So Max Payne. This one is kinda hard to rate. For one, I am very picky so the fact I enjoyed a game this old enough to finish it is an achievement in of itself. And I will say the game starts off really strong and for the whole first act, despite some janky old game bullshit I was having a lot of fun. Even when Part 2 decided to reuse a whole level essentially, I still had fun but by the time Part 3 rolled around the cracks that had shown along the way started to grow and my interest in the game quickly plummeted, and I spent almost the whole of Part 3 wishing it would end already. So what's so wrong you may ask? Well, considering its such an old game a lot of it is forgiveable but it took away from the experience so greatly it just has to be mentioned.

Firstly I will admit that the combat is still pretty fun, but when the levels lack visual variety and you're walking through the four hundredth grey and brown hallway or factory, the gameplay quickly becomes tiresome. Plus as iconic as bullet time dodge is, at least in this game, it is a lot more situational and way less useful than I expected since it often barely lasts long enough for a kill. Another big annoyance is checkpoints which as to be expected for a PS2 game are pretty awful, but when they're coupled with often unnecessarily long slow mo unskippable cutscenes, it starts to get really grating on the overall experience.

But by far the worst thing about the game is the absolutely ridiculous amount of platforming. While that in of itself isnt really an issue, Max is allergic to walking in a straight line and all of the things you need to walk on are like an inch wide, making falling off to your death something that you'll just have to get used to. This is especially notable in Max's two nightmare sequences where you're supposed to jump and follow a red blood trail in pitch dark. Whoever designed those segments belongs in the gulag. So those are my big problems with the game, and they drag it down a lot, turning it in from a game I enjoyed greatly in the first half to a game I never plan to revisit.

But since we've spent the whole time being negative I do wanna list the positives. For one, the writing is really good. Max has some stellar dialogue and the comic book presentation is a nice touch. Enemies also can be heard having some really funny conversations. The story itself was something I checked out of by the end but it wasnt bad either. The few times the soundtrack is used are also great, and like I said it does get old and the bullet time is a little weak but the combat is still really solid.

I also wanna note the character models, theres a scene at the beginning of the game where Max Payne comes home to find his family dead and it shows his face on the screen and it is genuinely the funniest character design i've ever seen in my entire life and it made me laugh out loud despite how horrific the scene was. Anyways despite how frustrated it made me, I think Max Payne was good for its time even with all the flaws and theres no denying it was very impactful to games as a whole. I do quite look forward to playing the sequels.

Nancymeter - 69/100