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Max Payne 2 Reviewed
Some random reader writes "Max Payne 2, the sequel to the awesome original game released years ago, hit shelves three days ago. The first review I've seen thus far is at PCSynapse. It seems to be what fans want, give or take a few quirks. Overall conclusion - 'MP2 was not designed to be revolutionary - but more evolutionary, and in that apparent goal it has succeeded with flying colors.'" There's a selection of other reviews collated via GameTab.
Yesterday's Penny Arcade weighs in with its own review. :)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
yep
Max Payne is one of those games where you literally forget you're playing a game. It's that good and realistic. The first one had a good, solid plot, which in my opinion makes a game worthwhile to play.
It's going to be the longest short wait ever for me until Max Payne 2 comes out, I'm just hoping it's as good as it sounds and can live up to the reputation the first one got.
Thief was a game. Games that make you think and can build suspense like in a good movie. There seems to be a lack of real story telling and artistic talent at these game companies. The game are all cookie cutter now.
It's short. Think of it as an interactive movie trilogy, and expect to spend as much time on it as you would watching a movie trilogy. That said, the gameplay is fun, and the story is good, and you can always go back and replay it.
Wow!
There's another review here.
--It's Pimptastic!--
3 years?
How's everything going for you in 2005?
is GameRankings.com which has a lot of MP2 reviews here
Already beat this crappy game. Less than 13 hours of game time. Beat the first in less than 12 hours in 1 sitting. If you feel the need to waste 50$ of your hard earned money on 12 hours of game time, be my guest. I for one am still playing Half-Life and its mods along with Battlefield 1942 and its mods. I've gotten easily over a thousand hours of time out of HL and at least 500 out of BF1942. All for the same 50$.
As someone who does artwork for games, Max Payne is just great; gameplay-wise, not much new going on but as far as visuals, stylistically Max Payne is a major cut above the rest. Before Max Payne, stylism was there in FPS games, but not in the quanities as it was in MP. Throughout the game, I felt like I was fighting in a grungy, bleak and lonely version of NYC, much like the one depicted in comics and movies. Then include their photo-realistic textures that gave everything such grit and depth, and you end up with a visual masterpiece. Max Payne is not great because it brings revolutionary changes to the table, but because it raises the bar for the quality of art in games and not only that but the thought behind the stylization, not just 'because its cool'. Lets hope that other games follow suit (Doom3 is another example of good art direction and stylistic techniques.)
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
And people that lie about goatse links!
1) create a shortcut with this: C:\Program Files\Rockstar Games\Max Payne 2\MaxPayne2.exe -developerkeys -screenshot ...
2) start new game
3) hit page up/down to scroll through skins till you get to nude skin of Mona Sax
4)
5) Profit! (or at least wank)
Is the fact that the model for Mona Sax is hot.
"Fans will love the new realism this lends to the game, as the enemy shoots out your cover right in front of your face, or when you find yourself knocking over stacks of crates in search for ammunition or painkillers."
Woah. And I thought I was the only one who hid their ammunition and painkillers inside stacks of crates. Now that's what I call realism!
This gameis more like a patch then a new game.
So maybe the physics aren't quite up to what HL2 is supposed to offer, but they sure are neat. Knocking a bucket with a plank in it off of a ledge offered me more satisfaction than any part of the plot. See, it fell off, then bounced, then the plank came out! And it was the real deal, no scripting. Another highlight of the game was having an bum (armed with dual 9mm pistols) say in a slurred, drunken voice "I'll cover you from here!" The story is still awful in an amusing way, if you're wondering.
