Max Payne

This article is about the video game. For the character, see Max Payne (character). For the series, see Max Payne (series). For a film version, see Max Payne (film). For the British racing driver, see Max Payne (racing driver).

Max Payne
File:Maxpaynebox.jpg
Developer(s)	Remedy Entertainment Additional work by: Rockstar Canada (PS2) neo Software (Xbox) Feral Interactive (Mac OS) Mobius Entertainment (GBA) War Drum Studios (iOS & Android)
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Windows Gathering of Developers PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, iOS & Android Rockstar Games Mac OS
Distributor(s)	3D Realms Take-Two Interactive
Producer(s)	George Broussard Scott Miller
Designer(s)	Petri Järvilehto
Artist(s)	Sami Vanhatalo
Writer(s)	Sami Järvi
Composer(s)	Kärtsy Hatakka Kimmo Kajasto
Series	Max Payne
Platforms	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Mac OS, Game Boy Advance, iOS, Android
Release date(s)	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 2 Xbox Mac OS 16 July 2002 Game Boy Advance iOS 12 April 2012 Android 14 June 2012
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player

Max Payne is a third-person shooter action thriller video game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Gathering of Developers on July 25, 2001 for Microsoft Windows. Ports created later in the year for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and the Game Boy Advance were published by Rockstar Games. A Mac OS port was published on July 16, 2002 by MacSoft in North America and Feral Interactive in the rest of the world. There were plans for a Dreamcast version of Max Payne, but they were canceled due to the discontinuation of the console. The game was re-released on April 27, 2009 as a downloadable game in the Xbox Originals program for the Xbox 360. The game was also re-released in the spring of 2012 as a downloadable game in the PlayStation Store for the PlayStation 3 under the PS2 classics banner, iOS and on Android.

The game centers on the NYPD Detective Max Payne, who attempts to avenge the murder of his family. It features a gritty neo-noir style and uses graphic novel panels (with voice-overs) in place of animated cutscenes to narrate the game, as it draws inspiration from hard-boiled detective novels by authors like Mickey Spillane. The game contains many allusions to Norse mythology, particularly the myth of Ragnarök, and several of the names used in the game are those of the Norse gods and mythos. The gameplay is heavily influenced by the Hong Kong action cinema genre, particularly the work of director John Woo, and it was one of the first games to feature the bullet time effect popularized by The Matrix.

Max Payne received very positive reviews and was praised for its exciting gunplay and use of noir storytelling devices. The game won a large number of accolades, including the BAFTA Award. As of 2011, the Max Payne game franchise has sold over 7.5 million copies. It also inspired a feature film under the same title.

Gameplay

Max Payne is a third-person shooter in which the player assumes the role of its titular character, Max Payne. Almost all the gameplay involves bullet time-based gun-fights and levels are generally straightforward, occasionally incorporating platforming and puzzle-solving elements. The game's storyline is advanced by the player following Max's internal monologue as the character determines what his next steps should be. Several of the game's levels involve surrealistic nightmares and drug-related hallucinations of Payne.

Initially, the player's only weapon is a semi-automatic pistol. As the player progresses, access to other firearms is given, including melee and hand-thrown weapons. Some of the game's weapons can be dual wielded. Max regains health by taking painkillers, which the player collects. The game's AI is heavily dependent on pre-scripted commands: most of the apparently intelligent behavior exhibited by enemies (such as taking cover, retreating from the player, or throwing grenades) actually is pre-scripted.

The gameplay of Max Payne revolves around bullet time, a form of slow motion — when triggered, the passage of time is slowed down to such extent that the movements of bullets can be seen by the naked eye and enables Max to perform special moves. Although Payne's movement is also slowed, the player is still able to position the aiming reticle and react in real time, providing an advantage over enemies. Occasionally, when the last character of an enemy group is killed, the viewpoint switches to a third-person view circling a falling body. Likewise, the camera may follow the path of a bullet fired from a sniper rifle.

The "Dead on Arrival" game mode limits the player to only seven saves per chapter, and the "New York Minute" mode forces the player to complete each chapter before the allotted time — replenished by killing enemies — is exhausted. Upon completing the game on "Dead on Arrival", the player unlocks "The Last Challenge" ("End Combat" or "Final Battle" in the different versions), featuring a fight in perpetual bullet time against the "Killer Suit" hitmen.

