Max Payne 2

We take a look at the noir shooter Max Payne 2. After a Matrix overload at the cinema this year can we cope with more gun crazy bullet-time nonsense?

Way back in the halcyon days of 2001, gamers were first introduced to a gentleman named Max Payne. He was gritty, he was out for revenge at any cost and he was famously suffering from a severe case of opiate-induced constipation. He was also a best seller, which helps to explain why we're being treated to this speedy sequel. Unfortunately, this is one offering that would have benefited from a little more time in the oven.

Remedy, developer of Max Payne and MP2, has provided a respectable set of upgrades for this sequel: a revamped version of bullet time, creatively dubbed "Bullet Time 2.0", improved models and textures and multiple characters to control. Unfortunately, it has also added some improvements that are anything but. At various points in the game, one acquires teammates. Offhand, I can think of four times when this happens. With the notable exception of one, they're totally useless. At best, they stand fifty feet behind Max and miss the enemies until they die, while spouting wisecracks. More often, they run up behind Max and unload a full clip of ammo in his back, or worse, head. Thankfully, they can be ordered to stand in place - but even then, the level of difficulty is adjusted with the assumption that you've the player has a second gunman along.

Still, the teammates are only a minor nuisance. If that were the only problem with this game, it would have become one of the rare sequels to exceed its predecessor. Notice my use of the word "if". Unfortunately, there's much more wrong with Max Payne 2 - three things in particular, that drag it down: the plot, the dialogue, and the ambush-heavy nature of the levels. The first two are merely aesthetic, but the last is a critical flaw in the structure, and impossible to avoid.

The plot and dialogue are symptoms of the same underlying issue, so we'll address them together. Max Payne 1 was flat out goofy. No way around it. Heavy-handed pseudo-noir dialogue delivered by a frozen-faced hero wearing a leather jacket and a bad vest. It was goofy, but it didn't take itself seriously. You got a feeling, when hearing lines about the rain falling like angels tears (or whatever) that Remedy was in on the joke. That feeling is noticeably absent from Max Payne 2, but the quality of the writing has not improved. In attempting to make the game feel more serious - "a film noir love story", as they bill it, the exposition has become even more silly, the dialogue and plot even more ridiculous. Characters behave in unintentionally ridiculous ways, and you get the feeling that neither they, nor their writers at Remedy, are in on the joke. "But it's like looking down into the grave of your love," Max exposits. "Or kissing the mouth of a gun, a bullet trembling in its dark nest, ready to blow your head off." This isn't satire it's just bad writing.

Thankfully, the worst of it can be evaded by skipping through the cut scenes. Skipping them means missing out on a good deal of the plot, but frankly, it's not a great loss. The plot isn't incomprehensible, but it is meaningless. A development at the end of the story undercuts everything that has happened before, and renders most of the storyline utterly irrelevant.

I'd like to say that the best course of action is simply to ignore the plot and enjoy the action, but that's made difficult by some design decisions. Don't get me wrong - the meat of the action is fantastic, better than before. The improved bullet time, which charges up as Max kills people to both make time slower and Max faster, is a fun tweak. The Havok physics engine, which adds ragdoll physics, collision detection, mass and momentum, is, ultimately, another fun toy, but little else. It's amusing to fling grenades and see boxes and bodies explode outward, and it's hilarious seeing Max barrel through rooms, flinging chairs, IV stands, and the like out of his way. Ultimately, however, that is the extent of the physics - a fun toy.

These new toys in the game, fun as they are, merely serve to distract from the changed nature of the gameplay. Max Payne 1 was not a deep game – the player ran through corridors and shot people. At the end, there was a stupid boss fight. That was the extent of it. In what I can only assume is an attempt to create more tension for Max Payne 2, there's an illusion of AI scripting and realistic behaviour, Max is constantly encountering set piece ambushes, one pre-scripted encounter after another. Many of them begin with a grenade being thrown or a barrel exploding. If Max happens to be in the middle of a shoot dodge manoeuvre, or doesn't jump in the right direction, or jump too slowly, or too soon, it's a quick trip back to the reload screen. Quick saves and quick loads are the player's most-used functions in this title. Several of the ambushes confront the player with either such overwhelming force or such a bad initial position that there is only one 'right way' to survive, and until one discovers it, dying and reloading, dying and reloading, dying and.well, you get the picture.

Ultimately, Max Payne 2 is a competent, if not particularly impressive, sequel. It makes some minor technological improvements, but packages them with major new flaws in the storytelling and gameplay. One step forward, two steps back. It's a tolerable franchise sequel, not a bad game, and briefly fun - but not worth the money, unless you are a huge fan of the original. This one is worth a look, but wait for it to hit the bargain bin, first.