01.18
Max Payne 2 is amazing. It is a huge improvement over the first Max Payne in nearly every way. One of my favorite, and most important, changes is that Max Payne himself no longer looks like he’s smelling a rank fart. He looks like a human. The other characters also look like humans, rather than video game models wearing human faces. The bullet time is infinitely more useful as it replenishes faster and it gets a boost when you kill someone. The dodge-shooting also works better as it will let you keep firing from the ground, and doesn’t immediately jump up and break the action until you stop firing.
The story is a lot more cohesive, and more interesting. It’s not just a dude killing everyone in his way to get to the person who killed his wife and daughter. There are different motives and they change, and the characters change. The game is short as hell, but so was the first Max Payne, and with less frustration.
Max Payne 2 is a better game than the original and, for all intents and purposes, you shouldn’t feel compelled to play through the first Max Payne before you play this one. It is a truly great game.