I say by 4 AM sunday.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The Case of Mumia Abu Jamal (note that since this was written Mumia's sentance was overturned and he is now spending life in prison) by Terry Bisson from New York Newsday, 1995 In 1978, Philadelphia Mayor (and ex-police chief) Frank Rizzo blew up at a press conference, threatening what he called "the new breed" of journalists. "They [the people] believe what you write and what you say," said Rizzo, "and it's got to stop. One day--and I hope it's in my career--you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do." What the "new breed" was doing in 1978, and is still doing today, was exposing police misconduct. A cop had been killed in a confrontation between Philadelphia police and the radical MOVE organization (the same MOVE that was fire-bombed by the city seven years later), and the police version of who shot first hadn't been accepted without question. Rizzo feared a new trend, and he was right. The trend has continued. Today, the Mollen Commission, the NYPD "party"in DC, the Rodney King case and hundreds of other local scandals have exposed the dark underside of police misconduct nationwide. Ironically, the most prominent of the "new breed" of journalists at whom Rizzo's outburst was directed is awaiting execution on Pennsylvania's Death Row, the victim--many believe--of a police frame-up. Mumia Abu-Jamal began his journalism career with the Black Panther Party. The Panthers were the original "affirmative action" employer, and Mumia (then Wesley Cook) was Minister of Information for the Philadelphia chapter at age 15, writing for the national newspaper. A heady beginning for a West Philly kid. After the Panthers fell apart (helped by a stiff dose of FBI harassment) Mumia turned to broadcasting. He had the voice, the writing talent and the ambition, and by age 25, he was one of the top names in local radio, interviewing such luminaries as Jesse Jackson and the Pointer Sisters and winning a Peabody Award for his coverage of the Pope's visit. He was president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, called "one to watch" by Philadelphia magazine. But Mumia was still a radical. The Philadelphia Inquirer called him "an eloquent activist not afraid to raise his voice," and this fearlessness was to be his undoing. His vocal support of MOVE's uncompromising life-style lost him jobs at Black stations, and he was forced to moonlight to support his family. The mayor's outburst marked the beginning of a campaign of police harassment that included such subtleties as a cocked finger and a 'bang bang' from a smirking cop, and escalated to a late-night police beating of Mumia's brother on the street. Mumia was driving a cab that night. It is undisputed that he intervened. It is undisputed that both he and officer Daniel Faulkner were shot, and that Faulkner died. What is in dispute is who killed Faulkner. Mumia says it was someone else, and several witnesses saw another shooter flee the scene. Mumia's legally registered .38 was never decisively linked to Faulkner's wounds.
Mumia's murder trial was a policeman's dream. Denied the right to represent himself, he was defended by a reluctant incompetent who was later disbarred (and who has since filed an affadavit in Mumia's support detailing his delinquencies). Mumia was prosecuted by a DA who was later reprimanded for withholding evidence in another trial. He was allowed only $150 to interview witnesses.
But best of all was the judge. A life member of the Fraternal Order of Police, branded as a "defendant's nightmare" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Judge Albert F. Sabo has sentenced more men to die (31 to date, only two of them white) than any other sitting judge in America. A fellow judge once called his courtroom a "vacation for prosecutors" because of bias toward convictions.
Sabo wouldn't allow Mumia to defend himself because his dreadlocks made jurors "nervous." Kept in a holding cell, he read about his own trial in the newspapers. A Black juror was removed for violating sequestration, while a white juror was given an
Max Payne was an excellent example of how you can integrate a compelling story with a great action game. If you liked that, and are looking forward to playing this one. I would highly recommend playing Mafia. Great story, graphics, and variety in the gameplay.
FRY THE COP-KILLER NOW!
Because of our Protestant roots... Violence is okay, but nudity is not.
YHBT! YHL! HAND!
cause even if you watch The Matrix Reloaded 4 times you're not getting that value for money.
How we know is more important than what we know.
by making it too easy.
the gameplay consisted of mostly save, enter the room, hit bullet time, shoot, save/reload, repeat.
i absolutely loved the graphic novel presentation and the noir genre, but i didn't much care for the actual gameplay.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
For the love of God, shut the hell up.
Here is the link. Enjoy!
PLEASE be a troll, PLEASE be a troll... don't you fucking DARE be real.
Remember, kids - part of Slashdot's motto is "news for nerds." This includes gamers, and this includes Windows users.
Nice try trolling, though.
Machine - 1Ghz, and still the reviewer said that tha game ran perfectly. That is impressive and commendable, well done devs.
Sure, Bullet-time is fake when you think about it as Max Payne slowing down time, yet somehow being able to aim (including pivoting his body to do it) in real time. But to me the reason Bullet Time is so awesome is because it allows you to simulate real life reflexes in a video game. I don't know about some hard-core gamers, but I can point and shoot a gun with much more accuracy and speed in real life that in Max Payne without bullet time.... just my thoughts on bullet time :)
I'm still waiting for the game that forgoes the traditional crates, but offers me a mini-game for opening a bottle of aspirin with a child-proof cap. Then I will know we have crossed a new threshold of realism, not just because the box looks REALLY well lit and falls into a rag doll which crumples realistically to the side.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you're trolling, there's shorter and more interesting troll stories to post...
On the odd chance you're actually trying to get people motivated to save this guy, don't you realize this is Slashdot? People here bitch and whine and moan about their rights being taken away left and right, and that's pretty much it. Pretty much all slashdot's readership is good for is temporarally knocking sites with too small a pipe off the net. If it involves more action than just clicking a link, the guy is gonna fry.
