Max Payne is such a good game with some crippling problems that really date it. The voice acting is top tier, and James McCaffrey is the biggest reason for this success and is one of the best voice actors ever. The gameplay is unqiue and so satisfying, diving through the air as the world explodes around you and bullets whiz past you. The depiction of New York as this grim, snowy, crime-ridden land fits so well with the place and the cheesiness makes this so good. But I played this on the PC port, and the game's crippling issues with the difficulty slider got annoying really quick. Walking through a door and getting insta-headshot three times and then the fourth time doing the same thing and not having it happen got annoying, and supposedly there is a major bug that makes it so the difficulty slider, which is tied to the only difficulty you can play at the start, is broken and doesn't properly balance the game. As well, some aspects feel a little too gamey in this serious tale, with a few levels sticking out like a sore thumb (the underground level). I feel enemy variety wasn't really a thing, just the same enemy that got stronger and stronger. But overall, this is a very good game with aspects that haven't ever really been replicated as well, which is a shame. We need more top-tier, slow-mo shooters.

EDIT: Apparently I had my FPS too high which made the game a worse experience for me, so it might not be as accurate compared to other people.

A really fantastic game and experience. It has amazing visual style that makes the world so interesting to look at, upgrade mechanics that really make you feel stronger, and the combat feels great with every gun being useful that you can customize to your liking. There is a lot of exploration and visual themes that really make this game stand out. The music is also literally one of the best in gaming and has a shocking amount of variety that gives it a perfect flair. All the odes to the games that inspired it are wonderful and tasteful, and there is a lot of good exploration and puzzling. It isn't as immersive-simmy as I'd like, but to be fair Bioshock isn't really either and that was the main inspiration. The story was enjoyable, though I do have a couple of flaws with some of the writing and how cutscenes were presented. They all felt very awkward and didn't blend in. Additionally, Filatova looks like a Fallout 76 character and sticks out way too much in this world. She literally looks awful. I also think that the robots weren't used as creatively as they could've been and the organics were used too sparingly. But overall, this is a great game that is a labor of love and it shows. I'd recommend checking this out if you enjoy shooters.

Overall this is an early access survival game. Lots of missing features, a lame ending, and overall there is horrendous optimization and polish and it certainly needs work. But it is good, and promising. Lots of stuff to do and a lot of the caves feel cool to explore and fight in, with really awesome rewards for exploration because you can find some very unique tools. The building is both better and worse, because it is harder to use but also you can build more and have more creativity. The mutants are a little safer in design and not as freaky, a little too humanoid but the companions you get are really cool. The enemy AI of course is top notch and they feel like actual, breathing people that will run away or give up or ignore you depending on things. I hope they keep their promise of expanding on the game and updating it constantly but we will have to see. You certainly have to understand it is an early access game to enjoy it right now. I will update this review as time passes and I do more playthroughs and hours. If you don't mind early access or have friends, grab it. If you do mind early access you'll have to sadly wait a couple of months.

This was an extremely cute little platformer that has a lot of care and love put into it. Fantastic music and a GORGEOUS artstyle, where every level has interesting things about it. The collecting is really nice too, as someone who doesn't like having to one-hundred percent games I definitely want to do it with this game as the levels are setup to minimize backtracking if you're trying to get everything. The music as well needs to be mentioned, as it is amazing and fits every level's unique artstyle perfectly. It is a bit on the shorter side but I'd rather have a game that leaves me wanting more rather than thinking it was too much. I think my biggest complaint is that it is a little too easy. I don't normally play platformers and I found it not that challenging, where I usually messed up jumps because of timing rather than precision and movement. I don't mind games being easy, but I think I would've liked a little more challenge, especially with the enemies. They're all quite simple and are more objects rather than creatures you counter despite their cute designs. I also liked the little story details we get and it really plays well into the 'less is more' concept. Overall a great game and for the price it is a steal!

