Spy Max Payne hit the forehead square of ideology at the turn of the millennium. I was sixteen years old when Remedy’s undercover DEA agent monologue entered my life as a… well, a man darting sideways in slow motion with two flaming pistols. That kind of time. Not long ago, the Wachowskis left an indelible mark on cinema and popular culture in general, with their stylish counterculture hit The Matrix. Wearing a leather jacket while falling and openly using an automatic weapon is legal, and not scary at all. Why are you frowning like that, pretend you don’t believe me.
While it’s doubtful that the game portrays mass shooting as a saboteur, you really can’t beat Max Payne’s outstanding fast-loading gunfights. There are more puzzle games in each level than at first glance. To realize that Max is essentially clearing mobster mook’s rooms in the form of a gunfire-based Minesweeper only happens when bullet time becomes second nature. It is in the moments between bullets whizzing towards you that paths and solutions take shape, in an almost Zen-like manner. If you clean a room with only two shotgun shots instead of three, does that make you more Max?
Max Payne’s trick is how to make extreme violence sound like a complete answer. I don’t like it, not as a parent, nor as a compassionate human being in an increasingly hostile world. Still, as a moody teenager with too much time on his hands and the conditional Hollywood urge to pitch Campbell’s axioms of self-assertive heroism, Max Payne is great. great. Still, there’s still a shame about the weird background bits caused by drugs. You can choose the original game from Steam for £6/$10/€10, but the Remedy is rework, do it again it and its sequel.