Plot

See also: Max Payne (series)

File:May payne panels.jpg

Graphic novel panels are used in place of cutscenes as narration, an element common to neo-noir

In December 2001, as New York City is enduring the tail end of the worst blizzard in the history of the city, police sirens wail towards Aesir Plaza. Max Payne, a renegade DEA agent and former NYPD detective, is standing at the top of a skyscraper with a sniper rifle in his hands, smiling, as police units arrive on the scene to arrest him. He then experiences flashbacks from three years ago and the last two days he experienced.

Three years earlier, on August 22, 1998, Max was working as a regular NYPD detective in Hell's Kitchen. His longtime friend and DEA agent Alex Balder, invites him to transfer into the DEA, but Max declines the offer, wanting to focus on his full-time life with his wife Michelle, who works part-time in the District Attorney's office, and their newborn daughter Rose. Max tells Alex he quit smoking for the sake of his daughter. When Max returns to his house in New Jersey, he finds three junkies had broken in, all addicted on a brand new designer drug Valkyr. Max receives a call from a mysterious woman who seems pleased at the trouble in the house and refuses to call for help. Max rushes upstairs to aid his family and manages to kill the junkies, but he is too late and finds his wife and daughter slaughtered. After his family's funeral, Max accepts Alex's offer and transfers to the DEA at his own request, to stop the spread of the drug.

In the present day, three years later, with little to no leads on the production or distribution of the drug, the team finally receives a lead that Jack Lupino, an underboss in the Punchinello crime family, is trafficking the drug. Max goes undercover as an operative inside the Punchinello Mafia crime family, under the ruthless Don Angelo Punchinello. Alex and DEA Administration agent B.B. are the only contacts who are aware of Max's undercover position. Over a phone call, B.B. informs Payne that something urgent has come up with Lupino and asks him to meet Alex at the Roscoe Street subway station. Max arrives at the station only to find mobsters working for Lupino. They are attempting a bank robbery by breaking through from an old, closed and abandoned adjoining station. Once the mobsters are dealt with, Max finds amongst the valuables in the vault, corporate bonds for the Aesir Corporation, a mysterious conglomerate corporation and New York's wealthiest company. The police arrive at the scene with Deputy Chief Jim Bravura making a phone call for the criminals to cease and surrender. Max flees, hopefully before he can be placed at the scene of the bank robbery. Returning to the station he encounters Alex, who begins to reveal information about Lupino. Before Alex can inform Max of anything, he is killed by an unknown assassin.

Max believes his undercover operation is blown, assuming that Jack Lupino ordered the hit on Alex and tried to pin the murder along with the robbery on Max. Playing it Bogart, Max proceeds to a hotel owned by Lupino where he meets with the Finito Brothers, subordinates of Vinnie Gognitti, a high-ranked Capo and Lupino's right-hand man. The brothers confirm that they have been informed that Max is a cop, and proceed to attack Max. Max kills the brothers and finds evidence for the Valkyr drug deal within the hotel. From this evidence, Payne discovers that Rico Muerte, a ruthless professional hitman from Chicago, is overseeing the deal. Payne is forced to fight his way out of the sleazy hotel, which is secretly a brothel. He finds the diary of a prostitute named Candy Dawn, which details how she is secretly sending video tapes of her having sex with a man she calls "one-eyed Alfred," to an anonymous female buyer intended for blackmail. On television, Max learns that Alex's body has been found by the police and he himself is pinned as the prime suspect. In the hotel bar, Max finds Muerte, along with Candy who was just performing fellatio on the hitman. They both attempt to kill Max with several henchmen, but are killed instead. Upon leaving, the upper floors of the nearest slum block of tenements are ignited in flames as a bomb destroys parts of the building. Max sees a black Mercedes-Benz and recognizes the passenger as Vladimir Lem, head of the local Russian Mafia and a bitter rival to Punchinello's business. He realizes that there is a mob war raging between Lem and Punchinello.