"nu-geek case mod Wintendo crowd." haha as opposed to the MTV osbourne crowd?
meep
You a game programmer? I doubt it. I'm not either, and I've stayed the hell away from graphics work, but I somehow doubt you have the slightest clue wtf you're talking about.
/. catering to the Windows crowd? That's almost laughable.
It doesn't work yet you mean. If there's enough interest in it, it will be run under Linux. Not like it's that big of a freakin deal to dual-boot or anything. You want to apply market pressure, don't buy any windows games, period. Don't emulate Windows, don't run Windows apps. You're going to have to give up a lot of very good, mature software. I don't buy computer games anymore personally, but I may make a notable exception for the new Sam and Max.
Now that you've stopped buying windows games you now need to get at least a quarter of Windows gamers to do the same. Games will then be made for Linux(ignore the fact for the moment that I, and I assume others, like Linux because it's almost a purely workhorse OS.)
Wintendo? That's a new one. I thought most of the hardcore microsoft fanboys/girls owned X-Boxen.
Yes, come develop games for Linux, but they must be free or else our hippy community won't buy them! Free games pay the bills alright(ignoring the resume add and reputation increase inherant in completing a decent game).
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Thanks, that was awesome.
GameSpot
IGN.com
FYI, both reviews seem to think its a lot better than 'evolutionary.'
This is not "Stuff that matters". At least not front page /. stuff.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
I can definitely see some of the game's flaws:
Too short, too linear, too easy.
However, the rich plot, the voice acting, the music, the ambiance serve to make this a worthy game to play. And they finally got Bullet Time right. In MP1, you had to use it so sparingly that it was almost useless. The Quenten Tarantino feel to the Bullet Time cinematics were awesome. I would have preferred a little bit more play between cutscenes, though. Seemed like just when you got going, you had to stop for a three minute cutscene. Max Payne (and MP2) ranks up there in my top three (including Thief/Thief2 and Splinter Cell). I'm so tired of Run 'n Gun that it's nice to see the occasional gem with something extra to offer.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
aaah but have you played MP1 or 2? ...both games go along way to build up suspense, and are rife with story telling. Don't write it off because it invovles guns. I agree that alot of the present days game companies produce cookie cutter games that lack story and artist talent, but Rockstar studios doesn't generally fall into this category.
If you liked theif and haven't tried MP1 or indeed MP2, perhaps try out a demo or something... you'll be suprised at the amount of sneaking around invovled and immersivness of the plot.
"You mostly float around in slow-motion "bullet-time," and it's not much more than a gimmicky Matrix game that grows old fast, and has no multiplayer"
Are you SURE you haven't played the second one? Because you just described it, spot on! It's the same as the first, but with better graphics and an annoying storyline that interrupts the game every 10 seconds with cliche cut-scenes.
Here is our opinion of a game! LOLOLOL OH GOD MY SIDES!
http://www.emptylogic.com/suprnova/torrents/445/MA X.PAYNE.2.THE.FALL.OF.MAX.PAYNE-DEViANCE.torrent
Max Payne 2 is, as you would expect of a sequel, much like the original Max Payne. Both games are short by game standards, and Max Payne 2 seems even shorter than its predecessor. That isn't a complaint, merely an observation. Max Payne 2 is a lot of goodness packed into a tight package. It does leave you wishing for more. Firstly, I am going to skip over AI, graphics, and sound. Any other review of the game can tell you about this, so let it suffice to say that they all come together to produce a great gaming experience. What matters is how the developers use them to suck the gamer into their world. By video game standards, Max Payne is original, but like so many games it is an imitation of movies, in this case film noir. They get it very close to right, but at times it almost seems as though they try too hard, and after a while the lines start sounding a bit cheesy. I suppose it is silly to expect a game to rise above this, as great writing/acting talent is no doubt drawn to movies themselves, but I'm still holding out in the hope that someone will put together a really great original script for a game. But again, this is a video game, and by those standards Max Payne 2 rises above the rest. I don't know about you, but I am getting a bit tired of the "aliens/monsters invade, it's your job to save the world" plot. The idea of using comics to tell the story was a stroke of genius, as it is a perfect work around for the incapability of video game characters to act. The technology just isn't there yet, and when games try to tell a story with emotion it is more likely to come off comical than serious, as the stick figures jerk around in an attempt to appear human. Obviously comics aren't great at conveying emotion, but they certainly don't detract from it the way in video game cut scenes tend to. Film noir being the straight faced act that it