Some Thoughts On: Max Payne

Posted on 5 July 2024

Max Payne is Remedy Entertainment's second game, released in 2001. It's old enough that it needs a few mods to run properly; I installed the Complete FixPack. Even then, I still dealt with a couple of issues, most of which were related to the mouse. Every time I started up the game, I had to change the mouse settings or the acceleration went wild. I also had an issue with the camera "snapping" while looking around in certain areas. I never found out how to fix that.

There are no subtitles in the game! The only time dialogue is subtitled is in the comic sections. That was super surprising – all games I've played from the turn of the millennium were subtitled, even the ones that had full voice acting.

Max in a bar. A beer sign on the wall says 'Real Men drink Casey'.

I played both Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2 before Max Payne, and it's been neat to see how both those games incorporated references from Max Payne. There's Alan’s Alex Casey novel series, which are essentially the Max Payne games using a different name. There's the use of the number 665, the "neighbor of the beast". And there's New York City itself, which reminded me quite a bit of the Dark Place in Alan Wake 2. Max even refers to the city as Noir York City.

A comic section of the game that refers to 'Noir York City'.

I didn't realize that this was where Remedy started emphasizing the metafictional aspect of their works. At least, I'm assuming it started here. I've never played Death Rally.

A comic section of the game where Max finds a letter telling him that he's in a computer game.

The aforementioned meta aspects, as well as the nightmare levels, feel like the link between Max Payne and Remedy's later games. Even though Max Payne isn't part of the Remedy connected universe (Alan Wake & Control), it definitely had influences on them. There's a part of Control that feels quite similar to the nightmare levels, particularly in the repetition of it. The Norse influences – Woden, Valhalla, etc. – are continued in Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2 – Odin, Thor, Baldur.

Overall, I feel like my attitude on the game was rather mixed. I had my frustrations with the gameplay, but that was mostly due to the game being 23 years old. Though I initially assumed the game would be around 15-20 hours, I'm glad it was shorter. I finished it in less than 9 hours. If it had gone on any longer, I think it would have outstayed its welcome.

Some Thoughts On: Max Payne 2

Posted on 16 March 2026

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is the 2003 sequel to 2001's Max Payne. The game uses the same engine, with improved graphics, in-engine cutscenes, a fancy reload animation while in combat, and rather amusing ragdoll physics. There are still plenty of graphic novel sequences with voiceovers like in the first game.

I did not need any mods to run this game; it worked just fine loading it from Steam (well, aside from it popping up on my second monitor at first). Given that it was released in 2003, it ran just fine using the integrated graphics on my PC's CPU rather than the GPU. It should run just fine on any relatively modern laptop.

There are actual subtitles in this game, although if multiple groups are talking – voices on TV and voices of NPCs in the area – then the subtitles seem to default to the TV voices. Fortunately, this only happens a few times and the conversations really aren't too important.

A flamingo on a television saying 'Mirrors are more fun than television'.

One difference from the original Max Payne is that there are multiple television shows to watch – Dick Justice, Lords and Ladies, Captain Baseballbat Boy, and Address Unknown. All of them comment on the events in Max's life in some way.

That pink flamingo above is from Address Unknown. A very similar pink flamingo shows up in Control.

A graphic novel sequence where Max listens to Address Unknwon on the television while having a breakdown.

Also from Address Unknown is John Mirra, the evil doppelganger of the protagonist (also named John) who kidnaps John's girlfriend. This all happens in Noir York City.

If you've played Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2, this should all seem pretty familiar.

Combat definitely felt easier in this game – or maybe I just got used to it. Overall, I'd say that Max Payne 2 was a definite improvement on the first game, despite being shorter and having a harder plot to follow.

A graphical bug where Max has no head, but only in a mirror.

Headless Max in the mirror (but still with eyeballs) was the only bug I got in the entire game.