Paragon Sentry

Max Payne

I think the first is better than the second. The reason shockingly being that I prefer its story rather than the gameplay. Don't get me wrong, both games play great, 2 even more so. But 2's story is kinda shit compared to the first. Gone are the gothic and psychological horror elements that helped give the game its own style outside of being a noir homage. The mythological implications are gone too (Max fighting during Fimbulwinter, Woden guiding you, fighting your way through Aether, etc.) and the story is played a lot straighter too. Max's character is also vastly different in 2. He's no longer a smartass making wise cracks and dropping one liners at everything, and he's a lot mopier and dour in this game. Granted he still drops the occasional witty line, but it feels very forced in. Now you could say that this is in response to the trauma he dealt with during the first game, which would make sense, but seeing as he didn't really respond that way throughout the first game, even at the end, it doesn't really make sense to me. Regardless I can't say I'm a fan of the character change.

So what do we have in its place? A tragic noir romance story that you can intuit how it'll end even if you're not familiar with the genre if you have a decent enough IQ. I don't think there's anything wrong with a basic story as long as you perform the elements correctly, but as I said earlier, with worse character writing and less interesting story elements, the story is nowhere near as gripping. The large cast of strange characters from 1 is gone. Characters such as the Satanist mob boss Jack Lupino and the twin brothers have no equals in the sequel's cast. Leaving each level to blend together in a boring mess.

Speaking of levels, the level design has taken a step backwards here as well. The first game had plenty of interesting settings; the foundry, the underground lab, the goth club, the high-tech offices for the final level. Here, a lot of the levels are really forgettable. No really striking locations, most of them are pretty basic areas for shooter games such as construction sites and old buildings. Even the Hospital level is pretty lame and I'm a big sucker for those. The only one I found fairly interesting was the fun house... which the game forces you to play through 3 times, making it become kind of annoying to play. Which brings me to another problem the game has. Filler levels. I don't mean the nightmare levels. Those served a narrative and gameplay purpose, to be both a break in the action and show where Max's mental state was currently sitting. In this game there are several levels where nothing happens. You merely walk from Point A to Point B interacting with a few objects and NPCs along the way. The game is pitifully short already, similar to the first, but this does not help its case by making you deal with these filler missions IN ADDITION TO nightmare sections that are still in the game. I'd be fine if these filler levels were removed outright and replaced with cutscenes or combined in to other levels to make one long level.

Lastly, to compliment the game. The combat has been improved greatly. Moving, dodging, and bullet time have been smoothed out and are a lot more responsive. It seems as if you now have i-frames while evading. I noticed I was hit a lot less often while doing dodge rolls and dives under enemy gunfire, this is something the first game lacked and sadly it made it so you couldn't take advantage of its features. There's several other new aspects that make the game play better as well such as being able to shoot after doing a dive rather than immediately getting back up which made you vulnerable to enemy attacks. Some guns have been reworked too. The pump shotgun was buffed to have a faster rate of fire which makes it one of the better guns in the game until you get access to assault rifles and the auto shotty. The Ingram was nerfed to have a smaller clip and I think it shoots slower now too which I welcome. It's still fun to use, but now it is far less deadly in the hands of enemies. Assault Rifles are no longer instant death when enemies shoot you with them. The first game made them so overpowered in enemy hands that they had to change their AI's to make it so that they only fired it as Semi-Auto rather than full auto. Grenades also have a reduced blast radius, although enemies seem to be a bit more liberal in their usage of them. I think that's a fair enough balance considering how absurd the blast radius of grenades were in the first game. Now for the new weapons, I can honestly say I'm mixed on them. Max Payne 1's weapon line up was small yes, but each weapon did what it was supposed to do excellently. The new weapons don't really feel as if they have an advantage over what was already present in the first game. What's the point in having 2 automatic rifles that do the same thing? Why give us the MP5 if its gonna work as if its a full auto sniper? These are more nit picky however so ultimately it doesn't matter.

But no matter what, I had fun and am glad I finally got to finish these classics. I started the first on my PS2 a couple years back but never finished it cause I got stuck on the dock level.

Max Payne 1: 8.5/10

Max Payne 2: 8/10

Both games were played on PC, Steam Version. Due to the age of both of these games and lack of support from developers, you will need community-made patches to play them on PC. I used this for Max Payne 1 and this for Max Payne 2.