Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Even though I prefer Max Payne 1, this game is not talked about much even though it's a very decent sequel. However, paying 10 euros for a game this old is way too much (I've got it on sale). It works on Steam Deck quite good, but you need to fix the controls yourself.
Most problems with games from this era is that they almost never get updated, and this one is no exception. So, get ready for a 4:3 resolution unless you find a patch.

great game great story love max being in payne if you get the game get the fix max payne mod

“The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror. As you piece it together, you cut yourself, your image shifting. And you change with it. It could destroy you, drive you mad. It could set you free.”

Two years have passed since the events of Max Payne, and the epnoymous detective is back on the force working homicide. The raging snow is replaced by perpetual torrents of rain, dark clouds, and the gloom of unresolved guilt; Max is haunted, tormented, by his past.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is the logical next step from the original, with touched-up gameplay and even finer writing that expands the character of Max Payne, as well as the returning members of the first game’s cast. One could almost liken it to a Hollywood production of a sequel to a beloved indie movie—but actually done right—with higher production value allowing Remedy to fully realize their creative vision.

However, The Fall of Max Payne stumbles a bit with regards to its level design. Where the original’s levels maintain their quality all the way through, there are a few here that are just not very special – in one word: forgettable – and one towards the end (you’ll know which if you’ve played the game) that makes for a real bump in the road, especially on higher difficulties. While the gunplay and action are as fun as ever, with the player given even greater control over Max (as well as the femme fatale Mona Sax), the experience of traversing the game’s 21 chapters falls just short of stacking up to the original.

“There was a blind spot in my head, a bullet-shaped hole where the answers should be.”

Though, as previously stated, where the sequel goes so far as to surpass the original is in the writing. Sam Lake flexes all his writer’s muscles, taking the story and characters up to eleven. Max Payne 2 is more emotional of a story, focusing on the relationship between Mona and Max, as he continues to wrestle with guilt over the deaths of his wife and daughter. Max’s musings and monologues are better than ever, and there are points in this game that truly hit me hard, especially after the tragic passing of James McCaffrey.

I admit, my preference for the original Max Payne is purely a matter of personal taste; from a purely objective standpoint, it would make the most sense to name The Fall of Max Payne the better of the two.

At the end of the day, it’s more Max Payne, so it’s impossible to go wrong.

“Now, like all my loves, she is mine forever. She has brought me here, to this moment of clarity, where time slows down, and I choose to look back, to see myself. And in that act of seeing, I am reborn.”

Rest in peace
James McCaffrey
1958-2023

Score: 4,5/5

★★★★½

I dunno what to say for this sequel its kinda an upgrade and also isn't. The story really still has a lot of room for improvement but the bullet time and gun play have significantly improve. The sequel nailed in giving life to random NPC adding up the immersion/point your seeing them (i.e. neighborhood having silly dialogues or them actually helping you in battle). The game is really for those that love that bullet mechanic from the first game, likes old school action and curious for what happened to Mona Sax and Max Payne. Overall its good from early to mid but kinda a letdown to climax point especially the confusing map design. You really need to pay attention to the NPC talking to you or the camera you can found in the later stage.... Sometimes its really the lack of detail, nevertheless its better than the first game!

Just finished this classic. Hard to say if I prefer this one or the first but it's a great pulpy film noir adventure. Definitely worth a look.

A very solid game with a nice story, good characters, and good gameplay. It can be a bit of a hassle playing on newer systems, though it has fewer issues than the first Max Payne game does, and you can install some third-party patches to alleviate some of the problems.
I actually enjoyed this game a lot more than the first game. The story felt more cohesive, and several elements of the gameplay from the first game were refined, making the experience much more enjoyable.
Overall, I'd recommend the game if you're willing to deal with some resolution and fullscreen annoyances. However, I do think that the story may not be as enjoyable without having played the first game, because most of the characters and their storylines continue on from the events of the first.

It’s incredible how this sequel seems to do everything right when improving upon the original. The combat, the story, and the level design all have been refined into a smooth perfection that goes down like a nice cup of joe. The only notable downside is the total runtime, clocking in at around five hours. But unlike Max Payne 1, where there was late-game padding to fill the runtime, Max Payne 2 is all killer, no filler. (9/10)

There are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask "Why me" and "What if?" when you look back, see the branches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or a forked lightning. If you had done something different, it wouldn't be you, it would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions.

And we keep driving into the night
It's a late goodbye, such a late goodbye
And we keep driving into the night, it's a late goodbye

It has its ups and downs. At its best, I like the story more than the first, but generally I just find it ok, almost feeling scaled down compared to the first. Still, all of the technical upgrades are absolutely marvelous and the myriad easter eggs and oddities like the TV shows really make this worth the short ride.

Note: This game ran perfectly on my old PC with integrated graphics and my current PC with a 4070, but it does NOT work if you are using a multiple monitor setup with different HZ outputs for whatever reason. It's weird as hell. I fixed it by changing my 165hz monitor down to 60hz to match my other one and it worked just fine, but this was quite a while after I'd given up and just watched the rest of the game online.

Even better than the first in virtually every respect, highly recommend to any fan of classic games. It is shorter than the first, but arguably better paced and appreciably more difficult. Make sure to watch the secret ending.

The follow up the original Max Payne, this game is more polished, better produced and better written.
While it's not quite as goofy as the original, it's still funny in places while still being gritty.
We get to see Max now instead of being a guy driven by revenge, is a guy driven by somewhat mutual affection, if not pure lust. The game operates in moral greys and ends with a rather tragic ending.
The gameplay is similar to the first but also very different. The cool down meter of the slowdown is basically irrelevant, because if you play this game like Max Payne 1, i.e., you start diving and shooting people, then you won't spend any of your time slow down meter, because that is no longer considered a time slowdown.
Instead however you can play Max Payne 2 as Max Payne 2, without any diving, and it's certainly a different experience with more focus shooting.
It's the game feel that this game excels at, many times I just felt like I was at home playing this game.
And despite the age of this game (and yes, this game very much shows its age) it has phenomenal art direction that continues to make this game (just like its prequel) a very stylish masterpiece.
Looking forward to the remakes.
Max Payne 3 is not a sequel to this game.

if you like action games with bullet time. dont play this.
youre gonna spend half of your time breaking objects and spamming E on everything.

A much shorter and streamlined experience with smoother gameplay, but with less interesting & repeated environments and a smaller stakes story. Max runs weird and I miss his old face, but the gunplay and bullet-time is sharper and still a blast.

Its a fun game and i recommend it to everyone who likes Max Payne

pretty fun and very similar to max payne 1

its short but the story is even better than the 1st one

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

It's fucking brilliant, thats all that needs to be said, incredible.

Spectacular gunfights, iconic music, lots of charm and great atmosphere. They even improved the graphic novel panels and the nightmare levels, which were also present in the first game. A couple repetitive levels and one particularly annoying "escort the npc level" bring my rating down a little.

8/10 - short but sweet!

It was quick & fun but the story felt hollow compared to the first one.

a very good addition to the first max payne :)

Gameplay was good, the story was great, a true masterpiece that has become one of my all time favourites.

Max Payne 2 is an exciting third-person shooter with a dark and gripping story.
It’s a nostalgic masterpiece that was groundbreaking for its time, offering an unforgettable experience.
It was also the first Remedy game I played many years ago, and recently replaying it brought back all the memories.
7/10

Max Payne 2 is the second game I've played, and at Remedy Entertainment I love the game they've developed and the way they've created Max Payne with an ordinary family cop telling his story (it's just a generational story), it's also a nice local application of Bullet Time, As far as Max Payne is concerned, I still like his whole series very much.

Wow, what a game that was! I absolutely loved it. For me, it's even better than the first game. For a game released in 2003, it's truly golden. Even in 2024, it provides immense enjoyment while playing. The bugs are significantly fewer compared to the first game, and I was able to play it smoothly without any issues. I only encountered a problem in one mission, and I'll write the solution here. If you face that bug while playing, you can easily fix it by checking here. Note: Spoilers ahead! [spoiler]When Vinnie Gognitti stucks, open the door towards the inside before he gets stuck. Once he is, you just push the door on him and eventually throw him out. That will solve the problem easily[spoiler]

It was a beautiful game with a shocking ending.
I can play this game for hours without feeling tired.

lots of fun replaying and beating this classic, way less jank than the first one

one of the most visually stunning and well written games of its time, amazing and timeless music that i fill my playlists with from an amazing band that still puts out bangers, should literally be legally required to play as an entrance into video games.

great noir atmosphere the mechanics has gotten old

Ansioso pelo remake! ainda prefiro o primeiro mas não deixa de ser um jogão e ter uma história bem drámatica e melancólica!

A Masterpiece of a Series!!
These games are beautifully done in my opinion on the fact that this was something different during the time of the development on the first one, back during the Play Station 2 Era. Where this game was first came out on. These are something of a classic. When they first released this they implemented the "Diving slow motion" effect when you are mid combat and feel like John wick in today's age. These are based on a main charecter that is a New York City cop ironically named "max" (and no not Mad Max). Where you are taking the streets set on finding the person(s) that took you wife and child away from you, seeking revenge and justice on who did this to you. Along the way you are faced with past trauma and enemies that stand in you way to find the perpatratures. Even thought that the first one is VERY dated during the time it was and is still something awesome. The game play is about 10-12 hours. Depending if you are doing a speed run. Now the graphic settings on the first one is a bit "different" because of how many frames you are going to get with the systems being newer in today's age. I recommend putting a frame limit on it most definitely.

