The game centers on the NYPD Detective Max Payne, who attempts to avenge the murder of his family. It features a gritty neo-noir style and uses graphic novel panels (with voice-overs) in place of animated cutscenes to narrate the game, as it draws inspiration from hard-boiled detective novels by authors like Mickey Spillane. The game contains many allusions to Norse mythology, particularly the myth of Ragnarök, and several of the names used in the game are those of the Norse gods and mythos. The gameplay is heavily influenced by the Hong Kong action cinema genre, particularly the work of director John Woo, and it was one the first games to feature the bullet time effect popularized by The Matrix.
Max Payne received very positive reviews and was praised for its exciting gunplay and use of noir storytelling devices. The game won a large number of accolades, including the BAFTA Award. As of 2011, the Max Payne game franchise has sold over 7.5 million copies. It also inspired a feature film under the same title.
Max Payne is a third-person shooter in which the player assumes the role of its titular character, Max Payne. Almost all the gameplay involves bullet time-based gun-fights and levels are generally straightforward, occasionally incorporating platforming and puzzle-solving elements. The game's storyline is advanced by the player following Max's internal monologue as the character determines what his next steps should be. Several of the game's levels involve surrealistic nightmares and drug-related hallucinations of Payne.
Initially, the player's only weapon is a semi-automatic pistol. As the player progresses, access to other firearms is given, including melee and hand-thrown weapons. Some of the game's weapons can be dual wielded. Max regains health by taking painkillers, which the player collects. The game's AI is heavily dependent on pre-scripted commands: most of the apparently intelligent behavior exhibited
by enemies (such as taking cover, retreating from the player, or throwing grenades) actually is pre-scripted.
The gameplay of Max Payne revolves around bullet time, a form of slow motion — when triggered, the passage of time is slowed down to such extent that the movements of bullets can be seen by the naked eye and enables Max to perform special moves. Although Payne's movement is also slowed, the player is still able to position the aiming reticle and react in real time, providing an advantage over enemies. Occasionally, when the last character of an enemy group is killed, the viewpoint switches to a third-person view circling a falling body. Likewise, the camera may follow the path of a bullet fired from a sniper rifle.
The "Dead on Arrival" game mode limits the player to only seven saves per chapter, and the "New York Minute" mode forces the player to complete each chapter before the allotted time — replenished by killing enemies — is exhausted. Upon completing the game on "Dead on Arrival", the player unlocks "The Last Challenge" ("End Combat" or "Final Battle" in the different versions), featuring a fight in perpetual bullet time against the "Killer Suit" hitmen.
Three years earlier, on August 22, 1998, Max was working as a regular NYPD detective, having just finished his day's work. His longtime friend and DEA agent, Alex Balder, invites him to transfer into the DEA, but Max declines the offer, wanting to focus on his full-time life with his wife, Michelle, and their newborn daughter, Rose, also telling Alex he quit smoking for the sake of his daughter. As he returns to his house in New Jersey, he finds that a trio of junkies had broken into his house, all addicted on a brand new designer drug, Valkyr. Max receives a call from a mysterious woman who seems pleased at the trouble in the house and refuses to call for help. Max rushes to aid his family and kill the junkies, but is too late as he finds his wife shot dead, and his daughter slaughtered. After his family's funeral, Payne accepts Alex's offer, and transfers to the DEA at his own request to stop the spread of the drug.
In the present day, Max is now an undercover operative inside the Punchinello Mafia crime family, under the ruthless Don Angelo Punchinello, who is responsible for the trafficking of Valkyr. B.B. Hensley, Max's DEA colleague and one of only two contacts besides Alex who is aware of his position undercover, gives Max a message asking him to meet Alex at the Roscoe Street Subway station. Max arrives at the station only to find mobsters working for Jack Lupino, a Mafia underboss in the Punchinello crime family and Punchinello's subordinate, attempting a bank robbery by breaking through from the station, where, amongst much of the valuables, Max finds corporate bonds for the Aesir Corporation, a mysterious conglomerate corporation and New York's wealthiest company.
As he searches the vault for more answers, he answers the phone call of Deputy Chief Jim Bravura, who wants the criminals to surrender. Realizing that he is now placed at the scene of a bank robbery and with no choice, Max makes his way back to Roscoe Street Station to escape, encountering Alex, who tells him that there is a mole in the Punchinello family and that he has been exposed. Before Alex can inform Max of anything further, he is killed by an unknown assassin. Realizes that having been placed at the bank robbery, he will becomes the prime suspect in the murder because he is still undercover (his NYPD files have changed to make him a high-profile murderer, and as he had killed everyone else in the bank, there would be no other suspect for the police to question), Max leaves before the police arrive.
