MAX PAYNE

'''Max Payne''' is a third-person shooter computer game developed by the Finnish company Remedy Entertainment, produced by 3D Realms and published by Gathering of Developers in July, 2001 for Windows. Ports later in the year for the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation 2 were published by Rockstar Games. A Macintosh port was published in July 2002 by MacSoft in North America^[1] and Feral Interactive in the rest of the World. There were plans for a Dreamcast version of Max Payne, but they were cancelled.^[2]
A sequel to the highly popular shooter followed in 2003 entitled ''.^[3]

Contents

Overview

Gameplay

Bullet-time

''Max Payne'' (Game Boy Advance)

Max Payne the character

Plot

Sequels and spin-off

''Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne''

Gameplay

''Max Payne 3''

''Max Payne: The Movie''

References

External links

Official

Third-party and Community

Overview

The ''Max Payne'' series has a major cinematic influence: the Hong Kong action movie genre, particularly the work of director John Woo, which features a great deal of slow-motion violence and gunfights, almost resembling ballet. "John Woo" is in fact the password that the mobsters must recite to enter their laundromat hideaway. The series is also often perceived to have been greatly influenced by ''The Matrix'', but in actuality, this is not the case. Although the first game was released two years after ''The Matrix'' came out, this is a coincidence; ''Max Payne'' was already in development long before ''The Matrix'' became a household name, and slow-motion was a major gameplay element from the beginning. While the movie certainly influenced public perception of the game, it did not have a great impact on the game itself, although calling the slow-motion effect "bullet time" was probably inspired by the term being used to describe the similar effect in ''The Matrix''. ''Max Payne'' is also said to have influenced Dead to Rights.
The game has other parallels to ''The Matrix''. The detonation of the subway/bank door is similar to the cartwheeling elevator door in the movie. The start of the "Nothing to Lose" level is similar to the famous lobby shootout scene in the film.
The games' stylish cinematography and choreography is combined with heavy film noir, pulp noir, and pulp fiction influences in characters and dialogue. Rather than rendered or digitized cinematic movies for cutscenes, the story is told instead with "graphic novels" which are similar to comics and pulp fiction. Accordingly, ''Max Payne'' is rife with artistically orchestrated, often strangely graceful gunplay. The games are dark and noir-style, following Max Payne, a troubled cop with internal and external conflicts in a dark, sinister New York City.
Within the games, there are mini-plots in the form of television shows that the player can follow. Several of the shows are based on other, real-life shows.
Max Payne focuses exclusively on the story and single-player experience, so it lacks multiplayer in contrast to other contemporary shooters. As a result, Max Payne ranks low on replayability with some reviewers suggesting that there are only 10-20 hours of gameplay from it.
A MAX-FX level editor was also included.
End-user modifications are very popular within Max Payne franchise due to the extensibility of the gameplay system. The most well-known are ''The Family'', and several Kung-Fu and ''Matrix'' modifications.

Gameplay

The prime emphasis of the series is on shooting. Almost all of the gameplay involves utilizing bullet-time to gun down foe after foe. Levels are generally straightforward, with almost no key-hunting. However, some levels do incorporate platforming elements and puzzle solving. Ammo is in constant supply, as all enemies drop some ammo when killed.
Survival is highly dependent on the use of bullet-time, but bullet-time is limited and can run out if over-used (although every enemy killed by the player earns a little more bullet-time). It can be difficult for many gamers to get through the later levels without quicksaving and quickloading multiple times.
The game's A.I. is heavily dependent on pre-scripted commands. Most of the apparently intelligent behavior exhibited by enemies, such as taking cover behind obstacles, retreating from the player, or throwing grenades, is pre-scripted. Thus, when replaying a level, enemies perform exactly the same behaviors each time. The only enemies that would dodge and roll were the Mercenaries (operatives in black ski-masks) and Killer Suits (men in sunglasses and business suits).
Higher difficulty levels were extremely challenging, especially the time-limited "New York Minute" where the player had to reach checkpoints before time went out (killing enemies replenishes time). Upon completing the game on "Dead on Arrival", Max is transported to the "Final Battle" where the player then fights in permanent bullet time against 20 Killer Suits each armed with the Pancor Jackhammer automatic shotgun. Upon completion of this task, the player could view a secret room with various photographs of New York locations used by the developer, Remedy, as well as a picture of the development team.
The original ''Max Payne'' at times can be a highly difficult game. On the highest difficulty setting, Max is extremely fragile and dies after only 5 pistol bullets, 3 assault rifle bullets, or 1 dead-on shotgun blast. Contrary to most FPS games, most enemies are actually more durable than the player character, with later enemies being able to survive 2 or 3 times as much damage as Max.

