What is Max Payne?

Ambush! Bad guys come pouring through doors, blasting you from all directions.

In a panic, you hit the Bullet Time button. Everything freezes. Action grinds to a crawl. Bad guys and their lazy bullets move like molasses. Spent shell casings float through the air. A heart beats slowly (thump, thump), keeping time. Only one element moves at natural speed — you. And abruptly you're in charge, a one-man wrecking crew, pumping lead into each of the slow-motion bushwhackers.

Max Payne is a stunner, a two-fisted crime story set in New York's seamy underbelly, larded with cops, narcotics, gangsters, blood, and quirky adult themes (rated M for mature).

It also introduces a neat new graphic wrinkle called Bullet Time, a time-stretching innovation that turns a dark film-noir story style of the 1940s into a more modem Matrix-style tale of the 1990s. And it makes even the grungier New York locales look gorgeous.

Max is a former cop who finds his wife and baby savagely slaughtered by whacked-out junkies, high on a new drug called Valkyr. Devastated, Max blows the junkies away, then goes deep undercover to track down the kingpins; along the way, he gets framed for killing a police officer. Hunted by both cops and mobsters, Max goes on a vengeance spree, simplified by a grinding snowstorm that keeps Innocents off the streets, making anyone who moves fair game.

This story-driven shooter handles plot progression neatly. Max narrates most of it, in a dry monotone reminiscent of old Sam Spade and Lew Archer movies. Max also utters outrageous metaphors and hammy cliches, but that’s part of the 1940s-style fun. Colorful comic-strip panels, complete with sound effects and melodramatic voice acting, pop up periodically to illustrate complex story elements.

It’s a dark and depressing criminal world, but it’s very easy on the eyes. The action is intense, with slickly rendered villains swarming through dark 3D subways, snowy streets, and seedy hotels. They’ll pursue you over rooftops, through warehouses and nightclubs, and in a mansion — subjecting you to one bloody encounter after another. Bullets chew up walls. Explosions light up the night. True-to-life guns rattle away with muzzle flash and ejected shell casings. Villains lurk everywhere, eager for your blood, if it weren’t for Bullet Time, the game might be too tough.

How big a kick is Max? Like firing both barrels of a double-barreled shotgun. Just about everything is on target — the hard-boiled story, the cutting-edge technology, the nonstop carnage, and the heart-stopping thrill of Bullet Time. If you’re an FPS fan. Max Payne will blow you away.

Lee, John. (December 2002). Max Payne. MacAddict. (pg. 42).

Download Max Payne for Mac

Architecture

IBM PowerPC

System Requirements

From Mac OS 9.1 up to Mac OS 10.5

Compatibility notes

• Mac OS 9.1 or later/Mac OS X v10.1.4 or later
• 450 MHz G3 processor
• 900 MB free hard disk space
• 128 MB RAM (with virtual memory set to 200 MB) (256 MB RAM required for OS X version)
• 16 MB OpenGL-compatible graphics card
• OpenGL 1.2
• CarbonLib 1.4