Left with no choices on what to do, he goes to a Lupino-owned motel, where he meets with the Finito Brothers, subordinates of Vinnie Gognitti, a high-ranked Capo and Jack Lupino's right-hand man, where they confirm that they have been informed that he is a cop, and as such, he is forced to kill them after he is attacked. Making his way out of the motel, which is in secret a pimp club, he finds the diary of a prostitute named Candy Dawn, which details how she is sending video tapes of her having sex with a man she calls "one-eyed Alfred" to an anonymous buyer, intended for blackmail. In the hotel bar, he also finds Rico Muerte, a ruthless professional hitman from Chicago, who is now working for Punchinello, and also Candy Dawn, who was just performing fellatio on Muerte. Both attempt to kill him but are killed instead. In the bar, Max learns where Gognitti is hiding, as he is one of the few people to know where Lupino is hiding, and leaves to find him. Before leaving the hotel, Max receives a phone call from a mysterious man who introduces himself as Alfred Woden, informing him that the police know he is there and that he needs to get out quick.
While searching for Gognitti in a block of tenements, Max discovers that Vladimir Lem, a Russian mobster and a bitter rival to Punchinello's business, is currently engaged in a fierce turf war against Punchinello's men, blowing up Lupino's apartment and leaving the scene. Finding Gognitti in his own apartment, Max injures Gognitti and is set upon by his henchmen. After killing them, Max chases Gognitti through the city and the subway, before eventually learning about the location of Lupino's hideout, a nightclub named Ragna Rock. He spares Gognitti's life.
Arriving at Ragna Rock, he finds out that Lupino has gone insane from the overdosing of Valkyr and now believes he is the Antichrist who calls the Devils from different mythologies to worship him as a "messenger of Hell", and has been sacrificing his victims to create a "message" to the Devil. After gunning him and his men down, he encounters Mona Sax, a mysterious female contract killer and twin sister of Lisa Punchinello, the Don's wife, who pours him a drink when they agree to work together, only to find out that it was laced with a sedative, which knocks him out, with Mona telling him that although they both want to kill the Don, she cannot let him harm her sister.
Being drugged, Max has a nightmare about the day when his family was killed. He wakes up and realizes that he has been kidnapped by the mob. He finds himself being tortured by Frankie "The Bat" Niagara, one of the Don's soldatos and his personal hitman. After a severe beating, Frankie leaves to get a drink and to allow Max time to reconsider his attitude. Max manages to escape and learns that he is been held at the hotel where he found the Finito brothers — and that all the cops who responded to his earlier gunfight with the mobsters have been killed. He also learns that Mona had been captured after a failed attempt on the Don's life and is being tortured by the Trio, the Don's elite assassins, at the Don's mansion. Max finds Frankie, who is having a drink in the same bar where Max killed Rico Muerte. Max proceeds to kill him and the rest of his men. As he leaves the bar he is cornered by Vladimir Lem, who tells him that they are both after the Don, and they enter a brief alliance. Max agrees to kill one of Vladimir's former subordinates, Boris Dime, who is now working with Punchinello, and his men, aboard Lem's cargo ship Charon at the Brooklyn riverfront. While fighting his way through the port, Max stumbles upon a sniper rifle, a suitcase full of cash, and a letter intended for Rico Muerte, with the only word being "Mayor", in one of the containers. Max realizes that Muerte was going to assassinate the Mayor of New York City. He finds the ship's cargo (high-powered firearms) is being offloaded. They belonging to the Russian mob, and as payment for killing Dime, Lem allows Max as many weapons as he can carry. After killing Dime and seizing the weapons for himself, he informs Punchinello about Dime's death and the seizure of the guns, and arranges a meeting in the Don's restaurant.
Max makes his way to the Don's restaurant, but the place is bombed. Max makes his escape while killing the rest of Punchinello's men. Using the new-found Russian mob's weapons, Max storms the Punchinello manor, where he fights and kills the Trio. However, while inside, he finds the body of Lisa Punchinello, Mona's sister, and discovers that the Don is only a puppet in the Valkyr market when the mafioso is killed in front of Payne by agents of Nicole Horne, the CEO of the Aesir Corporation. Horne then injects Max with an overdose of Valkyr and leaves him for dead, as he experiences a drug-induced nightmare and suffers his internal torment and guilt for not being able to save his family (as well as receiving strange letters and phone calls. Both are allegedly from his deceased wife telling him that he is a character in a video game).
