You'd walk into a room and get shot in a fifth of a second. I found Max Payne 1 to be the superior game. I came to a completely different conclusion to you. I recently played through them as a prelude to Max Payne 3 (which I haven't finished, because that game talks to me like I'm an infant, but that's another story for another time). It looked significantly better to me in comparison to the problems of the first. The first one does not hold up- although I think the second one benefited from the first since:Ĭharacters were more interesting because I already met them, and The female character is one of the best I've seen in games- Mona Sax nails the 'femme fatale' trope.īottom line: The second one is definitely worth playing, as it holds up well. The characters are much more interesting as well, showing interesting transitions from the first game. The story is infinitely better, and some moments genuinely surprised me. However, gameplay aged terrifically, and the introduction of friendly AI works great. There are still some issues with stealth and enemy problems, along with that same conspiracy that annoys me. Max Payne 2: A massive step from Max Payne 1 in every way imaginable. While the game has a noir feel, the story itself is pretty generic- tied together with a boring conspiracy- and some characters feel like obnoxious stereotypes. There are also these particular dream sequences that involve following a trail of blood that are extremely annoying. Enemies can spot you instantly, which gets really frustrating. While it may have been creative and original at the time, gameplay mechanics are poor.
Max Payne 1: This game definitely shows its age in several ways.