Bullet-time

The gameplay of ''Max Payne'' revolves heavily around bullet-time. When triggered, bullet-time slows down the passage of time to such an extent that the movements of bullets can be seen by the naked eye - it is a form of slow motion. The player, although his movement is also slowed, is still able to aim and react in real time, providing a unique advantage over enemies. This makes avoiding being shot easier and enables Max to perform special moves, such as shootdodges where Max leaps sideways through the air while continuing to fire his weapon.
Occasionally, when the last character of a group is killed, the viewpoint switches to a third-person view of his falling body with the camera circling around it.

''Max Payne'' (Game Boy Advance)

The Game Boy Advance version of the game was developed by Mobius Entertainment Ltd, now known as Rockstar Leeds. Since it was developed on a far less powerful platform, the GBA version differs greatly from the PC versions and its Xbox and PlayStation 2 ports: instead of a 3D shooter, the game is based on sprite graphics and is shown from an isometric perspective. The gameplay features have remained mostly the same, however, and is actually very similar to the original, aside of the perspective change. The story also remained the same as in PC and console versions, though some levels from the original are omitted. The game even includes quite a large part of the original's graphic novel sections, complete with voice-overs.

Max Payne the character

For ''Max Payne'', the title character was modeled after Sam Lake, the writer of ''Max Payne''. It is often joked that Max had a constipated expression with his uncomfortable half grin/sneer; this joke is even mentioned in the sequel. For ''Max Payne 2'', however, Lake declined the honor, and after extensive casting, Remedy chose the actor Timothy Gibbs to be the model for Max Payne. The voice of Max Payne was played by actor James McCaffrey in both games. McCaffrey is probably best known for playing the character Jimmy Keefe in the TV show ''Rescue Me''.
Max Payne is comparable to film-noir characters such as Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade (both of whom are mentioned in the game).