is allows Max Payne 2 to flow nicely. The atmosphere of the game is outstanding. The attention to detail put into every level is phenomenal. One wonders if the trend will be for games to become shorter in coming years, as the effort needed to build ever more realistic worlds from scratch becomes greater. There is a mad fun house level in the game that almost makes you cringe as you realize how much effort went into making all the props and setting them all up to move as a fun house does. The cringe comes from the realization that the detail must have cost the game some of its length. Apparently the developers realized this too, as you actually pass through the level twice during the games. My gripes about the game are few. I think there could have been a little bit better enemy placement, and the difficulty of the game could have been increased to make the game both longer and more challenging. Shooting enemies in bullet time doesn't lose its charm, and with quick save and load being such an easy thing you think they would have made things a bit tougher. There were times where I would take out 2 or 3 people and turn hoping to see one more bad guy, only to find an empty corner. Another thing, I think they should have placed the bad guys in front of more breakable objects. I don't know about you, but I love to see stuff fly apart, and it just didn't happen as often as I wanted. More often they would be standing on some ledge, ready to die and give you yet another display of the physics engine. I personally don't think it is that cool to see the person you shoot instantly go limp and fall like a sack of potatoes. It may be realistic for a rag doll, but it isn't for someone who just got shot. But hey, I guess that is why it is called "rag doll" physics and not "guy who just got shot" physics. If they wanted to show it off I would have rather seen them add slow motion deaths for grenade explosions, of which there were none. All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience. I hope they are able to lay Max Payne to rest however, as I don't think they can really do much else with this. Hopefully their next game will be as fresh as the original Max Payne was.
Aside of the interesting story and gameplay, one of the reasons I like MP2 is the fact it's using a licensed version of Havoc, the engine for Half-life 2. The first time I got into a major firefight involving grenades, rifles, smgs etc, the room afterwards actually LOOKED like a major firefight had just occurred there. Objects were blown all over the place, bullet marks and char marks from explosions... It makes the experience more immersive and enjoyable. Sure the overall game is short, but it's very sweet.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Makes me wonder how this game would stack up using Old Man Murray's Crate Review system...
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/39.html
Translation: Everyone who spoke up about any new ideas has been fired and replaced with a quiet, imaginationless drone. The rest of the work was outsourced.
Maximum revenue, minimum cost, almost totally riskless, and none of those edjicated types interrupting meetings with newfangled ideas.
Just the way corporate middle management likes it.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
the game is a totally linear tunnel shoot'em'up.
mona sax's voice has no emotion, the plot is
simple, repetitive and uninteresting. the graphics
are great and so are the physics, but they don't
make a game. it was very easy to complete the game,
but it felt more like work than fun. a new room,
a new batch of enemies... not very cool. a showcase
for their technology, not a good game.
and the locations: a warehouse, a construction yard,
a mansion, etc... i've seen this millions of times
before.
where's the adventure? the emotions? immersive
landscapes? and not those metaphors...
On a side note, the problem might be that Linux isn't the most install friendly OS sometimes. Granted, I haven't bought any of the boxed games out for it, but I was too entertained making it work for a month straight(thank you gentoo and a lack of knowledge). I might try and get NWN to work sometime though... Wow, a new sam and max... You've made my day.
FryCarson off to see if you lie
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
Warez for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
Sigs are for losers
On the shelves of reviewers, perhaps.
Not on the shelves of retailers unless it's the 24th of October already....
-N
Too bad the review does not touch this question. While I loved the bullet-time effect and the general "noir-esque" storyline in "Max Paine", I really HATED acting in all the cut-scenes. Most of the villains are unintentionally funny, they are not scary at all. It is common among the game developers to employ theyr friends and family as stop-gap "actors", but I've never seen as horrible acting in a computer game. At least Walton Simmons in "Deus Ex" is really scary - he creates a memorable character, just like interesting villains from the movies. But do you really remember any character from "Max Payne"? The graphic novel was kitschy as well, nothing even close to Alan Moore or Frank Miller. Those cheap bastards should employ a good designer and some half-decent actors for a sequel, but did they?