Max continues his search for Lupino within Lupino's block of tenements. Upon arriving, another bomb explodes within the building that houses Lupino's suite at its top floor. Max receives a phone call within the entrance hall from a mysterious man who introduces himself as Alfred Woden. Woden informs him that the police are aware of Max's location and that he needs to quickly flee. Shortly thereafter, and after Max survives more thugs and smaller explosions, the police arrive with Bravura now calling for Max to surrender himself. Max continues his rampage against the mob within the local buildings where he finds Gognitti cowering in his own apartment. Payne shoots Gognitti, injuring him, and Gognitti retaliates by setting his personal henchmen onto Max. After killing them, Payne reads a note and learns that Lupino has become an unstable psycho, killing his men for fun and scaring off business. Max continues to chase Gognitti on the subway and through the city, before eventually catching up to him in a dead-end alley. Max scares Gognitti into revealing the location of Lupino, discovering that he is in the nightclub Ragna Rock (from Ragnarök --the end of the Viking world in a great winter). Gognitti pleads for Max to spare him and Max, believing that Gognitti's injuries are fatal and out of ammunition, obliges.

Ragna Rock is Lupino's private nightclub, a den of drugs built into an old theater. Max discovers that Lupino has indeed gone insane, possibly from high doses of Valkyr, and now believes he is the Antichrist who calls forth demons and the devils from different mythologies to worship him as Fenris Wolf and as a "Messenger of Hell", and has been sacrificing his victims to create a "message" to the Devil. Don Punchinello has threatened to have the Trio (the Don's elite assassins) deal with Lupino if he does not shape up. After gunning down Lupino and his men, he encounters Mona Sax, a mysterious female contract killer and twin sister of Lisa Punchinello, the Don's wife. Mona informs Max how it is obvious that in his state, Lupino could not have been the one to frame Max with the murder of Alex. She reveals that she was on a personal contract to kill Punchinello, a sadistic wife-beater. Mona suggests they work together to take down Don Punchinello. Max agrees and Mona pours him them a drink. Max jokes about getting slipped a mickey, only to find out that he had been slipped one and falls to the ground, knocked out. Just before he passes out, he hears Mona telling him that it is nothing personal, just that she cannot risk her sister Lisa getting killed, if Max goes berserk.

With the drugs keeping Max unconscious, he dreams a horrible nightmare. He relives the day when his family was killed, with his house warped and twisted into a frightful maze. Max wakes, finding himself tied to a chair with a man looming over him. He is being tortured by Frankie "The Bat" Niagara, a soldato of the Punchinello crime family. After a severe beating, Niagara leaves to get a drink and to allow Max time to reconsider his attitude. Max manages to free himself from the chair and learns that he is being held in the basement of Lupino's hotel. Max discovers that Mona had been captured after a failed assassination attempt on Punchinello. She is being tortured by the Trio at the Don's mansion. Meanwhile, the police believe that Max is dead, killed in the attack at Ragna Rock nightclub. Max returns to the hotel bar where he killed Muerte and finds Niagara. Payne proceeds to kill him and the remainder of his men, joking about how the hotel bar was gaining a history.

Leaving the hotel in a car, Max is tailed by a black Mercedes-Benz. Upon stopping he is greeted by Vladimir, who gives him an offer that he cannot refuse. One of Vladimir's former subordinates, Boris Dime, has turncoated to the Punchinello family, and he and his men are aboard the cargo ship Charon at the Brooklyn riverfront. The cargo ship is loaded with heavy duty hardware and guns. If Max can secure the ship, Vladimir promises to supply him with enough guns to start an apocalypse. Max agrees and begins to fight his way through the port. During the skirmish, Max stumbles upon a cargo container. Inside he finds a sniper rifle, a suitcase full of cash, and an envelope intended for Muerte, with a folded piece of expensive paper inside, with only the word "Mayor" neatly printed on the note. Payne does not suspect the Mafia of being involved here, the note being too cold and to the point. Max arrives at the ship to find that its cargo is being offloaded. He fights his way on board, where he briefly speaks with Punchinello over the phone, informing him of his intentions to kill Dime. Once Dime is dead, Max loads up with as many weapons he can carry. At a payphone, Max calls Punchinello, offering to arrange a deal for the ship and the guns, and the Don suggests they meet at his restaurant (Casa di Angelo).

