He stormed into the room in a whirlwind, scattering piles of cardboard boxes, cheap IKEA smashed plastic chairs, and construction debris around the corners. “Damn, almost Half-Life 2!” – the bandits were amazed, looking at how gracefully rolled beer bottles on the floor. Absorbed by the spectacle,
they did not notice the angel of death in a dirty black starched cloak that had fallen from the doorway. Lead rain pierced the faded fabric of reality; the bullets dug into the bodies like thousands of angry bees, biting to the point of pain, stinging to the point of screaming, causing a breathtakingly beautiful fandango to dance. Enemies fell, and the avenger in black flew and flew, a frozen statue with an expression of eternal peace on his face.
The floor ended just where He wanted to land.
Part I, Chapter 1
Time passes quickly. Just yesterday, we looked into the crazy eyes of a New York detective standing on the roof of a skyscraper with a rifle in his hands, saw his sardonic grin and did not dream of living to see the sequel. Today we have a completely different person. Instead of the digitized physiognomy of screenwriter Sam Lake.
there are Hollywood-like regular facial features of an unknown model, instead of a cunning squint, there is an eagle gaze directed somewhere far away, and only familiar tired notes still sound in the voice. An ideal object for envy: losing a wife, a child, getting into trouble with the law, becoming the number one target for the next “secret society” and managing to keep a blooming view is far from being possible for everyone.
Comics. Dirty, worn, like the pages of a cheap paperback that fell into a deep puddle with a central spread, they again haunt us from the first to the last minute, giving way to non-interactive videos during the levels. Max again starts the story from the end, and we know that everyone has died from the second second. His speech is a semi-incoherent stream of Finnish-English consciousness about the inevitability of fate, the intrigues of the villainess of fate and the suppressed guilt complex.
It is difficult to listen to him, to understand – even more difficult, since the plot sucked from the finger is bursting at the seams, and unnecessary references to Comrade. Tarantino and pathos “washed down” graphomaniac scriptwriter make it difficult to focus on the current moment. “I took out a piece of sausage and saw Her lips in cubes of fat. I didn’t want to cut her, but she left me no choice. Life is such bullshit.” Poetic cops who have read Chuck Palahniuk are the scariest people in the world. If they don’t shoot you, they’ll lull you to death.
Dreams. Useless, aimless races through the twisted labyrinths of the subconscious, a “blurred” concentration of senile delirium, invented only to be, the original thought of the creators of the first part that went into circulation. Here they do not reveal secrets, do not state the plot, do not develop the characters’ characters, but they conduct a short session of bubble-gum psychoanalysis. Max’s inner self whines, sobs, complains about life, bangs his head against non-existent walls, and creates problems out of the blue. Payne is completely devoid of motivation – he has already avenged all his relatives a long time ago – so he stupidly moves forward, and we are forced to follow him.
Peace. The most beautiful rollercoaster of 2003. Max Payne 2 is completed in 5 hours – almost the same time it will take you to travel from Moscow to St. Petersburg on the Sokol-250. At the same time, the gameplay is so linear that even a trip along the rails seems to be the height of interactivity. Relax, get comfortable and enjoy the views.
Part I, Chapter 2
For graphics – the only thing in MP2 polished to perfection. The scenery — the apartment of a lonely pensioner, the foyer of a high-rise building, the labyrinth of shelving in a huge warehouse, the alley flooded with light at night — amaze with the clarity of textures and the abundance of small details, make you believe in their existence. It’s scary to think how many man-hours have been spent on such a police station.
where stands are hung with quite distinguishable announcements, typical office chaos reigns on the tables, piles of folders rise everywhere, and among the heaps of electronics in the control room, a mug of hot coffee is slowly cooling down. In the same place, in the station, you will hear the funniest dialogue in the entire game – a tired, half-asleep detective is trying to record a sincere confession of a schizophrenic who stabbed his wife and her lover.
Like the creators of Devastation, Remedy, without hesitation, blindly copied the real world, step by step transferring to the screen the romance of an ever-awake, ever-dirty metropolis. Another atmosphere in Max Payne 2 was not delivered. Contrary to the slogan from the beautiful cover.
“film noir” did not even spend the night here. Chandler/Chase yes, Sam Lake no. So, a short psychedelic voyage through the gloomy corners of New York, burdened with endless flashbacks, an indistinct love story, far-fetched quest episodes, pretentious allusions to the Great Conspiracy and an alternative happy ending for the especially impressionable. Max constantly stumbles upon working TVs that show “soap” 24 hours a day, and watches parodies of himself, where the characters, infected with the “depressive monologue” syndrome, give painfully familiar passages. Consider this the subtle irony of the developers.
Part I, Chapter 3
TFOMP – self-clone. Deja vu at 60 fps. Addon in the skin of a sequel. Jumps from side to side, worked out to automatism, are still used, fraught with bruises and broken ribs, if you are not an action hero.
You can’t build a game on one run. It must be made extremely short or dilute the gameplay with something else. Smart people stop at the second option, and those who are lazier – at the first. Remedy chose both. Femme fatale Mona Sax, who took the last bullet in the previous part.