8 hours of interactive film(it's not really a _game_, you have to play it on the easiest setting first too).
retarded boss sequence at the end(i prefer that if i can see somebody that i can kill him/her in a 'game', rather than try to guess what the script writer thought that i should make. this is the problem with games that resemble more like a film than a real game, you have to be an actor but you dont have the script). if you're having trouble there think about max payne 1's ending(and look for hotspots to shoot).
retarded plot compared to 1(wtf, hundreds of cleaners and nobody notices them ever? one local detective working on cases that have have 50 bodies and completely 'cleaned' buildings?)
havok is great in it, boxes, chairs, bodies.
they don't use too much havok for anything that really matters gameplay wise, which is a shame.
bodies don't show damage or get torn apart..
it's a good play(even if only in theatretical sense, i wonder if i got the word right even) though, looks great and more importantly also _runs_ great.
so, all and all it is a bit like unreal 2(as a gaming experience), though unreal 2 had more variety in the missions(mp2 of course has those cool comic strips telling the story, but i'd rather have the variety of gameplay. now mp2 is just 'find the open door, go in and shoot people. repeat' apart from few annoying protection scenes).
it would have been nice to include max payne 1 in the package with the new engine, if just to expand the length of the package.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
the game imho was to short and to easy. yes i know that as soon as it was finished you could try it on a harder level, but that was too boring, because the game was exactly the same so unless the demo blows em away i think ill pass
sig censored by america
hahahahahaha
I just downloa- er, legally obtained- a copy of MP2, and I've started playing through it. Like people have said, it doesn't seem to be anything terribly new. I have, however, noticed a number of improvements in gameplay. My favorite: When you shoot/dodge and land on the floor you stay lying there until you stop shooting. This has its pros and cons, but I remember being fantastically annoyed at being so vulnerable while Max picked his ass up off the ground.
The graphics are better than in MP, of course, but to my great pleasure the game runs much smoother on my oldish Dell than its predecessor did. I still have a lot of playing left to do, so I'll get back to it. Don't dismiss this game out of hand; it builds on a very strong foundation.
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
}
In other news, adult entertainment professional Moaner Sexx has approached Max Payne publisher Rockstar Games via her solicitor regarding the unauthorized use of her artist name in the computer game Max Payne 2.
(How blatant can u be!)
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
get past the first level without eating enough painkillers to kill Rush Limbaugh.
mck
I'll leave it to Gabe and Tycho to talk about Max Payne 2.
Join Tor today!
I just (not 10 minutes ago) finished Max Payne 2, and I LOVED it. The first game was great, and part two was equally as good.
The only problem is that it was very short, and for $65+tax Canadian, I'd expect at least twice as much gameplay.
For those who scoff at the whole 'film noir' aspect of the storytelling, that's the whole point of the game. Without it, all you have is another 3rd-person blah shooter. Aside from the story, however, the game itself is just beautiful. At times when I was safe, I found myself just walking around and admiring the excellent texture work, reflections, Havok physics, etc.
Can't wait for Max Payne 3!
- c -
Graphics: same or just a little better
Sound: same
gameplay: a little better (you get to play with some guys on your side a few times, you get to play with mona too)
replay value: worse. The game is even shorter (about 8 hours). Although it has some more playing modes.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Done so quickly they didn't bother with such trivialities as a knowledge of the English language, presumably. "[T]he comic-like sequences inherent of the first game"? "To a point of dissention"? Did the reviewer write this by throwing a thesaurus at the PC and hoping it would hit the right keys when it bounced?
The first one was plain awful.
Max Payne 2, Doom III, Half-Life II...yeap, good FPS games with emphasis on gameplay and visuals are coming!!! what a good year it must be!!!
Aside from that, MP is one of the best games ever. The sequences where Max has nightmares (and the player must complete) are absolutely stunning and brilliantly executed.
By the way, am I the only one who turns bullet time off ? it is impressive, but not while really playing the game.
Tada
...then I noted it needs a gigahertz class processor.
Maybe next summer. Or the one after it.
Well, Max Payne was good enough to make me upgrade my video card, maybe this one is good enough to make me get a new proc... =)
I've been playing this a little and it has the same stuttery feel that Max Payne 1 has. I actually just got Max Payne 1 after reading about the excellent Kung Fu mod. My graphics card is pretty new though, so it should be able to run either game easily. Anyway, it seems like the major feature of this sequel is the higher system requirements. The gameplay is only slightly different, maybe the presentation is a little slicker. I don't really see new features in the graphics engine (more complex shadows, self-shadows, improved transparency, something) but I do see higher poly models. It looks like Remedy thought "don't change the game, just make it so they'll want a new graphics card to play it."
Ravi
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
I think I have to agree that the game is too short. I finish it in 2 days and there is no multiplayer, so the replay value goes down a bit
Overall it's a great deal if you can offload it to somebody else after you are done
-joe
Screenshots anyone?