Plot

The story begins three years in the past with Max working as a cop in Hell's Kitchen. Max came home after a long day at work, in which he declined an offer to join the DEA, offered to him by his best friend Alex Balder. Nobody answered when he entered his home and upstairs he finds his wife and daughter murdered at the hands of junkies high on a new designer drug called Valkyr.
Max eventually joins the DEA as an undercover agent to infiltrate the Mafia and the underground world of New York. While undercover, B.B., an agent who is friends with both Max and Alex, calls Max and tells him Alex wants to meet at the Roscoe Street subway station. Once arriving there by train, Max gets off and checks around, only to discover a Transit cop killed in the locker room and Alex nowhere to be seen. As he continues on he learns that mobsters under Jack Lupino, a Mafia boss in the Punchinello crime family, are attempting a bank robbery under the Roscoe Street bank through the station. While investigating the robbery, Max discovers they were after Aesir Corporation bonds. Working his way back to the surface, Max encounters Alex, who gets killed by an unknown shooter, leaving Max at the scene to take the fall. Max leaves the station to look for Lupino at his hotel.
Once at Lupino's hotel, Max finds the Finito brothers — Joey and Virgilio — but not Lupino. With his cover blown, Max Payne engages in a shoot-out with the Finito brothers. Max kills them and finds out through a letter addressed to them by Vinnie Gognitti (a Mafia captain and Jack Lupino's right hand man) that Rico Muerte, a Chicago mobster (who Max refers to as "... a regular Keyser Soze...") who owes the Punchinello family is coming to New York to oversee a major Valkyr drug deal. While he searches for Muerte's room, he finds the diary of a hooker named Candy Dawn. She writes about how she has been selling tapes of her having sex with a "One-Eyed Alfred" to a mysterious woman. Continuing on, Max breaks up the drug deal and finds Muerte and Dawn not too far away. He kills Muerte and near the front of the hotel, Max finds a switchboard not far from the counter, and he overhears Vinnie Gognitti talking to a dying mobster. Max searches for Vinnie, hoping to find Lupino.
Once outside, a set of explosions detonates inside one of Lupino's buildings. Vladimir Lem, the head of the Russian Mafia and responsible for the bombings, is seen leaving the scene of the crime in his car. Later, while searching for a key to a locked door, Max finds a letter by Gognitti detailing a recent hit on Vlad's illegal guns, explaining the bombings. Max eventually makes it to Lupino's office to find Vinnie, resulting in a gunfight breaking out with Gognitti's men, whilst Vinnie himself escapes with a gunshot wound to his gut. Max also finds a letter addressed to Don Angelo Punchinello, telling Punchinello that Jack Lupino "has gone crazy". Gognitti and Max meet up in a deadend alley. Using force, Max is told by Vinnie that Lupino is at Ragna Rock, a gothic nightclub owned by Lupino. Payne then leaves Vinnie to die.
Once at Ragna Rock, Max finds the bodies of three of Punchinello's men ritualistically arrayed in a circle. There is also a torn, bloody piece of paper addressed by Don Punchinello himself, telling Lupino to shape up, and with the Don threatening to send his best hitmen known as The Trio. Max has to kill dozens of Lupino's men before Lupino emerges, high on V and exhibiting all the homicidal dementia that entails. Max finally kills him, only to find Mona Sax, Lisa Punchinello's "evil twin", an assassin telling Max he needs to go higher up to Angelo Punchinello himself. She discloses this since she views him as a sadistic wife beater. The two share a drink, but Mona spikes Max's drink and he falls unconscious, only out of fear he might kill her sister.
While knocked out, Max experiences a nightmare about the death of his family. He wakes up only to find himself tied to a chair in the basement of Jack Lupino's hotel. Frankie "the Bat" Niagara, a mob hitman, beats Max around with a baseball bat. Leaving Max bruised and bloody, he comments that when he returns, it's "check out time." Max breaks free of the chair and ponders about the recent choices he's made. Armed with only Niagara's bat he left behind, Max decides to play "hide and seek" with the armed mobsters guarding the hall to acquire their guns. While searching the basement, Max discovers a sewage pipe lined with all of Niagara's murders. Eventually, Max works his way around to the entrance of the hotel. The hotel had been a crime scene from Max's prior battle, but the mobsters had reclaimed it, murdering the cops on duty. Max finds Niagara at the bar like he said, and kills him.
Leaving the hotel, it's not long before Vlad shows up, making him an offer. Boris Dime, a traitor of the Russians over to the Punchinello family, has control over an incoming gun shipment on his cargo ship, the ''Charon''. With Punchinello in control of the shipment, it tips the odds in his favor, making things more difficult for both Vlad and Max. Vlad promises if he can overturn the shipment and kill Dime for him, he could have some of the weapons for himself and a new ally. Max agrees and heads off for the ''Charon'' at the Brooklyn riverfront. Gunning his way past dozens of mobsters, Max boards the ''Charon''. Killing Dime gives Max access to the ship's hold, packed with enough ammo and guns to "start a war". Max calls Punchinello, wanting to meet. Punchinello agrees and Vlad drops Max off at Casa di Angelo, the Don's restaurant. Once there, Max enters only to find a dark and empty restaurant. Within seconds, explosions start going off. Escaping through a sewage tunnel, Max meets up with Vlad again, where they agree to go to see Punchinello at his mansion.
