Hot Mods 26/12 - Max Payne

26 Dec 2008 at 13:14:36 by Spanner Spencer

Maybe the movie adaptation didn’t pan out all that well, but it doesn’t change the fact that Max Payne – the game – marked a seminal moment in entertainment history.

It could easily be accused of demonstrating a complex and unfocused mish-mash of genres and concepts – thrown together in an attempt to appeal to as many gaming demographics as possible. It took the bullet-time feature recently made popular by The Matrix, and used it to make the bulk of the John Woo-style shoot outs manageable with a mouse and keyboard.

But the inherent sci-fi nature of The Matrix mechanics were shed, replaced instead by an apparently unsuitable Mickey Spillane-esque noir detective story complete with the transparently tough main character Max Payne. Norse mythology then provided the completely unrelated narrative backbone to this bizarre amalgam of pop culture themes.

The result, however, worked beautifully and without apology. Since then, this bubbling crock pot of contemporary themes has made Max Payne the perfect foundations for a host of equally imaginative mods – blending gaming styles from horror to fantasy into the high-octane gameplay mechanics that made the source game such a success.

So this week we decided to celebrate Max Payne as you’ve never seen him before. Forget the movie and delve into the mods.

THE MODS:

Katana

Although Max never really got his fists and feet involved – relying more heavily on gun play to do his talking – lots of modders have realised the hand-to-hand fighting potential the game engine is loaded with. Katana exploits this possibility beautifully, providing a total conversion that’s been called ‘The love child of Max Payne and Kill Bill’. Quite rightly, too.

The mod is very much a story-driven game, following an assassin’s attempt to leave the clandestine order he no longer wishes to be a part of. There’s only one way to part company with this band of brigands, however, and that’s by shuffling off the mortal coil.

Much of the gun fighting has been replaced with sword play and hand-to-hand combat, which makes a huge difference to the gameplay as the close quarters action means our assassin must use his bullet time abilities to take on multiple assailants all at once – something Max generally didn’t have to worry about. Of particular note in Katana is the awesome and atmospheric soundtrack that’s worth listening to even when you’re not playing.

The Katana mod also provided the foundations for another Max Payne mod currently in the works, which you can learn more about in the One to Watch section at the end.

Comment