Max makes his way into Punchinello's restaurant only to be greeted by a trap - the building has been rigged to explode. Max makes his way through the building and manages to escape through the sewer. With Punchinello's failed attempt to kill Max, Vladimir offers to take him to the Punchinello manor. Max knows the mansion would be guarded by Punchinello's elite assassins, the Trio: Pilate Providence (AKA "Big Brother"), Joe "Deadpan" Salem, and Vince Mugnaio. Max manages to sneak in through the back where he finds evidence of Mona's escape. He kills both Providence and Salem. While inside he finds the beaten dead body of Lisa Punchinello in her bed, although she is so beat up, that he could not tell if she might have been her sister Mona. Within the bedroom, Max answers a phone; Alfred informs Payne that an armed helicopter has landed in the manor grounds and that he must hurry. Max then kills Mugnaio and heads for Punchinello. The Don confesses that he has been taking orders from a woman, supposedly in a higher-up government position. At that moment, Punchinello is killed in front of Max by elite agents, led by the woman that the Don was talking about. A large group of agents surround Max and the mysterious woman is pleased to have caught him. She injects him with a large dose of Valkyr, leaving him for dead. As they leave, Max overhears her say "take me to Cold Steel."

File:MaxPayne ProjectValhalla.jpg

Insignia for the Valhalla Project, featured on a computer screen

Max is sent once again into another drug-induced nightmare, in which he suffers another brutal torment of internal guilt and shame. Within the dream, Max receives strange letters and phone calls, both allegedly from his deceased wife telling him that he is a character in a video game. She also mentions receiving a strange memo about vikings and the military, believing it to be some mistake with the courier. The overdose of Valkyr does not kill Max - instead, he feels stronger from it. Max pursues his only lead to the Cold Steel Foundry, located outside the city, it appears to be the perfect place for any number of illegal activities. The area is swarming with armed guards even as the record-breaking snow storm continues to wreak havoc over the city. As Max makes his way deeper into the facility, he overhears that deep six has been compromised and "Operation Dead Eyes" has been initiated. It could only mean that they are preparing to destroy any evidence in the facility. Max pushes through and finds an elevator marked D-6 (deep six), which leads him underground. At the bottom, Max discovers an old army bunker, and recognizes the military plaque on the floor. He had seen a thousand variations of the insignia on crumbling brick walls everywhere in the city, the sword replaced by a syringe. The plaque reads Project Valhalla, US Army, MCMXCI (1991). The base beings to count down to a self-destruct, but Max continues to push forward. Deeper inside, he discovers that Valkyr is the military's attempt to improve soldiers stamina and morale. The project created an upgraded version of a drug named The Ladder created during the Vietnam War: however, the project was sharply halted in 1995, due to unsatisfactory results along with the test subjects becoming mentally unstable. Max discovers that a data leak had compromised the project. In response, someone with high security clearance had authorized a field test with the remaining test-subjects; they were given double the dosage of Valkyr and set loose in an urban setting to be observed. The drop-off point was Max's old address in New Jersey.

Max narrowly escapes the bunker at the last moment as it self-destructs. With all his leads now dead, turned to smoke and dust, Payne is left feeling overwhelmingly tired. Soon enough, B.B. calls and leaves a message for Max. He is concerned about Max's role in Alex's death and wants to help clear his name, B.B. suggests they meet at the Choir Communications Parking Garage. The more Max thought about Alex's death, the more he felt it was an inside job and realizes that B.B., with his extravagant lifestyle and expensive clothing that was beyond a cops pay, was a double agent. At the meeting, Max accuses B.B. of taking bribes and selling out his partner, he even suggests that B.B. himself took care of Alex. B.B. attempts to escape leaving his associates to kill Max. Max chases B.B. through the garage, eventually killing him. Once B.B. is dead, Max receives yet another call from Alfred, informing Max he has the name of his enemy. Alfred explains he wants Max to come to the Asgard Building presently.

