Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Too short"

When I first heard that a sequel to the Max Payne games from the early 2000's, I was understandably sceptical. In the time that Max Payne 2 has come out, Rockstar has had a plethora of tremendous releases. I expected this to be on par with the last Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, it did not disappoint.

The game moves back in forth in time, as the previous games did to a smaller extent. There was a subtle psychedelic colour effect that seemed to mimic the scenes in the first two games where Max was affected by recreational substances as well. The homages to the previous games were picture perfect: the voice overs, the original Max Payne reprising his role, the game play function and shooting mechanics feeling the same as they always were. Despite the setting being in Brasil, the film noire feel was still there, though not nearly as dank and dark. The creators inserted a lot of uninhabitable buildings and gun-toting gang members to make this a truly Rockstar venture.

While I enjoyed the game, the modernisation of gaming reared its ugly head early, with the forced inclusion of multiplayer, which I did not partake in, and a curious reaction I had to a lack of side-missions. Yes, Max Payne is a breath-taking story, but has only one story to be told. I was utterly lulled into the world of Max Payne, his fall from grace and his deep depression. When we left Payne, he had lost everything, had no family and no job to speak of. In this sequel, the game follows Max as he takes a job as a private security. The job is anything but what he's been told and he finds himself embroiled in a massive scheme involving high level political figures. You're a-typical Max Payne or Rockstar game, really.

I felt like the game was much shorter than I anticipated, and this was more so once I realised you could never veer from the single player story in anyway. There were tidbits, pianos to play, clues to find, golden gun pieces to collect, but Max had only one goal and you could never deviate. The story was top notch. The graphics were amazing, I never once saw any visual glitches. Rockstar delivered a wonderful addition to the Max Payne series. I just hope that should they make a sequel, it will add some variety to the already rich storytelling within the Max Payne world.