Game of the Week [10/13/03]: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

A philosophical debate about Max Payne, his fall, and what exactly Game of the Week is all about. Hint: Love.

What makes a good game of the week?

Is it a game that's gotten a great review from the illustrious GamePro.com? Is it a title that's making huge waves as it changes they way gamers and designers alike see the art of gaming? Is it, perhaps, a piece of software that challenges us to look deep inside and examine what truly makes us human?

It could be. This week, however, it's just a kick-ass game. Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.

True, there's no review up on this site yet, though the game comes out on Wednesday. Rockstar and developer Remedy have kept this game so close to their hearts that there's a chance you won't see a review up anywhere for a few days now. In fact, this week's Game of the Week is awarded as much to the whole Max Payne series (now consisting of two games and their various multi-platform incarnations) as it is to the sequel itself.

When the original Max Payne shipped, there was little fanfare. Remedy was a garage-band developer, using their own faces and their friends' voices to lend life to the characters in their gaming-noir crime tale. They put together the best New York City they could, considering they were based in Finland. And they packed it with some of the coolest straight-up action the PC industry had ever seen. Keep in mind that the PC was the original home of DOOM, and you'll see that's a bit of a feat.


The game's title works on both the literal and figurative levels.
Not only that, but the title had heart. Max Payne wasn't just a thug like one might see in, say, Rockstar's other blockbuster tale of violence in the city, but rather he was a family man and a cop who'd recently had both titles stripped from him by violence. He was a man who'd snapped and gone for revenge?something endlessly more compelling than just being a random mob goodfella who runs about tossing folks out of their moving vehicles.

It's all that that makes Max Payne 2 such a prize. It's not a major new direction for the franchise; it's an evolution of an old friend. Remedy had the full might of Rockstar's NYC studios this time, complete with real photo references of New York, professional voices, and scanned faces of people who don't have to grimace all the time to look tough. The famed bullet time effect is back, with a touch more depth to make sure that you feel like even more of a cold-blooded badass when you're spinning around and dodging bullets while unloading your dual Ingrams into waves of baddies. Also, this time it's a love story, not just a tale of revenge. So while you're chasing the bad guys, you're also chasing the most elusive prize: true, safe love in the streets of the Big Apple.

So, yeah. There's no review yet; we admit it. But we've had such a great time at Max's expense that we figured he deserves the attention.

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