After surviving the drugging, Max pursues his only lead to a steel foundry located over a hidden underground military research complex. Inside, he discovers that Valkyr is the result of the Valhalla Project, an early 1990s U.S. military attempt to improve soldiers' stamina and morale. The project created an upgraded version of a drug named The Ladder created during the Vietnam War: however, the project was sharply halted due to poor results and the test subjects being unstable, but Horne, who was the leading expert of the Valhalla Project, was against it. She became the CEO of Aesir Corporation, using it as a front for producing more of Valkyr. Max also discovers that his wife had accidentally found out about the project as the information had been released to her, forcing Horne to let loose the crazed Valkyr test subjects into the Payne residence to kill her (Horne was the mysterious voice on the phone the day Max's family was killed). Horne, realising Max is stumbling onto the truth, initiates "Operation Dead Eyes" to get rid of evidence and witnesses, including their own scientists. Max escapes the bunker at the last moment just as it self-destructs. Soon enough, Max then gets a call from B.B., who is concerned about Max's role in Alex's death and wants to clear his name, and arranges a meeting at a parking lot where Max confronts him. B.B. eventually admits he took a bribe from Nicole Horne to get rid of Alex and Max in order to ensure that Aesir's activities couldn't be tracked, even admitting to being the one who killed Alex in the subway. A running gunfight then commences as Max chases him through the garage to the point that he kills the traitor. Shortly after the fight, Max gets another call from Alfred Woden, who he had spoke to before, asking him to come to the Asgard Building.
Arriving, Alfred reveals himself to be part of a powerful secret society called the Inner Circle, which has strong ties to the U.S. government. The Inner Circle members inform Max about Nicole Horne's identity but cannot pursue her themselves because "their hands are tied" (i.e. they have been blackmailed. It is also hinted that Woden is the one who orchestrated Max's wife finding the documents relating to the project). When Max asks why the Inner Circle can't pursue Nicole Horne, he realizes that Woden was frequenting Lupino's pimp club, and that he is the "one-eyed Alfred" Candy referred to and that she had sent the videotapes to Horne to blackmail Woden into silence in exchange for the money, and that Muerte was hired by Horne to assassinate the mayor to allow Horne full control over New York City. Max agrees to kill Horne, in exchange for any criminal charges against him being dropped. Suddenly, Asgard is overrun by Aesir gunmen who kill everyone in the meeting room except for Max, who escapes, and Woden, who pretends to be shot to deceive the assailants. Surviving the attack, Max arrives at the main office of Aesir Corporation and makes his way through the high-tech security building while avoiding strafing runs by a minigun-armed helicopter. Along the way he runs into Mona again while heading up in an elevator, where she reveals that she had been hired by Horne to assassinate both Punchinello and Max, but is shot in the head before she can reveal any more. Her body mysteriously vanishes from the elevator she was in, afterwards. At the top, Max finally confronts Nicole, who escapes to the roof and boards the helicopter to escape, but Max shoots the guy wires of the building's antenna, which snaps off and crashes into the helicopter, killing Horne.
At this point, the flashback is over, as Payne's three-night rampage is over. The NYPD ESU arrives at the scene, arresting Max and leading him out of the Aesir building, where he sees Alfred Woden standing on the street. Knowing that Woden will ensure his safe passage through the judicial system, Max smiles genuinely, satisfied with avenging his family. Woden himself smiles, satisfied that Nicole Horne has been stopped as the snow storm in the story ceases.
Themes
Most of the elements in the game are named for figures from Norse mythology. In Max Payne, the Valkyr drug is a military performance enhancer that turns its users into adrenaline-charged killers who experience hallucinatory images of death. The valkyries of Norse mythology were warrior-women who watched over battlefields, the "choosers of the slain" who took those who died with valor. In the game, Project Valhalla is the government conspiracy that developed Valkyr to enhance the combat effectiveness of U.S. soldiers and secretly tested it during the Gulf War of 1991. In Norse mythology, Valhalla was the afterlife of those selected by the valkyries: those who populated Valhalla would fight for the Norse gods in their wars. The computer network in the Valhalla base is named Yggdrasil, referring to the tree that connected the nine worlds in Norse cosmology.The Aesir Corporation, mentioned frequently in the game and the primary source of the Valkyr drug, is named for the primary pantheon of Norse gods, the Æsir. The head of the Aesir Corporation is named Nicole Horne; in the myths, the Gjallarhorn was sounded to announce the start of Ragnarök, the Norse apocalypse, a battle between the Æsir and the giants that results in the death of many deities and the rebirth of the world (Jack Lupino's gothic nightclub named Ragna Rock is a play on the word "Ragnarök"). The great snowstorm that takes place during the events of the game is a reference to the Fimbulvetr, an epic winter that precedes Ragnarök.
Alfred Woden's surname refers to Wōden, the Anglo-Saxon version of Odin, a major god of the Norse pantheon (his eyepatch also references Odin, who sacrificed his eye for wisdom and knowledge). Max meets him and the Inner Circle in the Asgard Building: Asgard is the Norse realm in which the gods live. In the game, DEA agent Alex Balder was shot by his partner B.B. In Norse mythology, Balder was killed when a sprig or arrow of mistletoe was shot or thrown into his chest, and his death was set up by Loki, god of chaos and deception, just as B.B. deceived Alex and Max. Max's own bullet time abilities seem to mirror these of the berserkers, Norse Viking warriors who drove themselves into such a frenzy when they entered battle that they seemed superhuman-strong, fast, untiring, and unable to feel pain (theme of Payne's necklace is a Viking longship).
No comments:
Post a Comment