MAX PAYNE

I'm wearing a leather coat; I know it's a coat because it hangs past my knees, and it's open in front. If it were closed in the front, it would be a dress -- but, this is a coat.  I'm also carrying two Mac-10 sub-machineguns. Check me out, I'm a renegade cop, killing hoodlums! Okay, so they're all white boys; in fact, they're mostly pasty-faced white boys. But, hey, killing's killing, right?  Or...is it?!

Funny thing about first-person shooters (and their red-headed stepchildren, the third-person shooter); you're always killing something evil or bad. Even in games which portray you as a "bad guy," as bad as you are, the guys you're out to get are worse. There are, of course, notable exceptions.

This got me to thinking -- what about a game with good graphics, not shitty ones, where you are a bad guy, doing bad things to "good" people? Or, at least, people you're not supposed to fuck with.

Visualize it: Cop cars wailing to the site of a vicious homicide, only to find an officer down! And you, the protagonist, pumping bullets into their quivering bodies!

He can do it, why can't I?

King Mongo putting pedestrians
in danger.

Then, of course, just as I was in the throes of a hot and anti-police hard-on, ready to start lighting up the 'Net with offensive rhetoric, this weird thing happens in NYC. And, understandably, everyone goes apeshit.

Suddenly, I'm wondering: Can a professional game reviewer like myself get away with promoting a game design predicated on the ruthless murdering of police officers? Is that cocksucker Ari Fleischer going to sic the goon squad on me?

I mean, Oliver Stone got away with it, but those were prison guards, not la policia. In my case, I'm talking about killing the same guys that everyone else of America are lauding like heroes!

(Well, technically, I'm talking about killing 3D models based on guys in the same line of work)

Then, I got pulled over for not yielding to a pedestrian. Well, thank god for self-righteous indignation, because now I'm back in the game reviewer's comfort zone, i.e., fuck society's delicate sensibilities.

It's all about the art, baby.

Alright, admittedly, you can already kill cops in games. Anyone who's played Swat 3 knows darn well that even when you're playing a cop, you can turn your MP5 on your teammates, also known as a Team Kill. 

(Of course, that's not the point of the game... but there's something satisfying about capping the squad leader and hearing the rest of the team turn on you in fear: 

("He's gone crazy!" 

("Take him out!")

BUT, does a prominent game developer have the guts to fund a game design based on the premise that you're crackhead out to chew bubblegum and collect gold shields covered in blood??! Er...that is, another game design with that premise??

Well, visits from gat-wielding Gestapo aside, let's explore this interesting concept.

It's just a game, people!

Really!

Illuminating YOU, punk!

Yeah, you!

Right, so I, King Mongo, am here to illuminate and elucidate the shit out of you, so that ya (a) don't waste your hard earned sheckels on shitty games, and (b) don't waste your rarely available phat pipe on enormous ISOs.

This time, I want to talk to you about a game called Max Payne (no subtitle); this game has been in development for the past four years. Four years!! In 1997, when development on this fucker started, I was still married, for chrissakes.

During my research for this article, I came across this loser's site. What is it about journals that make me feel so much better about my life? Hello, Jim, you're a retard!!  

"Inna future, Jim nod have no webpage!"

Which brings me back to Max Payne (no subtitle); I mean, in 1997, Quake 2 was still cool -- it wasn't even kewl, yet, much less l33t.

Well, by gawd, those Finnish geniuses over at Remedy Entertainment are doing to the third-person action game with Max Payne what those Croation madmen at CroTeam did to the first-person shooter with Serious Sam.  

For the record, CroTeam made the first-person shooter fun again. And that's what Remedy has done to the third-person shooter:

They made it fun.

BANG BANG BANG BANG!

YOUR FUX0R3D!

BWA HA HA HA!

More things you can do!

Max Payne
Gathering of Developers
- Win 95, 98, Me, 2000
- 450 MHz processor
- 96 MB RAM
- ??? MB hard drive space