![]() ![]() Well, nothing we can do about it now, 16 years later. The cover art, as well as the title, made it look and sound like it wasn't a true sequel to the original game. Most people agree about one thing: it was poorly marketed. It didn't come out as the same time as any huge game either. The game wasn't impacted by any issue at launch, didn't suffer from any controversy or whatever. Why? Well, that's the strangest thing, probably the most unfair, there's no real reason. There are no official numbers but numerous people from Remedy and Take-Two gave enough clues to guess the game sold between 2 and 3 millions (the first game sold 7M). Surely it sold even more than the original game, you must be thinking. So, this was basically a better Max Payne. The result was some extremely satisfying gun fights, with props and bodies flying everywhere, as well as very polished character models and textures in general, plus all the explosions and other effects. The game made optimal use of DirectX 8.1. The game uses the trending (in 2003) and extremely satisfying (in 2019) Havok physics engine as well as an upgraded version of their own game engine, called MaxFX. The game's script had more than 600 pages, while the first game only had 200. Max Payne isn't the only main character anymore, as shown on the cover art: Mona Sax returns as a femme fatale for a 'film noir love story'. It was as critically acclaimed as the first game.Īlthough the game retained the same storytelling devices -Max's internal monologues, nightmares, and comics panels- the plot itself switched from a crime-oriented, conspiracy story, to a more personal and mature love story. In late 2003, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne was released. Max Payne, Remedy's second ever game, sold more than 7 millions copies.Īs a result of Max Payne's success, Take-Two purchased the IP for $10 millions and Remedy agreed to develop a sequel. When the game finally got released, it was critically acclaimed for its gameplay, obviously, as well as its neo-noir plot, driven by Max's monologues and nightmares, and graphic novel panels. Remedy actually capitalized on the hype, adding homages to the movie, the same way they did with Hong Kong movies. ![]() By then, another piece of work had (re-)introduced bullet-time: The Matrix. The game was actually supposed to be released in 1999 but got delayed for a graphical upgrade. Now widely known as 'bullet-time', they chose to make it a resource used by the player, instead of scripted sequences they would choose. Pushed by Apogee's founder Scott Miller who wanted a Tomb Raider-like game with a strong main character similar to Duke Nukem, Remedy took inspirations from Hong Kong action cinema and decided to have a slow-motion mechanic as a core gameplay element. Their first game, Death Rally (1996), was published by Apogee Software (Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem. Max Payne was developed by Remedy Entertainment, a Finnish studio with a demoscene background. And in July of 2001 was released a critically acclaimed game of this genre, inspired by Hong Kong live action cinema in its gameplay, crime fiction in its story Max Payne. Third person shooters now allowed the player to directly control aiming. Other interesting 3D third person shooters were SCE Cambridge's MediEvil (1998) adding hack'n'slash elements, Capcom's Mega Man Legends (1997) adding Japanese RPG elements, and Syphon Filter (1999) adding stealth elements, similar to Metal Gear Solid. It was extremely influential, mixing shooting aspects with platformers gameplay. The first major hit being Delphine Software's Fade to Black (1995) followed the next year by a behemoth of the genre: Tomb Raider (Core Design, 1996). 3D third person shooters emerged during the second half of the 90s. Third person shooters have been around since forever, they evolved from arcade to consoles, from vehicles or spaceships to human protagonists, and from 2D to 3D. But first, some context.Ī little bit of history Third person shooters I haven't played Max Payne 3 so I can't talk about it. That's why I would recommend Max Payne 2 over the first game. Max Payne 1 is a very good game but it hasn't aged as well as Max Payne 2 has on a technical aspect. However, if you intend to play/discover the whole series (3 games in total), you should play Max Payne 1 before, or at least read/watch a summary of its story. ![]() I'm writing this review because I think Max Payne 2 is an important game, and fans of shooter games should definitely play it. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |