfectly honest when I say I also didn't like being forced to play as Mona Sax on two levels, nor did I find the levels themselves as fun or intricate as the first game. The first few levels of "Max Payne" (the original) when you're in those drug-infested apartment buildings doesn't compare to any level in the new game. I found, despite the sequel's excessive language and sexual content, that the original was darker and more intense.

Nevertheless, despite a few little "quibbles," this is -- overall -- probably a superior game to the first "Max Payne." It's the most theatrical game experience I've ever had -- and they even have end credits with a music theme that play afterwards! I can't wait to see an adaptation of these hit the big screen next year. If they do it right it could be one of the best films ever made.

As a sequel, it surpasses its predecessor in every way. As a video game, it surpasses the very boundaries people thought allowable, and possible. The photorealistic effects, ingenious use of lighting and incredible colour palette mixed with a thumping and brooding soundtrack (Poets of the Fall) create the world of Max Payne. It is slick but incredibly violent and woven extremely taught; the love affair between Mona and Max if anything is simply beautifully told; and the storyline itself is conceptually impressive. Max Payne 2 is a game for mature players: and it will take multiple replays to fully understand the achievement set down by Rockstar and Take 2.

I love this game.

First, I want to say this, My Geforce 3 Ti200 and Pentium 4 2.8Ghz runs this game at "max" settings and it runs very smoothly, game looks better than Half-Life 2 or Doom 3 and doesn't need a killer video card, just shows you how much.

Second, the game story is good, Max Payne has a very deep perspective about life general facts like dreams, the past, love, crime and more, I like hearing what he has to say about those things, it is almost like poetry.

The games music is good, it can really touch you and get you into the mood of the story.

The game action is great, a lot of fun with bullet time and high realistic games, I love the fact that you see him drop the magazine of the gun, it is probably the only game right now that really drops the magazine on the floor.

Great quality game, will be a classic and set the bar for future games.