I had 0 expectations for this game, “Just another bad shooter.” My brother brought it home and when I saw the game I didn’t bother playing at all, but I’d look back from time to time. I’d see him diving into room’s bullets flying past him. well long story short I eventually beat it at the end I knew it was another Rockstar masterpiece. Max Payne is a police officer who gets framed for killing his best friend; he was framed by a look-a-like person. He soon finds out after that his wife and newborn child were both killed. So after that, he becomes a man with nothing to lose, trying to find out the person who did this to him. This story becomes deep. Get some coffee, because as soon as you start, you won’t want to put down this game.

    The game play couldn’t have been better the guys at Rockstar set some paths. Like the new ‘Bullet time’ which is when you hold a button (yes you have a bar telling how much you have) and veer the analog stick anyway you want back if you are being attacked by henchmen in to the sides if you want to make a cool jump-in the room matrix style. It moves to a pretty cool cinematic camera angle, of course you use the cursor to shoot. Do it fast because you’ll it the ground and be eating lead. But another cool thing is it has 3 parts which each have about 10 chapters and each of those chapters at least two objectives in them. Plus the health factor Max is Painkillers. Not little round hovering balls that have a medical plus on them. Pain killers! You can find these in drawers, to medicine cabinets. Rockstar went 100% original in this game.

    I’ll have to admit, the graphics weren’t the prettiest things to look at certain times in the game, they added real faces to some of the characters... looked somewhat alright, but they were in a still form. The scenery was very well done, from toilets to couches, they look really nice. But after you get used to the game and the looks of it, the graphics no longer matter. But another very nice aspect is when he meeting with a important new character, the screen goes comic style, windows, and little talk boxes. Though their in still form, it’s very original. Plus the very best aspect of Max Payne is that his poetry makes you feel like you’re in the game, he describes the scenery very nicely. But looking at other versions the characters were a bit blocky and could of used more polygons to smooth em’ out. Overall the Xbox version and also the PC outshine the PS2 version in the graphics department.

    If you can notice, Max Payne’s sound/music is pretty much done by piano, an awfully sad beat. You’ll rarely find upbeat music in Max Payne. There’s a large variety of rock/piano oriented music in Max Payne. But what I think the developers did nice was add nice sound effects like explosions, gunshots, echoes of henchmen down the hall. The screaming of the baby in dream modes was very nicely done. Another thing I admired is the poetry Max used from mission to mission, he’d describe the scenery or what is going on pretty nicely. A very memorable moment is when I was walking down the stairs It was the first part I believe and the henchmen were having conversations (don’t be lazy, listen, they can be funny at times) they were talking about their wives and how they gave them a hard time, and the funnier thing was they were talking about feelings with Uzis in their hands! The sound was so nicely done that you should crank it up for ultimate enjoinment, the music can you tune you in on guards down the hall, or if its a boss fight -- the music will automatically turn into rock music.

    The controls weren’t that good, or bad but a good two chapters into the game will change all of that, the controls were pretty unusual. Here are the biggies, R1 to shoot, L2 to use ‘Bullet Time’ others will fall into place. The camera changing was the bullet cursor, where you pointed that meant your camera angle. It was pretty easy to figure out. The controls should give no one trouble as long as you’re used to shooters, or one who likes all around games. Another quality I liked is that after a level loads, it loads, you can walk around going through doors by pressing X. For gamers, I think the controls will be pretty easy to get down.

    My closing comments are that, the hype suited the game very well.. This game has surprisingly good A.I. for the guards; they wouldn’t be running around like in Enter the Matrix. When I heard that this site didn’t have a review for it, I thought that was pretty bad. This game can get you pretty addicted with its nice visuals, controls, gameplay, etc... This, is of course one of Rockstar’s masterpieces, maybe around the year 2020, this will be the Metroid of their time. This game is a shooter fan must, with a step above everybody else in the shooters area.