Arriving, Max meets Woden, who takes him on a tour of the building, stating how it is two years older than city hall. Woden then introduces Payne to a group of his colleagues known as the Inner Circle. They have more information on the Valhalla Project, as they were all involved in the early stages of the project during the Gulf War. The Inner Circle wish to help Max blow the conspiracy wide open - they would have done it themselves but "their hands are tied." Woden then reveals the identity of the mysterious woman, Nicole Horne, the key figure in Project Valhalla. When the funding was discontinued, she simply refused to quit, as she knew exactly what she had in her hands. Horne is the president of the Aesir Corporation with more than half the city in her pocket. Max is told to keep things under wraps until Horne is dead, and he is asked to take her out. Afterwards, they will provide him with protection, ensuring that any consequent charges will "go away." Suddenly, the building is overrun by suited gunmen who proceed to kill the members of the Inner Circle. With the guards taking control of the building, Max is forced to fight his way out. On a monitor he sees Woden rise from the dead, encouraging Payne to carry out the deal. Reports on the radio suggest that Max, acting as a vigilante, is providing a long overdue service to the city. Bravura, on the other hand, claims that Max has gone too far in his crusade and must be stopped. Within the Asgard building, Max finds blackmail on "One-Eyed Alfred," a video tape of Woden and Candy in Lupino's hotel. The tape came with a curt extortion note on a piece of expensive paper. Max takes the tape as collateral for when the time comes, should Woden choose to renege. Furthermore, Max discovers structural plans for the Aesir Corporation Skyscraper, which outline critical areas, such as the president's office at the top floor and its sole access point - a secured elevator. Leaving the Asgard building, Max makes his way to the Skyscraper.

Max arrives at the main office of Aesir Corporation with revenge on his mind. He makes his way through the high-tech security building filled with elite armed guards. Arriving at the elevator, he encounters Mona. Horne can be heard ordering her to kill Payne. Mona calls Max a good guy and states that she does not kill good guys. Mona tells Max that she had been ordered by Horne to assassinate Punchinello, severing her ties with the Mafia. Suddenly they are attacked, and Mona shoves Max out of the way, saving him but being hit by a bullet in the head as a result. Once the gunmen are dealt with, Max returns to find that Mona's body has mysteriously vanished. He rides the elevator to the top, but is forced back down where he is attacked by an attack helicopter. Max escapes and manages to unlock access to Horne's office, finally making his way inside, where Horne is attempting to escape. Horne wonders why a man would go to all this trouble for his wife, who Horne claims stuck her nose into things that were none of her business. She is confident that her remaining men will kill Max, and heads to the roof. The attack helicopter returns and attempts to kill Max, firing round after round through the office building windows. Continuing his push, Max makes it to the roof and helipad. Horne boards the helicopter, seemingly securing her escape. At the top of the building, however, is a large broadcast antenna held in place with guy wires. Payne shoots the wires and the antenna snaps off, smashing into the helicopter and sending it crashing down to into the lobby, killing Horne.

At this point Max's three-night rampage is over and the flashback is complete. Bravura and the NYPD ESU arrive at the scene, arresting Max and leading him out of the Aesir building. Woden is standing on the street; with the knowledge that Woden will ensure his safe passage through the judicial system, Max smiles, genuinely satisfied with avenging his family. Woden himself smiles, satisfied that Horne has been stopped. The snow storm is over and the sky opens up to bright stars shining in the night.

Themes

Most of the elements in the game are named for figures from Norse mythology. In Max Payne, the Valkyr drug is a military performance enhancer that turns its users into adrenaline-charged killers who experience hallucinatory images of death. The valkyries of Norse mythology were warrior-women who watched over battlefields, the "choosers of the slain" who took those who died with valor. In the game, Project Valhalla is the government conspiracy that developed Valkyr to enhance the combat effectiveness of U.S. soldiers and secretly tested it during the Gulf War of 1991. In Norse mythology, Valhalla was the afterlife of those selected by the valkyries: those who populated Valhalla would fight for the Norse gods in their wars. The computer network in the Valhalla base is named Yggdrasil, referring to the tree that connected the nine worlds in Norse cosmology.

The Aesir Corporation, mentioned frequently in the game and the primary source of the Valkyr drug, is named for the primary pantheon of Norse gods, the Æsir. The head of the Aesir Corporation is named Nicole Horne; in the myths, the Gjallarhorn was sounded to announce the start of Ragnarök, the Norse apocalypse, a battle between the Æsir and the giants that results in the death of many deities and the rebirth of the world (Jack Lupino's gothic nightclub named Ragna Rock is a play on the word "Ragnarök"). The great snowstorm that takes place during the events of the game is a reference to the Fimbulvetr, an epic winter that precedes Ragnarök.

