Max Payne

By Shabbir | September 23, 2002

One of the reasons I’ve not bought an Xbox (besides having the use of one at work) is because there’s nothing besides Halo that I want to play on it. I’m not into Sports Games, and so all the football, basketball, and baseball games are right out.

One of my colleagues, John Linden, told me about Max Payne. John has pretty refined tastes, (he’s also a huge Busta Rhymes fan) and so when I was in CompUSA on a plastic-induced buying spree recently, I picked up a copy of Max thinking I would get tired of it in a few days and sell it back in a while.

I was so wrong.

The coolest effect is the slow-motion button. In the game, they call it ‘Bullet time’, but you would know it as ‘the Matrix bullet effect’. Your star character, Max, has a limited ability to slow down time. Max still moves slowly, but you can aim in real time. This makes you amazingly dangerous, and allows you the satisfaction of playing out that scene in the Matrix where Neo and Trinity manage to shoot a whole lot people, let off a whole lotta rounds, without getting hit.

The game also has one of the best depictions of being in a drug-induced hallucination that I’ve ever experienced. Halls lengthen and contract, going on seemingly forever, and random, terrifying or scary voices come at you from all sides. I’m kind of glad I didn’t play this in an environment with Surround Sound, it would have been traumatic.

The game’s been out for a while, so you might be able to pick it up used at CD/Game Exchange on the cheap. Or, you can buy it above from Amazon. Incidently, if you do get it and get stuck, you can use the walk through I found.

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