A story-driven cinematic third-person shooter game
Max Payne is a very story-driven third-person shooter game with action elements. Started by Remedy Entertainment, it is now a RockStar property, who are best known for Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the later Max Payne games.
You play as a fugitive undercover cop who was framed for murder. He is now hunted by cops and the mob, and you have to solve the mystery while surviving this twisty story-driven game. The gore and violence are very intentional with a view to being realistic. This, along with its mature themes, is why this game is rated as an 18 for adult.
The sheer number of cutscenes is very jarring and often takes away from the action adventure side of the game. The developers were trying for a cinematic experience, but the stop-start gameplay is intolerable for many players.
Why is Max Payne on so many worst lists?
If you alter your expectations going in, and think of it as more of a cinematic novel with snippets of action gameplay, then the game holds up pretty well.
Is Max Payne available on mobiles?
There are several iterations of the Max Payne game, meaning there are mobile games, but it is best known as a console game and a PC game.
As a game that is now decades old, it is able to run on a wider variety of systems because it does not demand as much processing power or RAM as more modern games.
Is Max Payne still worth playing?
The barrage of cut-scenes and game-slowing elements wore thin on the audience when this action game was released. However, we now live in an era where triple-A games are very hollow and generic. As a result, the more creative story rich and auteur-driven style of Max Payne fairs infinitely better.
If you want to go back to an era when games were made to tell a story, then this has a retro noir narrative that may be distracting, but is in stark contrast to what is on offer right now.