Alfred Woden's surname refers to Wōden, the Anglo-Saxon version of Odin, a major god of the Norse pantheon (his eyepatch also references Odin, who sacrificed his eye for wisdom and knowledge). Max meets him and the Inner Circle in the Asgard Building: Asgard is the Norse realm in which the gods live. In the game, DEA agent Alex Balder was shot by his partner B.B. In Norse mythology, Balder was killed when a sprig or arrow of mistletoe was shot or thrown into his chest, and his death was set up by Loki, god of chaos and deception, just as B.B. deceived Alex and Max. Max's own bullet time abilities seem to mirror these of the berserkers, Norse Viking warriors who drove themselves into such a frenzy when they entered battle that they seemed superhuman-strong, fast, untiring, and unable to feel pain (theme of Payne's necklace is a Viking longship).

Development

Remedy Entertainment developed an idea of a "3rd person action game" in late 1996, after completing Death Rally (their first game), inspired first by Loaded and then by the success of Tomb Raider (although determined to avoid its "horrid camera system"). According to the game's story and script writer Sam Lake, for him "the starting point was this archetype of the private eye, the hard-boiled cop" that would be used in a game with a "deeper, more psychological" story. A game prototype and design document of the project, with the working titles Dark Justice and Max Heat (a wordplay on this is a TV show called Dick Justice and a porn film Max Heat, both featured in Max Payne 2), were soon created and shown to 3D Realms, who signed a development deal and production began. In 1999 the designers traveled from Finland to New York to research the city, accompanied by two ex-NYPD bodyguards, to get ideas for environments and take thousands of photographs for mapping.

Clothes for the character Max Payne on display at Game On exhibition in Science Museum (London)

For cutscenes, the developers found comic panels (with voice-overs) to be more effective and less costly to use in the than fully animated cinematics, noting that comic panels forced the player to interpret each panel for themselves and "the nuances are there in the head of the reader [...] it would be much harder to reach that level with in-game or even pre-rendered cinematics," and also found it easier to reorganize the comic panels if the plot needed to be changed while developing the game. The in-game engine is used for some cutscenes involving action sequences. The music for the game was composed by Kärtsy Hatakka.

Remedy used their own game engine, which they dubbed MaxFX (or MAX-FX, in development since early 1997). The only games that used this engine were Max Payne and its sequel, while a MaxFX level editor was also included in the release. MAX-FX was licensed to Futuremark who used it for their 3DMark benchmark series with the last one being 3DMark2001 Second Edition.

The first trailer showcasing an early version of the game's story and gameplay was shown at 1998 E3, gaining great interest due to its innovative content and effects (especially the MaxFX's 3D particle-based system for smoke and muzzle flashes), although 3D Realms producers later claimed they deliberately avoided overhyping the game. Max Payne was originally scheduled to be released in the summer of 1999; however, it was repeatedly delayed and got heavily revamped in 2000 (in particular the game's graphics were improved to feature much more realistic textures and lighting, while the multiplayer mode was dropped). The game was eventually released for Windows on July 23, 2001.

Max Payne was actually in development before the release of the The Matrix (1999), and slow-motion was a major gameplay element from the beginning. Nonetheless, the game has been perceived to have been greatly influenced by film as it adopted the bullet time effect for that gameplay mechanic. As a result of the inevitable comparisons to The Matrix, the designers have included several homages to the film in order to capitalize on the hype (for instance, the detonation of the subway tunnel door to gain access to the bank vault is similar to the cartwheeling elevator door in the movie, while the introduction "Nothing to Lose" level is similar to the lobby shootout scene in the film). Futuremark, which licensed the MAX-FX graphics for their 3DMark benchmark series, included a Matrix-like lobby shootout as a game test in the 2001 edition.

Game Boy Advance version

The GBA version of the game was developed in 2003 by Mobius Entertainment Ltd (later Rockstar Leeds). Since it was developed on a far less powerful platform, this version differs greatly from the PC versions and its Xbox and PlayStation 2 ports: instead of a 3D shooter, the game is based on sprite graphics and is shown from an isometric perspective. However, the gameplay features have remained very similar to the original, aside of the perspective change, including the use of polygonal graphics for the characters. The story also remained the same as in PC and console versions, though some levels from the original are omitted, and the game still features quite a large part of the original's graphic novel sections, complete with some of the voice-overs.

