Max Payne (video game)

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).

Max Payne
Developer(s)	Remedy Entertainment (PC) Rockstar Toronto (PS2) neo Software (Xbox) Westlake Interactive (Mac OS) Mobius Entertainment (GBA) Rockstar Games (iOS & Android)
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 2, Xbox & Game Boy Advance Rockstar Games Mac OS MacSoft iOS & Android Rockstar Games
Director(s)	Petri Järvilehto
Producer(s)	George Broussard Scott Miller
Artist(s)	Sami Vanhatalo
Writer(s)	Sami Järvi
Composer(s)	Kärtsy Hatakka Kimmo Kajasto
Series	Max Payne
Engine	MAX-FX 1.0
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Mac OS, Game Boy Advance, iOS, Android
Release	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 2 NA: December 6, 2001 EU: January 11, 2002 JP: May 22, 2003 NA: May 1, 2012 (PSN) EU: May 2, 2012 (PSN) Xbox Mac OS July 16, 2002 Game Boy Advance iOS April 12, 2012 Android June 14, 2012
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player

Max Payne is a third-person shooter video game developed by Finnish developers Remedy Entertainment and published by Gathering in North America and 3D Realms in Europe 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. 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, Android and on iOS.

The game centers around the NYPD Detective Max Payne, who witnesses his family murdered, and attempts to avenge them, while uncovering a government conspiracy. 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 the first game 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. Critically acclaimed, 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) § Characters

In December 2001, as New York City finishes experiencing the worst snow blizzard in the history of the city, Max Payne, a renegade DEA agent and former NYPD officer, is standing at the top of a skyscraper building with a sniper rifle, 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.

3 years earlier, on August 22. 1998, Max Payne is a regular NYPD detective just finishing his work. His longtime friend, DEA agent, Alex Balder, invites him to abandon his post as a NYPD and join him and transfer in the DEA, but Max declines the offer, wanting to focus his full-time on his wife, Michelle, and their newborn daughter, Rose. As he returns to his house in New Jersey, he finds a trio of junkies has broken to his house, addicted on a brand new designer drug, Valkyr. Max rushes to aid his family and kills the junkies, but is too late, and he finds his wife shot, 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 spreading of the drugs.

In present day, Max Payne is employed as an undercover operative inside the Punchinello Mafia family, under the ruthless Don Angelo Punchinello, responsible for the trafficking of Valkyr. His DEA colleague and one of two contacts besides Alex, B.B. Hensley, gives Max a message asking him to meet Alex on the NYC Rosco Subway station. Max's arrival at the subway results in a shoot-out after he encounters 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 he uncovers gold bars, and also the corporate bonds regarding the Aesir Corporation, a mysterious conglomerate corporation and New York's wealthiest company.

As he searches the vault for answers, he hears the voice of Deputy Chief Jim Bravura, who wants the criminals to surrender. He has no choice and has to return through the Rosco station to escape. Working his way back to the station, Max encounters 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. Payne becomes the prime suspect in the murder because he is still undercover (his NYPD records are remodeled to be shown as a high operative assassin) and the fact that he fled the crime scene, while the Mafia find out that he is a cop and now want him dead, and now is chased by both the Punchinello and also Bravura, who is aware of his role as a cop and wants him captured.

While searching for Lupino in "businesses" owned by him, Max busts a Valkyr drug deal and discovers that the Russian mobster, named Vladimir Lem, is engaged in a fierce turf war against Punchinello's men, blowing up Lupino's apartment and leaving the scene. Left with no choices, he goes to a Lupino-owned motel, where he meets with the Finito Brothers, subordinate made men who run the motel as a front for smuggling and who work for Vinnie Gognitti, a high-ranked Capo and Jack Lupino's right-hand man, where they acknowledge him that they have been informed that he is a cop, and as such, he is forced to kill them after he is attacked.

After gaining a lead in one of Lupino's bars, he travels there and finds that it is a pimp club, finding the diary of Candy Dawn, sending video tapes of her having sex with a mysterious "one-eyed Alfred" to an anonymous buyer, intended for blackmail. In there, he also finds Rico Muerte, a former ruthless professional hitman from Chicago, who is now a pimp and works for Punchinello, and also Candy, performing fellatio on Muerte. As they draw guns on him, he kills them. In the bar, he also finds the location of Gognitti, and leaves to find him.

Finding Gognitti in his own apartment, he chases Gognitti through the city and the subway, and Max learns about the location of Lupino's hideout, a nightclub named Ragna Rok. He spares Gognitti's life after realizing that he is just a coward afraid of Lupino. He arrives at Ragna Rok, where he finds out that Lupino has gone insane from the drugs and now has become an 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 his men, he kills him. After Lupino's death, he encounters Mona Sax, a mysterious female contract killer and twin sister of Lisa Punchinello, the Don's wife, who pours him a drink which turns out to be 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.

