Contents Gameplay
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Max Payne is a third-person shooter video game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Gathering of Developers on July 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.[2] There were plans for a Dreamcast version of Max Payne, but they were canceled due to the discontinuation of the console.[5] The game was re-released on April 27, 2009 as a downloadable game in the Xbox Originals program for the Xbox 360.[6] 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,[7][8][9] and it was one 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,[10] including the BAFTA Award.[11] As of 2011, the Max Payne game franchise has sold over 7.5 million copies.[12] It also inspired a feature film under the same title. Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Plot o 2.1 Themes 3 Development o 3.1 Game Boy Advance version o 3.2 Max Payne Mobile 4 Reception and awards 5 Sequel and film 6 See also 7 References 8 External links 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.[13] 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) § Characters 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, 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, having just finished his day's work. 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, and their newborn daughter, Rose. As he returns to his house in New Jersey, he finds that a trio of junkies had broken into his house, 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 to aid his family and kill the junkies, but is too late as he finds his wife shot dead, and his daughter slaughtered. After his family's funeral, Payne accepts Alex's offer, and transfers to the DEA at his own request to stop the spread of the drug. In the present day, Max is now an undercover operative inside the Punchinello Mafia crime family, under the ruthless Don Angelo Punchinello, who is responsible for the trafficking of Valkyr. B.B. Hensley, Max's DEA colleague and one of only two contacts besides Alex who is aware of his position undercover, gives Max a message asking him to meet Alex at the Roscoe Street Subway station. Max arrives at the station only to find mobsters working for Jack Lupino, a Mafia underboss in the Punchinello crime family and Punchinello's subordinate, attempting a bank robbery by breaking through from the station, where, amongst much of the valuables, Max finds corporate bonds for the Aesir Corporation, a mysterious conglomerate corporation and New York's wealthiest company. As he searches the vault for answers, he answers the phone call of Deputy Chief Jim Bravura, who wants the criminals to surrender. Realizing that he is now placed at the scene of a bank robbery and with no choice, Max makes his way back to Roscoe Street Station to escape, encountering Alex, who tells him that there is a mole in the Punchinello family and that he has been exposed. Before Alex can inform Max of anything further, he is killed by an unknown assassin. Realizes that having been placed at the bank robbery, he will becomes the prime suspect in the murder because he is still undercover (and as he had killed everyone else in the bank, there would be no other suspect for the police to question), Max leaves before the police arrive. Left with no choices on what to do, he goes to a Lupino-owned motel, where he meets with the Finito Brothers, subordinates of Vinnie Gognitti, a high-ranked Capo and Jack Lupino's right- hand man, where they confirm that they have been informed that he is a cop, and as such, he is forced to kill them after he is attacked. Making his way out of the motel, which is in secret a pimp club, he finds the diary of a prostitute named Candy Dawn, which details how she is sending video tapes of her having sex with a man she calls "one-eyed Alfred" to an anonymous buyer, intended for blackmail. In the hotel bar, he also finds Rico Muerte, a ruthless professional hitman from Chicago, who is now working for Punchinello, and also Candy Dawn. Both attempt to kill him but are killed instead. In the bar, Max learns where Gognitti is hiding, as he is one of the few people to know where Lupino is hiding, and leaves to find him. Before leaving the hotel, Max receives a phone call from a man called Alfred Woden, informing him that the police know he is there and that he needs to get out quick. While searching for Gognitti in a block of tenements, Max discovers that Vladimir Lem, a Russian mobster, is currently engaged in a fierce turf war against Punchinello's men, blowing up Lupino's apartment and leaving the scene. Finding Gognitti in his own apartment, Max injures Gognitti and is set upon by his henchmen. After killing them, Max chases Gognitti through the city and the subway, before eventually learning about the location of Lupino's hideout, a nightclub named Ragna Rock. Arriving at Ragna Rock, he finds out that Lupino has gone insane from the Valkyr and now believes he is the Antichrist who calls the Devils from different mythologies to worship him as a "messenger of Hell", and has been sacrificing his victims to create a "message" to the Devil. After gunning him and his men down he encounters Mona Sax, a mysterious female contract killer and twin sister of Lisa Punchinello, the Don's wife, who pours him a drink when they agree to work together, only to find out that it was laced with a sedative, which knocks him out, with Mona telling him that although they both want to kill the Don, she cannot let him harm her sister.