Getting Back Into Max Payne

Max Payne is a shooting and action game released in 2001 by Remedy Entertainment. This well known game development company has also come up with titles like Control, Alan Wake, Death Rally and Quantum Break. The company is based in Finland. I have tried to apply to there as a junior software developer some years ago. As you can figure I didn’t get that job back then, but it was well worth trying.

I played Max Payne back in 2001 with my personal computer. It was the first video game that featured an element of game play called “bullet time”. This effect made the main character to slow down. Actually the time was slowing down for a moment. This way the player had more time to make an accurate aim. The player had his or her choice of weapons. These included many different hand guns, uzi, shotgun and even a baseball bat for close encounters.

Max Payne was somewhat a masterpiece that can well be called art. This was to my knowledge also what they were aiming for as game developers. It did sell well too. Max Payne does own a bit of its success to action titles and movies like Matrix and those action films directed by John Woo. The game also includes a joke in which this movie directors name is used. You can find this joke easily if you play this game.

Max Payne featured Sam Lake as the main character. He has also written the whole plot of the game. As I know a lot about this game it doesn’t come as a surprise that he has some background in producing movies. The game doesn’t have so many cut scenes and I think this was because the games release would have been delayed too much. There are many funny details in this game. In overall the game is very entertaining. You can go a long way using your skills and experience from many of first person shooter games. This game has a view of the third person.

I am getting back to this game in early 2023. It did cost me 15 euros. I bought it from Xbox store. This game is compatible with Xbox Series X if you still own a copy of the original Xbox game or if you find it from a game shop. I didn’t this time get a physical copy of the game. I got it as a digital copy. I also bought the sequel, Max Payne 2, The Fall of Max Payne and Resident Evil Village. So I spent 15 euros for Max Payne 2 also and 20 euros for Resident Evil Village.

The game plays very smoothly on my Series X. Graphics look just fine. Controls are good. I did turn invert aim off. Otherwise controlling was made easy. It did take some time to get used to but after a while everything was great. The only thing I am a bit unsatisfied with is the lack of cut scenes which are replaced with these comic slides that feature some audio also. I have only started playing this game once again. I have earlier finished it about 2 or 3 times. This time the featured image displays a screenshot.

Playing Xbox One Exclusive from Remedy Entertainment

I sort of missed Quantum Break when it was originally released back in 2016. I surely didn’t have Xbox One then. I actually had only PS4 connected to my main screen that was Full HD 32 inch television. It also had SCART-connectivity. PS4 was my only gaming console that was connected to my television. It would have been possible for me to purchase this game  from Steam and install it for my PC. So there was a possibility that I didn’t choose to follow for some reason or other.

I am a huge fan of Remedy Entertainment. I have been that way since early games like Death Rally and Max Payne series. I did play Alan Wake and I have also played Control. Being a fan of Remedy can partly be explained with the fact that this game company is based in Finland. Sami Järvi actually was the person that gave Max Payne his face and he is also currently the Creative Director of the company.

If you have followed what I’ve been lately writing about you surely know that I recently got myself Xbox Series X. I actually removed Xbox Series S from my setup and replaced it with Series X. This more expensive model of the latest Xbox has an optical drive and two times more disk space for installing games. I also get to enjoy the backwards compatibility. I get to play Xbox One games also with the latest Xbox model Series X.

There are some really nice games that have been only released for Microsoft’s devices mainly being PC and Xbox. Some titles worth mentioning are Gears of War 4 and 5, Dead Rising 3 and 4, Forza Horizon series and Halo series. As I was ordering WRC10 and Back 4 Blood for Series X I decided to go also with copies of Fallout 4, which was sold for only 4 euros, and this Xbox One exclusive, Quantum Break.

It was about a week ago that I received the order from post. I have played lots of WRC10. I started playing Quantum Break just this morning. I have already completed 11 percentage of the game. It isn’t a long game and that is perfectly fine with me. Based on a fact that I found while browsing the web it takes about ten hours to complete Quantum Break. It is a nice game. It includes nice graphics, as you can see from the screenshot related to this blog post. It also has elements from action and shooting games. It also has already offered me some puzzles to be solved. It reminds a bit about Max Payne but at the same time it is a completely own kind of a game.

This far I have very much enjoyed this game. Remedy has once again done a great job. While it’s not the latest of latest it still offers a solid experience. If I would have played this back in 2016 when this title was released I probably would have enjoyed it maybe even more as it is always exciting to play some game that has just been released and is using the latest so to say tricks. I don’t want to give it a grade. The Metacritic has given it a score of 77 out of 100.

 

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