Being drugged, Max has a dream about the day when his family was killed. He wakes up and realizes that he has been kidnapped by the mob, who stormed Lupino's club and took Muerte's body, and he is tortured by Frank "The Bat" Niagara, one of the Don's Soldatos and his personal hitman. He also finds out that Mona Sax has been captured after a failed attempt on the Don's life and is being tortured by the Trio, Don's elite assassins. He manages to escape from the Mafia-owned slaughterhouse and just after that, finds himself back in the bar where he had earlier killed Rico Muerte. He then finds Frank inside, who is having a drink. After a brutal fight, Max kills Frank and the rest of his men.

As Max leaves the bar, he is cornered by Vladimir Lem, who tells him that they are both after the Don, and they enter a brief alliance. He agrees to kill one of Vladimir's former subordinates, Boris Dime, who is now working with Punchinello, and his men, aboard Lem's cargo ship Charon at the Brooklyn riverfront, which contains a shipment of high-powered firearms belonging to the Russian mob. Infiltrating the docks, Max finds one of the containers containing a sniper rifle, a suitcase full of cash, and a letter for Muerte, with the only word being "Mayor", realizing that he was going to assassinate the NY mayor. After killing Dime and seizing the weapons for himself, he informs Punchinello about Dime's death and the seizure of the guns, and arranges a meeting in Don's restaurant, but hides when the place is bombed, and kills the rest of Punchinello's men.

Max also uses the new-found Russian mob's weapons to storm the residence of Punchinello. After fighting the Trio and killing them, he enters Don's residence. There, he finds the body of Lisa Punchinello, Mona's sister, and discovers that the Don is only a puppet in the Valkyr market when the mafioso is killed in front of Payne by agents of Nicole Horne, the CEO of the Aesir Corporation. Horne then injects Max with an overdose of Valkyr and leaves him for dead, as he experiences a drug-induced nightmare and suffers his internal torment and guilt for not being able to save his family (as well as strange letters allegedly written by his deceased wife telling him that he is a character in a video game).

After surviving the drugging, Max pursues his only lead to a steel foundry located over a hidden underground military research complex. Inside, he discovers that Valkyr is the result of the Valhalla Project, an early 1990s U.S. military attempt to improve soldiers' stamina and morale, and that is the upgraded drug version from a drug named The Ladder created during the Vietnam War; the project was sharply halted due to poor results and the test subjects were unstable, but Horne, who was the leading expert of the Valhalla Project, was against it. She became the CEO of Aesir Corporation but used it as a front for producing the Valkyr. He also discovers that his wife accidentally found out about the project as the information was released to her, and Horne let loose the crazed Valkyr test subjects into his house to kill her. Aesir initiates "Operation Dead Eyes" to get rid of evidence and witnesses, including their own scientists. Max escapes the bunker at the last moment just as it self-destructs.

Soon enough, Max then gets a call from B.B., who is concerned about Max's role in Alex's death and wants to clear his name, and arranges a meeting at a parking lot where Max confronts him. B.B. admits he took a bribe from Nicole Horne to get rid of Alex and Max in order to ensure Aesir corporation and the activity of the company cannot be tracked. A running gunfight then commences as Max chases him through the garage. After killing the traitor, Max gets a phone call from a man named Alfred Woden, asking him to come to the Asgard Building.

Arriving, Alfred reveals himself to be part of a powerful secret society called the Inner Circle, which has strong ties to the U.S. government. The Inner Circle members inform Max about Nicole Horne's identity but cannot pursue her themselves because "their hands are tied", and Max realizes that Wooden was frequenting Lupino's pimp club, and that Candy was videotaping him and sending the "one-eyed Alfred" tapes to Horne to blackmail Woden into silence in exchange for the money, and that Muerte was hired by Horne to assassinate the NY mayor to allow Horne full control over New York City. They ask Max to kill Horne in exchange for dropping any criminal charges against him. Suddenly, Asgard is overrun by Aesir gunmen who kill everyone in the meeting room except for Max, who escapes, and Woden, who pretends to be shot to deceive the assailants.

Max arrives at the main office of Aesir Corporation and makes his way through this high-tech security building while avoiding strafing runs by a minigun-armed helicopter. Along the way he runs into Mona again, and she reveals that she has been hired by Horne to assassinate both Punchinello and Max, but she is shot in the head, and her body mysteriously vanishes from the elevator afterwards. At the top, Max finally confronts Nicole, who escapes to the roof and boards the helicopter. Max shoots the guy wires of the building's antenna, which snaps off and crashes into the helicopter, killing Horne.

In here, the flashback is over, as Payne's three-night rampage is over. The NYPD ESU arrives at the scene, arresting Max and leading him out of the Aesir building, where he sees Alfred Woden standing on the street. Knowing that Woden will ensure his safe passage through the judicial system, Max smiles genuinely, satisfied with avenging his family. Woden himself smiles, satisfied that Nicole Horne has been stopped as the snow storm in the story ceases.

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

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 universal acclaim, especially the PC version. 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 Game Character and Best Game Cinematography by Eurogamer; 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.

See also

• Alan Wake
• Conspiracy fiction
• Gulf War syndrome

External links

• Official website
• Max Payne archives at 3D Realms
• Max Payne at MobyGames
• Template:Tvtropes
• Max Payne at IMDb