5/5 ★ – Yeij's review of Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne.

this game is better than the first game in terms of combat and writing. shooting is so much more accurate than the first game's, making longer ranged combat more viable. bullets hitting people is much more impactful with the ragdolls that can send enemies flying lifelessly to accentuate the power of max's arsenal. the story is also pretty great and does characters better than the first. as well as having access to better hardware, it had the ability to tell a deeper story with more themes. Also, there's a fair amount of environmental storytelling with televisions basically telling you what's happening but in a unique way to not be literally dumping exposition. however, the game isn't perfect because of a few reasons. compared to the first game, i got lost a couple of times more. there are also a couple of pseudo platforming sections that are a pain to go through since the max payne games are NOT made for platforming at all. oh god, im getting ptsd of that one nightmare sequence from the first max payne, but the atmosphere of that level somewhat made up for that horrific platforming section. but that's another issue i have from max payne 2: the atmosphere is still good but isn't on the level of the previous game. i don't know how to explain it, but the atmosphere isn't as dark or dreadful compared to max payne 1. it might be bad memory but i remember the first being darker in colors and lighting while max payne 2 is much brighter. but the game is still fantastic as hell, this games iteration of an ak47 and the stryker are some of my favorite guns in a video game ever. definitely glad i played this