Awful game and one of the worst I played. It was literally impossible for me to beat it because it crashed and there was no solution except to get a game from the time, even with compatibility. Outside of that, the gameplay is awful. Every enemy is extremely tanky no matter how much you upgrade your weapons, the hitscan enemies do way too much damage, bosses and enemies that are melee have AOE attacks so it might be impossible to beat this game as the warrior, and the story is garbage. The only redeeming factors is the art design of levels looks really nice, even if it is dated for the time. And the voice acting is so horrible it is good so if you like that stuff you can enjoy it too. The third level, which is the swap, is one of the worst levels in gaming and I hope whoever designed it stubs his toe once a week. An insane amount of annoying enemies, regular enemies that take 80 hits to kill on normal difficulty, randomized poison goo all around that you can't predict or avoid while going against resurrecting enemies that are behind a horde of enemies, tentacle monsters that sprout from the ground that have no way of dodging or knowing where they are without knowledge beforehand, and an enemy that does an insane amount of damage, takes over a hundred hits, and halves your health in a single shot while teleporting around as you're getting attacked by tentacles that pop up out of nowhere. Normally I like to finish games before reviewing them but the game literally will not let me beat it because of a hard crash that has no fix or solution so I'm going to take that as a sign from God to stop playing this game.

Great game, just like the original. Amazing world and acting, really good gunplay that is SO good with being able to use plasmids at the same time, and enemies are much better balanced. The story wasn't as good and it felt short, but still great. I will say on PS5 I did have some tech issues, where my game crashed twice (once at the end) which was frustrating, and I also had an issue at the start with saves, so maybe the PC version is the better port to play on. The technical issues didn't effect the score. Another issue I had was the gameplay wasn't super fun. The shooting felt pretty mediocre and I got bored of it quickly.

A fantastic game and a classic for a reason with some dated elements. The world of Rapture is fantastic, and the gunplay feels great against such interesting enemies but fighting some of the squishier guys or turrets was meh. I also didn't like a few of the combat arenas. Combined with great music, voice acting, and a world that feels lived in this game is wonderful. There are a few issues: the twist is great but the rest of the game after could've been a little bit better. Some of the enemy scaling needed work too and the plasmids were really rough, having to switch off the gun with some powers that simply weren't that great. The hacking minigame was awful especially with how much you had to do it early. I also wouldn't consider this an immersive simulator, even though it was inspired by and inspired other ones. Definitely would recommend playing.

Interesting magic and a great performance from Ella Balinska couldn't save this awful, terrible game. Bland world, music, story, enemy design with horrendous pacing and barely anything fun makes this the worst AAA game I've played this year. The writing was insanely bad with forgettable characters and no interesting stories that made me want to explore. Horrible puzzles that are piss-easy with dungeons that feel all exactly the same and weird enemy scaling. Bosses have three easily noticeable attacks and health bars that literally make fights go on for twenty minutes for no reason. It is insane how bad this game is minus the fact that the magic animations and physics are gorgeous, but they end up crowding your screen so much you get frame drops and can't see enemies attacking you. You can pass on this.

Great game. I think the environement is one of the best open-worlds with so many little details and nooks to explore with really good cover-based shooting. Story is serviceable, and I love seeing the settlements improve over time. The combat feels fantastic and all the enemies have an insane amount of unique variety which the DLC helps with, and there is so much content and builds and player choice that it feels really freeing with how much you can do. Some of the complaints I have is the music isn't the best and can feel generic as well as some of the characters. The world doesn't have as many people integrated with it outside of patrols like the first game did, and it doesn't feel like you are meeting a lot of natives to DC which is a shame. Another issue I have is that there isn't that much depth to a lot of the levelling content as this is a game with endgame focus, so it would've been better if they did more with levelling for build variety. It was pretty much just use whatever you got and you weren't really incentivized to farm anything low level with how quickly you levelled up. I would say this is the most detailed and amazing looking open world I've seen, and it really feels like you're walking through a real city and not a video game and I hope Heartland is just as good as this game in terms of the world.

Pretty good hack and slash with a really good conclusion to the story and world they created, making changes that signifigantly improved the combat and weapons you get. I think enemies are a little bland and they are still sponges but still good. I really liked the characters, though I feel like they wrote themselves into a corner. I felt that the level design was an issue as well, and visiting the underworld so many times in the games got old really fast. I also think that the justification for 'starting the game depowered' was pretty weak as well, but that was just a reason of the times. This game was the best in the trilogy, and the set pieces were insanely impressive that I can't believe they were able to do such a good job with ending it. I'm excited to try the fourth and see how they continue the story and gameplay from there.