Max Payne Mobile

On April 6, 2012, Max Payne was announced for Android and iOS titled as Max Payne Mobile which is a port of the PC version of the original Max Payne. The game was released for iOS on April 13, 2012, while the Android version was delayed until June 14, 2012. No major changes were made to the game apart from the HD overhaul. A new version 1.3 was released in March 18, 2013 that fixes a bug that prevents users to access their cloud saves.

Reception and awards

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings (PC) 89.26% (Xbox) 85.95% (PS2) 79.81% (GBA) 79.68% Metacritic (PC) 89/100 (Xbox) 89/100 (PS2) 80/100 (GBA) 78/100 Review scores Publication Score GamePro GameSpot 9.2/10 GameZone 9.2/10 IGN 9.5/10
Awards Publication Award BAFTA Best PC Game of 2001 IGN Readers Choice Action Game of the Year, 2001 Readers' Choice Best Story, Best Graphics, Best Sound GameSpot Best of E3 2000, The Top Games of E3 2001, Readers' Choice Game of 2001, Readers' Choice Single-Player Action Game of 2001, two 2001 Game of the Year nominations

Max Payne was released to critical acclaim. The game won many annual awards for the year 2001, including Best PC Game by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts; Golden Joystick Award by Dennis Publishing; Visitors Award Best PC Game at the European Computer Trade Show; Best Game of 2001, Best Graphics in a PC Game, and Best PC Action Game by The Electric Playground; Readers Choice Best Game and Best PC Game by Pelit; Computer Game of the Year by The Augusta Chronicle; Best PC Game of 2001 by Amazon.com; PC Game of the Year by Shacknews and by GameZone; The Best of 2001 - PC and Editor's Choice by Game Revolution; Reader's Choice Game, Best Single Player Action Game, and Best Xbox Game by GameSpot; Readers' Choice Game of the Year, Best Storyline, Best Graphics and Best of Use of Sound, and Best Adventure Game (Xbox) and Editor's Choice by IGN; Gamers Choice Award (Xbox) by Games Domain; Best Gimmick by GameSpy (runner-up in the Best Ingame Cinematics and Best Movie Trailer categories); and Editor's Choice and Best Innovation Destined for Overuse by Computer Gaming World. The staff of IGN wrote: "This game garnered so many votes from the readers that we almost decided to create a new Best Max Payne Game of 2001 category." The site also called it the 96th best PlayStation 2 game. They claimed that gamers thought of Max Payne instead of The Matrix when they thought of bullet time.

Common criticism usually centered on Max Payne's lack of replay value, as there is no multiplayer, and the linear story mode due to the level design and pre-scripted enemy behavior that provides 10–15 hours of gameplay. While the graphics were generally praised for high-resolution textures, the character models lacked animated facial expressions (IGN criticized the titular character's "grimace on his face that makes him look constipated").

The PlayStation 2 version suffered from reduced detail and occasional slowdowns, as the game stressed the limits of the console's power. In addition, the levels were broken up into smaller parts so it would not tax the PlayStation 2's 32 MB of RAM, which according to IGN caused "heavy disruption to the flow and tension of the story". Otherwise it was a faithful port that retained all of the content from the PC original. GameSpot awarded it an 8.0/10.0, compared to the 9.2 ratings awarded to the PC and Xbox versions), saying "If you can't play this intense, original action game on any platform except the PS2, then that's where you should play it--but only by default".

An early version of Max Payne was also a runner-up for the Best of Show award at the E3 in 1998. The finished game received several Game of the Month-type awards in various video game outlets (and a Seal of Excellence at Adrenaline Vault), and was included in the 2005 list of 50 best games of all time, as well as in the 2011 list of 100 top PC games of all time. In 2007, bit-tech included the game and its sequel on the list of the top five most moddable games. It received two awards from Eurogamer, Best Game Cinematography Award and Best Game Character Award of 2001.

Max Payne Mobile received mixed to positive reviews. Some praised the HD graphics overhaul, although pointed out the game's age and the issues with the touchscreen controls.

Sequel and film

Main article: Max Payne (series)

A sequel, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, was released in 2003. The third game, Max Payne 3 developed by Rockstar Games, was released in 2012. Max Payne, a film loosely based on the video game, was released in 2008, starring Mark Wahlberg as Max and Mila Kunis as Mona.

External links

• Official website
• Max Payne archives at 3D Realms
• Max Payne at MobyGames
• Max Payne at TV Tropes
• Max Payne at IMDb