Posted on: October 4, 2022
Regenerator
Verified ownerGames: 1141 Reviews: 21
Bargain-Bin Max Payne 2 from Czechia
This game is essentially a Max Payne 2 mod - it is one of the very few non-Remedy developed games (indeed, perhaps the only one) that runs on the Max-FX engine, and it really shows. The game feels like a large mod/conversion of Max Payne 2 made by a group of enthusiasts. Unfortunately that translates to a very cheap videogame, which lacks the original game's atmosphere, story, level design, and essentially almost everything that made it feel like a quality title. However it feels cheap because it WAS (and, at the currented discounted price of $CAD 1.79, still IS) cheap, as in it was not a full-price title on release. The game is quite short, 3-4 hours at most, the story is laughable, sometimes literally so, something you'd see in a 1980s action film, with very predictable twists and paper-thin characters, and the gunplay is FUNDAMENTALLY broken (emphasis on FUN) - while in Max Payne guns fired bullets as objects that that travel through the world, which made bullet time a useful and visually interesting mechanic, here you have hitscan detection, which means all guns essentially fire a laser that connects with its targets instantly. However, the engine was clearly not meant for that, and the developers didn't adapt it to it, so you will soon discover that if you hug a cover (by crouching and facing it, no cover mechanics here) and fire your gun, your shots will still manifest on the other side of the cover, mowing down helpless enemies that can offer no resistance, unable to grasp your cover-phasing powers. Utilizing these god-like powers you can run through the entire game in a couple of hours, enjoying the cheese voice acting and occasional fun glitch. You can play it straight through as well, which makes for a more forgettable experience. For the price that is being charged it is a fine little mindless romp for an evening or two (max) that might make you reminisce about how indie-equivalent titles looked and played like in that era circa 2005.
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