Pleasure From Payne

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great Graphics, Creative New Gameplay, Polish

Cons: No Multiplayer

The Bottom Line: 
This game is very well done. The only weak part might be it’s almost cliché story, but it’s delivered so well that it’s very enjoyable.

Author's Review
Max Payne is a title that has long been awaited for the PC. They leaked screen shots years ago, and set the world on fire. The quality of the screen shots was unheard of. Especially amazing was the use of near photo quality textures for the models’ faces. Well from a graphical standpoint, that’s only mildly impressive by today’s standard. So if they weren’t spending all of that time working to push the graphics over the top, then what were they doing? They were finishing the game to an extent that it’s polished brighter than the Hope Diamond.

I first played this game through in marathon fashion on the PC. It was stunning. Now I’ve got my hands on the recently released XBox version. It’s a very faithful port, with only slight modifications to the control scheme to overcome the handicap of not having a mouse and keyboard. In fact, the XBox version is of such great quality, that I’m playing it all of the way through again.

Story

The team that did Max Payne are right in tune with most gamers. This title has allusions to Hard-Boiled action heroes like Chow Yun Fat and John Woo. They game’s action also plays out with several nice touches blatantly reminiscent of the action in the Matrix. But you’re much less innocent than Neo, and way meaner. You just don’t have his hacker abilities to perform audacious moves…but you come close, because you’re hopped up on a little drug called revenge.

The story starts out with a flashback. The scene is your home. The crime is murder. The victims are you wife and kid. And the perpetrators are armed junkies strung out on a wicked new drug, Valkyr; or so you think.

The development team should consider themselves storytellers as their top job for this title. They do a wonderful job of presenting what can only be called a good story. The flashback is a mixture of cut-scenes, and the game’s typical third-person action.

The cut-scenes are engine rendered, and they’re awesome. The scripting of the characters is great, and they’re rendered with a lot of detail. Perhaps the best element is the camera scripting though. The camera angles that they utilize as they move through the scene are as good as any action movie. That combined with such flamboyant action gives the first hint of the Matrix floating through the player’s mind.

Often during the game, the action will stop for a form of cut-scene that is more of a finishing scene. If you fill the last bad guy in a group, the action drops to slow motion and the camera moves to a theatrical view to watch the bad guy take the bullet and fly backwards. This touch is well received and makes for a nice congratulatory token. However they use the same effect when you get killed as well, so seeing it might instantly peak your frustration.

Another creative tool they use to tell the story is the Graphics Novel, a comic strip style of art with dialogue narrated by Max Payne’s raspy voice. The art is quite unique, because it’s almost live action still shots, but they apply some filtering effects that give is a painted look. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s the dialogue of Max Payne that makes these story elements work. You see, Max Payne is a philosopher and a poet. His colorful commentary is reminiscent of dime store crime novelettes from the 1940’s. Some of his dialogue is a little ridiculous, but it’s fun nevertheless.

Using these tools combined with gameplay, Max Payne tells a story of revenge, as Max topples crime boss after crime boss on his way to the top. As you near the end, you realize the plot is much more complicated than typical mafia involvement. Have fun.

Graphics

The game community was on fire when images of Max Payne started to sneak out. Well the team has built on that to deliver a dark and beautiful title. I didn’t notice any enhancements on the XBox over the PC. The two look identical, which is a very good thing. The environments seem to have typical polygon counts, but the true art lies in the textures and lighting. The city is dug in for the worst winter storm of the city’s history. It’s dark and dreary, a perfect setting for the horror that Max Payne is about to unleash on the dirty underworld.

Max Payne achieved a rare combination of sharp PC graphics with console style art and smooth gameplay. The level design is detailed and quite entertaining. The mood of the game is maintained throughout the game to keep you in that perfect state of mind to enjoy the game. There’s one level where you have to infiltrate a Gothic Night Club, who’s owner is pure evil. There are images of the occult everywhere that continually send chills through your spine. They top this freak show later in the game with a fantasy level that rivals even American McGee’s: Alice with a bizarre Valkyr induced fantasy level. Later in the game you’re treated with a level that is easily compared to the downtown building scene in the Matrix. You infiltrate the building going through downstairs security first so that everyone knows you’ll be coming. You’re Max Payne, there’s no need to sneak.

There’s no single element in the graphics of this game that is revolutionary on it’s own. However the manner in which they crafted this title by combining several elements is some of the highest quality I’ve seen. This game has been awaited for a long time, similar to titles from Blizzard. But when you finally play it, you realize that they too subscribe to the motto: “It’s done when it’s done.”

Gameplay

This game plays from the third person perspective. The control scheme is typical first person style with the left stick controlling forward, backward, and strafe movement. The right stick controls your looking up and down and your turning left and right. You conveniently fire your weapon with the right trigger button. But in a nice move, they’ve ported the control adjustment option from the PC well. So just like on the PC, you can change and reassign just about any button.

Console games that employ this control scheme are automatically handicapped because of the inferiority of the analog gamepad when compared to the mouse for aiming. This is precisely why players of first person shooters denounce the joystick as a control option on the PC. So console developers typically employ a scheme to remove that handicap. It usually revolves around some sort of aiming assistance. This game has an auto-aim feature that keeps you locked on the target nearest you. You can turn this on or off, and I suggest that you keep it off. The same goes for their aim lock feature that keeps you locked on the enemy you’re attacking. This game is considerably easier than the PC version. You’ll find yourself flying through the levels especially with these aiming aids turned on.

And then we come to one of the marquee features of this title. You see, you’re almost superhuman. You have the uncanny ability to move acrobatically while calmly firing your weapon and dodging bullets. The two special abilities that you have are Bullet Time (TM) and Shootdodging (TM). The first ability allows you to slow down time while still aiming in realtime. Unfortunately you don’t move in realtime, and you can’t fire in realtime, but it helps you aim and pick of enemies while avoiding their fire. In the game you can dodge by jumping and moving backward, left, or right. You’re second ability is the ability to perform that dodge combined with Bullet Time (TM). This is particularly effective. These moves use up your Bullet Time (TM) meter, but it’s replenished by killing people. These special abilities are almost simple novelties in the first half of the game. But they become critically important later on in the game. The first time I really needed it, was a level where I had to go into the door of a small room with three tough enemies ducked behind a turned over table: all heavily armed.

Polish

This game loses no marks in any of the miscellaneous areas. I barely noticed any clipping problems. The AI was rock solid and challenging in some cases (but how hard is it to model the intelligence of a mafia thug anyway). The menus are intuitive and very easy to navigate. And the game heavily leverages the XBox’s hard drive for saving in PC style fashion whenever you want. On top of that the hard drive is utilized to minimize load times. They were on par with the PC and very easy to sit through.