Critically analyze your favourite game?.
Updated: Aug 2, 2018
In this blog I will be discussing my favourite game; Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. Briefly speaking, Max Payne 2 is a third-person shooter and a dramatized action thriller game and the first game to introduce bullet time effect and on-air combat.
In this blog I will be discussing my favorite game; Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. Briefly speaking, Max Payne 2 is a third-person shooter and a dramatized action thriller game and the first game to introduce bullet time effect and on-air combat.
On analyzing the genre of the game, we can see that its made from a mix of elements from other genres like noir, action, psychological thriller, gothic, gritty and crime.The story of this game is a continuation to the story of the game Max Payne 1. In the game, the story is presented to the viewer using vocal narration, dramatic, animated cutscenes and using comic book pages with sound effects, background music and ambience.
The presentation and pacing of the story are in such a way as to develop suspense, confusion and misjudgment at the max. Frequent use and association of melancholic ambient music help in the stronger injection of emotion to the audience. We can clearly see that the game took the art of properly setting the colour scheme too seriously. The colour scheme is set in such a way to make the scenes look duller. Which also helps in giving more emphasis to the bleak tale of Max Payne.
The story is neo-noir in nature which is all about a man becoming broken, a detective-cop turning rouge, the living turning dead.The story, in brief, is about a successful cop turning rouge after his wife and the baby girl being killed by a gang of junkies who were under the influence of the drug called Valkyrie, a designer drug developed by Aesir Corporation.Blazing with vengeance and to quench the hunger for truth Max Payne joins D.E.A. to hunt down the drug dealers and the mafia, but it was all just the tip of an iceberg. The story beneath getting labyrinth and confusing.
Max Payne fueled by revenge goes after everyone who he thinks is the cause of the murder of his family, which stains his record and reputation at D.E.A.
Getting into the depths of the matter, Alfred Wouden (the one-eyed senator) tell him that the murder of his family was plotted by Nicole Horne, C.E.O of Aesir Corporation, the drug company who developed the experimental drug Valkyrie.
Max Payne goes and kills the C.E.O of Aesir Corporation with the help of info provided by Alfred Wooden.
Max Payne goes to jail. Alfred Wouden helps him to be free from the case and Max joins back in N.Y.P.D. In Max Payne 2 the story is about Max Payne going after a case and finally getting involved in the war between two fractions in the masonic inner-circle. Max falls in love with Moana Sax (Russian Mafiosi and an assassin) who works for Alfred Wouden, assigned to kill Vladimir Lem (Russian Mafioso and a member of inner-circle).
Not knowing the play beneath, Max fights Alfred Wouden's agents and helps Vlad. Max realizes the plot only when it was too late. Max goes to Alfred. Vlad kills both Alfred and Mona. Vlad reveals Max the truth behind the murder of his family. Max fights Vlad and kills him. The police rush in, finds Max standing beside the dead body of Mona, barely alive.
(poets of the fall, 2008)
When the game ends, "The song "Late Goodbye" can be heard during the end credits in its entirety, and there are also modified snippets of it audible amidst some of the actual gaming sequences. The song and the group were awarded first prize at the annual GANG (Game Audio Network Guild) ceremony, which was televised on MTV and on the US G4TV channel." (Collins, 2008, p. 27)
Reflection
The topic for this blog appeared quite interesting to me because here I got the opportunity to analyze the game that I like the most. Though I was a fan of this franchise for a long time, on learning more and deeper about the subject, I was able to understand and figure out more connections and correlations between the story and the art style used in the game. Researching on this topic give me an idea of how to write a story with more depth and darker meanings. I was able to appreciate and see several hidden layer underneath the blunt surface of a well written story like Max Payne. if you see the writer had made many references from Norse mythology in the story ,For example the head of the inner circle cult, the "one-eyed" senator is named Alfred "Woden", relating him to the All-Father Odin the Norse god.
References
Collins, K. M. (Ed.). (2008). From pac-man to pop music: interactive audio in
games and new media. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Max and Mona conversation. (n.d). [Digital Image]. Retrieved from
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366758/mediaviewer/rm2125586432
poets of the fall (official). (2008, July, 15). Poets of The Fall- Late Goodbye
(Official Video w/Lyrics) [Video File]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzsiE44Lz_w
pressakey.com. (2011). Max Payne 2 - 55413 [Digital Image]. Retrieved from
http://bit.ly/ 2mlgvbH