Max enters through the basement, knowing that once on the main floors he'll engage with three murderous hitmen under Punchinello's command, the Trio: Vince Mugnaio, Pilate Providence AKA Big Brother, and Joe "Deadpan" Salem; three notorious hitmen working directly for the Don. Killing the Trio and every mobster standing in his way, Max finds Lisa Punchinello's badly beaten body spread on blood-soaked bed sheets. Max ends up standing outside of the Don's office, listening to him plead for help to someone over the phone. Max breaks down the door, points his Beretta at Punchinello's face, point blank, and immediately the Don reveals he is merely a pawn in a conspiracy. With the truth revealed, a group of men in sunglasses and black suits armed with Colt Commandos storm the office and shoot Punchinello dead on sight. Max kills them, only to find himself outgunned and outmanned by more Killer suits lead by Aesir Corporation's CEO Nicole Horne. She injects Max with an overdose of V, leaving him for dead. Just before Max passes out, he hears her say, "Take me to Cold Steel." Another nightmare engages a drugged Max before he wakes up lying in a pool of his own vomit.
With only one lead, Cold Steel, Max sets off. Max finds an elevator which takes him down to an old military bunker beneath the foundry. The conspiracy becomes more apparent as Max goes deeper into the base, with machines processing Valkyr, data files, test subjects and lab researchers. Max finds a computer with a file on the Project Valhalla history. Valkyr started out as a drug to improve morale and stamina for U.S. soldiers in 1991. After four years of failed research, the government ended funding in 1995. Reading more, Max finds out about a data leak: a "''Mrs. Payne''", Max's wife, working at the District Attorney's office, became privy to a small scrap of information. While inconsequential by itself, if revealed to or discovered by certain troublesome individuals, the project would be doomed. Max learns that psychotic V test subjects were sent to the Payne address in New Jersey. Eventually, all evidence is lost as Max narrowly escapes the self-detonation of the army bunker.
With nowhere to go from there, Max decides to take a break at an all-night diner. He then receives a call from B.B. to meet him at the Choir Communications garage. It then becomes evident to Max that B.B. was responsible for the murder of Alex Balder. When they meet up, B.B. tries to talk himself out of it. With no success, a speeding car almost hits Max as he barely dodges it. B.B. escapes in a van and Max pursues him. B.B. gets out of the van on the first level of the garage and the two have a shootout. Max is victorious, and also receives another call from his mysterious "''benefactor''", this time identifying himself as Alfred Woden, telling Max to meet him at the Asgard building where he will explain everything.
Once Max is at the meeting place, Woden introduces the other members of a secret society he was part of called, "The Inner Circle." Nicole Horne, who headed Project Valhalla, was responsible for Valkyr. After the government funding was disconnected, Horne continued the project unauthorized. Now, she is the CEO of Aesir Corporation and "has more than half the city in her pocket". She had blackmailed the Inner Circle, explaining why she hadn't been stopped. Woden proposed if Max killed Horne, the charges against him would all go away.
Horne's Killer Suits then find the meeting place and shoot the Inner Circle members. Max escapes the massacre by jumping out the first story window into the courtyard. On a security camera monitor, Max sees Woden stand up, making him the sole surviving member of the Inner Circle. In an office, Max finds what Horne had used to keep the Inner Circle silent: the homemade porn video of Alfred Woden and Candy Dawn. Horne was evidently blackmailing Woden with the threat of releasing it, perhaps controlling the Inner Circle through him. Max takes the video to blackmail Woden, should he decide to renege on their deal. Max then battles through Horne's mercenaries (some in black ski masks, others in trench coats) and Killer Suits to escape the building.
Security guards rush Max as soon as he passes the metal detectors of the Aesir Plaza entrance. Max kills his way to the fourth floor, where he reunites with Mona getting off an elevator. Horne gets on the intercom and tells Mona to kill Max, revealing Mona was working for Horne. Mona explains that Max is "a nice guy" and she doesn't kill nice guys. Her compassion rewards her with a bullet in the head as more security suits rush in. Mona's body disappears behind the elevator doors. Having dealt with the threat, Max tries to get on the elevator, only to find Mona's body gone. He makes his way to the mainframe security system and disables it to allow himself access to where Horne is.
Max comes face to face with Horne, only for her to escape and send her guards. Max chases after her all the way to the top of the building, where her helicopter is attempting to make a permanent get away. Max uses his sniper gun to shoot the cables to a weather mast, snapping them and allowing the strong storm winds surging about them to topple the otherwise fragile tower onto Horne's helicopter even as it lifts off the helipad, causing the pad and the helicopter to collapse to the ground. Max stands at the top of the building as the NYPD run out to arrest him.
Being put into a squadcar in handcuffs, Max sees Woden in the crowd of spectators, with the "grin of a winner." Max smiles...
"... That made two of us."

