4/5 ★ – SilverScroll's review of Max Payne.

This game is brilliant, undoubtedly one of the best and most iconic games of all time. Everything about remedy's style has its origins here, from the duo of Sam Lake's face and James McCaffrey's voice to the dark noir story being told like a comic book. It makes for a surprisingly well rounded package, with a dark, gripping story and excellent voice acting alongside some brilliant gameplay that is as hard as it is engaging. If I had to level some criticism at the game itself it would be that the weird trippy mindfuck places between chapters aren't very good from a gameplay perspective, with walls that I consistently got stuck on and a pretty out of place platforming section at one point aswell. Playing Max Payne on steam is an absolute fucking nightmare, plagued with bugs and issues, hence the reason why I've only given it 4 stars. To start with the game won't even boot, so you have to download a tool to change a specific line of code which will allow you to start the game, then after that you have to download an audio patch because the sound is broken and you can't hear it, and finally because the game stutters quite alot you need to install another patch to fix that problem. It's alot of jumping through hoops that only someone who actively wants to play and complete the game will have the patience to do, so save yourself the effort and buy the game on xbox or another platform instead of steam. Thr fact I even bothered to play this after the amount of hoops I had to jump through speaks volumes about the reputation of the original Max Payne. It's a reputation well earned, however as it's brilliant bullet time gameplay combined with an engaging and thrilling noir narrative with plenty of charm creates a game well deserving of your time and the many, many years of adoration it has garnered.