

Unlike a lot of games in the early 2000s, Max Payne modelled all of its bullets as objects in motion rather than instantaneous flashes of damage along an invisible vector. The most important part of Max Payne, though, is slow-motion – or as they call it in-game, ripping it directly from The Matrix, Bullet Time. Max Payne is a ridiculous game about a washed-up cop murdering his way through New York’s criminal underbelly to get revenge against drug traffickers for ruining his life it occupies that strange turn-of-the-century Playstation 2 space where games were transitioning out of their arcade roots, so while there’s a dream sequence that deals with Max’s guilt over the death of his son, it is resolved in play as a series of quite difficult platforming sections.

Max Payne 2 absolutely perfected jumping sideways holding two guns at once, and it is this perfection that I am going to wax lyrical about.

It is not the best game, in my opinion, not by a long shot, the way that my favourite meal is probably something involving melted cheese that would never win a Michelin star. Can I talk to you about Max Payne? Can I? Sit down.