Sequels and spin-off

''Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne''

Main articles: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

When we last saw Max Payne, he was being led away in the back of a police car, about to face charges for his two night killing spree in which he killed upwards of 600 people, even though they all had criminal records. However, Max was eventually cleared of all charges, thanks to his relationship with a very influential member of society, Senator Alfred Woden. A few years have passed, and Max has returned to work for the NYPD as a homicide detective. However, during a routine murder investigation he finds himself face-to-face with the fugitive Mona Sax, a woman he thought was dead. Max and Mona team up to solve the answers to Max's past that left his wife and child dead. Between them and the answers they seek rests an army of scum and murderous thugs in New York City's underground.

Gameplay

The second game again revolves around the bullet time, but the concept is more worked out. When Max shoots his enemies, his slow motion bar becomes a pale yellow. The darker the yellow, the slower time flows, with the exception of Max, who is in "normal" slow motion. Max is more durable now, and except for bosses (of which there are only two; other new challenges include the protection of other characters), the enemies tend to be weaker.
Shootdodging becomes more and more important, although it is both a gift and a curse.
The A.I. is improved, and enemies will team up, or stay behind a door, waiting for you to jump through. If a grenade is thrown, the enemies will run away rather than stand around and wait for it to explode.
Also, the ragdoll system is a major improvement. A dead enemy never dies the same way twice. Shots to the body affect the way the body falls. Headshots now instantly kill an enemy, making the Desert Eagle a more effective weapon. As it is, the Desert Eagle can now be dual-wielded, when previously it could not.
The game is grittier than the previous, but sometimes the opposite is the case.
Since Max now has someone to talk to (Mona), the conversations are deeper than the one-liners he previously uttered.
Max's arsenal is also expanded. Some of the weapons from the predecessor are removed as new ones are added. A secondary weapon menu is also added, giving the player the option to use a melee attack, grenades, or molotov cocktails in addition to their firearm. In the predecessor, grenades and molotov cocktails were primary weapons, making them more dangerous and less effective for use. However, the addition of a secondary weapon option made these more viable choices.

''Max Payne 3''

The ending to ''Max Payne 2'' teases with a message at the end of the credits proclaiming, "Max Payne's journey into the night will continue", but the story itself seems to be over. The third game in the series was announced by Jeffrey L. Lapin, the CEO of Take-Two Interactive in 2004.^[4] There have been no further announcements regarding the matter – even a developer for the third game has not been named. Remedy Entertainment's name was not mentioned in the announcement. At the same time, a post on Shacknews, apparently from someone claiming to be Mikael Kasurinen, a level designer for ''Max Payne 2'', read "FYI: We are not making Max Payne 3.", though this has not been confirmed by anyone from Take Two.^[5] GameSpot notes status of the game is cancelled.^[6]

''Max Payne: The Movie''

It has been confirmed through ''The Hollywood Reporter'' that 20th Century Fox has bought the rights to bring the game to film.^[7] The Max Payne movie was originally slated for release in April 2007, but production has been delayed.

References

1. Max Payne Ships to Stores July 16th Rick Sanchez
2. Max Payne Dreamcast details IGN
3. E3 2002: Max Payne 2 announced Ivan Sulic
4. Take-Two confirms Max Payne 3 Tor Thorsen, GameSpot
5. Max Payne 3 Plans Maarten Goldstein
6. Max Payne 3 status Gamespot
7. Max Payne Movie IGN Filmforce

External links

Official

★ ''Max Payne''

★ ''Max Payne 2''

Third-party and Community

★

★

★

★ Take Two Confirms ''Max Payne 3'' at GameSpot