Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (Xbox)

The storyline really sucks. Unnecessarily complicated and yet predictable at the same time. It's totally unengaging, the compelling urge of mysteries to be unraveled from Max Payne 1 is completely gone.

The gameplay is not as bad, but still worse than Max Payne 1. A lot of the time, especially in later levels, you'll be suddenly overrun by enemies and your only resort will be to load a saved game and to anticipate the ambush. This seems to be calculated in, which i find a sign of lazy design. The most blatant of these is a level where a building is on fire and barrels are exploding all the time. Unless you know which barrels are going to explode next, it's a question of luck -or a lot of reloads- whether you'll survive. It doesn't make the game any more difficult, either. Once you know where and when enemies will show up, the game's a doddle.

Level design is ok, except for those pesky ambushes. Some levels are very repetitive and quite unimaginative. I'm getting tired of construction yard and mansion levels...
One that stands out in a really good way is the funhouse level. It has some nice graphics and is basically a lot of fun to play.

Some levels are played in tandem by Max and Mona, with the player switching between the two characters. This could've been a nice touch, but it's actually just a gimmick. You can't switch between characters yourself, and there's no difference between their abilities. The duo levels are few and far apart, so there's no consistency.

The final 'showdown' is a real disappointment. Very anti-climatic, you only know that this is the final level when it's almost over.

The verdict: I wouldn't buy it at it's full price, but wait until it ends up in the bargain bin at about 30. The gameplay is still great and level design is good, so it's a fun game. It just has some very crippling flaws...


"brown bread"   August 30, 2004
1 out of 7 found this review helpful

this is one bueiaotiful game with an overwehlming story full of twists to the plot.stunning graphics and gameplay make this a fantastic game to play. BUY IT BUY IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Not an improvement   June 12, 2004
Simon Daultrey (Dorset, UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I got this game 2 days ago. Cumulatively, I have played on it for about five hours and completed it.

I was a huge fan of Max Payne when it came out 3 or 4 years ago, and if you've not tried either before then I'd definitely recommend saving your money and getting the first one - it was better in so many ways.

The Fall Of Max Payne is overshadowed by the original in the story-line region - basically, it's strange, it's a bit confusing, and frankly pointless. It's about Max's love-affair with a (female) criminal. The story-line of Max Payne was far better thought-out.

Max Payne 2 is also way, way too short, which is a great disappointment because Max Payne was lengthy, and kept you playing because it's story-line was so gripping and intense.

However, it's not all bad - The Fall of Max Payne has the same beautiful graphic quality and rendering as it's predecessor, although some textures are bit low-quality.

The environments are nicely designed, and very interactive, in as much as any small boxes, bottles, general stuff that you run into, will move. But you can't shoot boxes open any more!

None of the areas of the game are particularly based on strategy, and when they are, it's pretty obvious what to do, which is probably partly responsible for it being so short.

The weapons are similar, the physics are the same, the bullet-time is still cool, and if you're after something to satisfy the simple desire to run through a game and blast the enemy with round after round of gunfire, then this will be the best thing for it.

The violence level is just the same, with the added spice of regular extreme language, and 'scenes of a sexual nature' as the cencorship people put it......which was a bit of a surprise!

Not the best, but worth trying.


Lost for words...   April 17, 2004
thejoneseys (Somewhere out there, in the vast nothingness of space)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Well, it's just gone midnight and I've just completed max payne 2 after about 8 days of evening gaming.

I'm so lost for words after finishing this and I felt I owed a few words to everybody reading these reviews and considering buying this game to tap something out for you.

I bought this game myself after finding it on the rockstar site and then reading the amazon reviews. All I can say is it's truly amazing, breathtaking and pure quality!!!!

The storyline is brilliant and each chapter will keep you on your toes. The best thing about this game is that its quite easy to complete and for me thats one of the best parts of it (I'm not a hardened gamer myself) and who the heck wants to play a game they can't win???

After seeing this I also purchased the first version, although I am technically playing them back to front I felt another max payne "fix" was bound to be needed after this and so I ordered that the moment I saw how good max payne 2 was!

Rockstar games rule! Just get it and you'll love it (play it on the big telly though).

I'm off to complete the first one now and all I can say is the opening sequence on that also looks awesome.


Max payne II- certainly not the fall of max payne.   February 19, 2004
Max Payne was the game that set a new standard for 3rd person shooter on the pc. While the transition to xbox for the first game was only tepid, this time to get hotter you'd have to drop a toaster in the bath.

The story starts off with old max doing some routine work for the NYPD, when he busts into a warehouse infested with cleaners. By the end of the game, you'll have killed enough of these cleaners to be sure that you'll have to do all your own washing. boohoo. Anyway, straight away, you have access to all the bullet time options, shamelessly ripped from the matrix. You can dive while shooting in slow motion, slow down time while you casually pop a few caps or simply admire the sepia tone the screen turns when bullet time is activated.

There are more weapons than in the original, but the most significant change is the second weapon option- along with whatever gun you choose to carry, you can also have a grenade or something similar available at the touch of a button. Furthermore, you can now pack double desert eagles. rock on

Graphically and sonically, this is top notch. The environment is interactive, to the exent that you can tip flaming barrels onto enemies, or dive through stacks o crates in a very movie-esque style.

The story too is excellent, told through a combination of graphic novel sequences and fmv's. I won't go into any details about the story, suffice to say that it relates directly to the first game's and tells the true idenity of the person behind valkyr.

Tom