In my opinion these are something that thought and time was put into these games, not only on the story but on the movement and the action during the game as well. I recommend waiting for a sale ONLY for the fact of how long that these games have been out. If they were newer I would recommend a full buy on these guys. An absolute blast playing these the whole way through and still come back to them from time to time.

The most noir-ish game in the trilogy. It might not be as genius as Max Payne 1 is, but its short and sweet, and the atmosphere is top notch. The slow-mo mechanic here is being used more as a super power than a reflex mode, which is fun but it makes the game easier than it should have been.
9/10

Noir trash. They lay it on too thick. The gameplay is good despite how old the game is, but the story and the noir narration is beyond overdone.

Another great game by Remedy, with even better mechanics and gameplay! The atmosphere is still incredible, and the story is quite good, though a bit harder to follow (I eventually got it by the end). Great game all around!

MP2 has been one of my Top 10 favourite games for over 20 years now, the core gameplay is fun as hell, the physics engine is goofy/fun as hell & the story is fine as hell.
The game is a continuation of the detective-noir story of Max Payne 1, although somewhat more lighthearted and cinematic than the first one, unlike Max Payne 3 this one has the tone, setting and a lot of the characters from the original.
I recommend this one, 10/10. The game hasn't aged all that bad, the combat-controls still feel great and with mods you can refurbish the feel to suit your needs!

While I'm in no way a fan of the first Max Payne's gameplay AT ALL, at least I got some kind of actual great bombastic story there. Here however, its just a nonsensical garbled mess of events. I think I'd be more tolerant of it, if the tone was way more goofy throughout like with the Baseball Bat Man stuff and the theme park levels. The juxtaposition as it is within the game doesn't feel welcomed whatsoever, but it did actually make me laugh when they were tryin' to.
The actual gameplay is a bit better than the first but not by much. The bloom mechanic is just infuriating. I hated it in the first and really hated that it returned for this installment. I really love being punished by LUCK rather than actual skill 8 times outta 10. I had to get the Accuracy Mod so that I could even stomach this sort of game (honestly made it go from a 4/10 to at least a 6.5/10).
At the end of the day though, I did manage to actually finish it, but just like the first game I'm never going to play it ever again since I'll be too busy continuing to enjoy the real magnum opus, that Max Payne 3 provides, for eternity.

good game beat it on medium while drunk. good times good story 10/10.

One of the best games of the PS2 era... the story, the visuals, the gameplay mechanics, everything about this game is top-tier. Really worth every penny.

Still a masterpiece, but a bit worse than the first part :(

Way ahead of its time it is better than most modern games they need to make a remake!!

One of the best action games out there. First played on original Xbox. This is my 3rd time playing it since its inception on the Xbox. Great story and game/gun play. Love the music as well. Can't wait for the remake come 2025 or 2026 that is rumored to combine both MP 1 and 2 to a cohesive package.

This game will never get old and will be kept in our memories for ever. The theme song is fantastic. It reminds me of my best memories and happy times of my life.

Tough as nails at times but definitely rewarding. It's not better, but it does a lot of things better than the original.

A real gem, long the feather in Remedy's cap, and one of the best sequels ever created.

Sure, this game has a pretty neat story, graphics, gunplay, advanced physics engine that even predates Half-Life 2, but the fact that you can shoot innocent people without reproach is what truly makes it a masterpiece in my eyes.

"Such a nice young man, coming to see an old lady like me."
Press F5
Set her on fire
Reload save
Hit her in the face with a shotgun
Reload save
Blast her across the room with dual Ingrams
Reload save

Also, you can switch playermodels until you find THAT one. You know, the one from the penultimate of the first chapter. I can't think of anything better.

The third person gameplay in this game as well as all max payne games is fun and pleasant. One of the best story games there is and even if how old it will get it will always be a masterpiece. I highly recommend this game and all max payne games.

Game is like the first one but more polished, no glitches or broken features, and there's new gameplay elements that weren't in the first, great game

Psychological linear third person shooter. Your unfriendly neighborhood detective Max Payne. Bleak nights of New York, cleaners with no mops but bombs.
"We are all guilty if you look hard enough."

took what the first game did, and improved on it a lot. beat it 2 days ago, definitely a must play in my opinion :]