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...continued
Max
Payne requires a fast PC, but if you have one,
it'll run smoothly for you. The game's special
effects are gorgeous--you'll quickly learn to
distinguish one gun's bright, glowing muzzle flash
from another's. The effect of errant gunfire
hitting glass and various other environmental
objects is completely convincing, and the game's
lighting and fire effects are colorful and
impressive. The animation in Max Payne is also
excellent for the most part, especially for Max,
who is very lifelike in everything he does and
looks exactly like the great heroes of Hong Kong
action cinema as he shootdodges. Grenade explosions
also produce spectacular results, as they send
nearby bodies careening head over heels through the
air. But most of all, seeing bullets fly by in
bullet time is an incredible effect that never
ceases to be thrilling.
Despite
all this, if you really wanted to, you could still
find some fault with the visuals in Max Payne. For
instance, though characters in the game have a few
different facial expressions, their faces aren't
actually animated; and though you see blood where
bullets hit flesh, you can't see the damage on the
actual character. Furthermore, polygonal clipping
tends to occur when characters get too close to
each other (or to environmental objects), and some
of the character animation during cutscenes can
look a little awkward. The game's 3D geometry also
isn't as complex as the razor-sharp textures are;
some of the characters and objects can look a bit
blocky compared with others. All these things are
noticeable only because Max Payne otherwise looks
so incredibly good--these scarce few elements are
what prevent Max Payne from looking completely
real, but they don't prevent it from being easily
one of the best-looking games to date. The game's
use of sound is excellent as well--though enemy
goons have a fairly limited variety of death
knells, the game's weapon effects, environmental
sounds, and its intermittent use of music are all
extremely well done.
Most
of Max Payne necessarily revolves around shooting,
though there are a few sequences that effectively
break up the action. Still, there isn't any
significant variety in the types of foes you'll
face--whether you're shooting gang members, hired
guns, or crooked cops, you'll need to employ the
same sorts of tactics to succeed. Fortunately, all
the bad guys in Max Payne do a great job. You can
sometimes sneak up on them before they notice you.
In battle, they'll take cover when possible,
they'll toss grenades to flush you out or they'll
flank you. They're consistently challenging and fun
to fight, and you'll find that their intelligent
behavior will always keep you on your toes. Of
further note, the game uses a system that
dynamically scales the difficulty of encounters
depending on your performance. You might not
initially notice this, but you'll notice that
though the fighting isn't easy, it isn't impossible
either.
A
lot happens in Max Payne, and the fast pacing,
constantly changing scenery, surprise encounters,
and no-nonsense action result in a game that's rich
with detail and makes for plenty of good memories,
but isn't particularly long--it should take you
about 10 to 15 hours to finish. The game has no
multiplayer mode, but finishing it the first time
does unlock additional new modes of play, including
one that's simply more difficult because it makes
you more vulnerable and your enemies tougher.
Finishing this mode unlocks an even more difficult
option that also limits the number of times you can
save your game in each level. The other extra mode,
called New York Minute, makes you race against the
clock on every level. You have just one minute to
finish each of the game's big stages, and killing
foes adds a few precious seconds to make this
possible. The core game always remains
fundamentally the same despite these offshoot
gameplay options; it's also a bit of a hassle that
you can't skip the in-engine cutscenes.
Fortunately, the basic gameplay in Max Payne is
plenty enjoyable enough to justify spending a lot
of time with the extra modes. The game also ships
with the Max-FX toolset, which players so inclined
can use to create Max Payne levels and mods. Still,
despite these bonuses, many players will
undoubtedly wish that the core game were even
longer, especially since it's so good.
When
a game has been in development for an inordinate
length of time, you never can tell how it will
finally turn out. Oftentimes, such games end up
overwrought, incomplete, or behind the times. But
once in a while, the extra time and effort paid by
the developers is plainly apparent in the finished
product. That's the case with Max Payne. Don't
worry about what it doesn't have--you'll relish
this highly polished, tightly focused, graphically
stunning shooter for what it is. The game's
incredible technical accomplishments and its
original play mechanics all combine to make it one
of the very finest shooters ever made.
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