While at one point I considered myself a dedicated gamer, a lack of time has pulled me from the medium. For the past five years I’ve probably completed one game a year, and to dedicate the remnants of my hobby, I’ll throw up a review with each game completion.

Attacked by bullets while inside and by rain while stepping out windows, Max Payne is assaulted no matter what path he chooses. As a delisted detective now dealing with the mob, corrupt officers, and the death of a loved one, Max has nowhere left to go to escape the constant assaults on his life. Without escape as an option, Max digs dangerously into his world, uncovering fear, attachment, nostalgia, and half-truths that were once staples of classic mystery stories. In dream-like journeys throughout a gotham New York City, he digs deep into a mysterious woman associated to a series of murders, his own mind, and possibly his own sanity, as a television show’s alternate reality Noir York becomes his own.

Narrated through in-game audio cues, whether it’s in-game characters sharing thoughts in their apartments, or sitcom metaphors spewing out of the televisions, the story of Max Payne develops without the minimal usage of drawn-out cut scenes. As an interactive medium, Max Payne 2 excels by dictating the drama through interactive means: side-stories can be ignored by walking away from televisions, supporting characters tell you about their lives only if you choose to walk with them, and Max uses drugs to slow down time and fight like he’s in The Matrix only if you choose.

While many story-based games lose players by their lack of actual gameplay, Max Payne 2 excels through the use of expertly paced and designed shoot-outs with enemy combatants (humorously often dressed in cleaning service outfits). The combat engine is simple, Max can slow down time to aim at enemies with his automated weapons, while enemies surround him from all sides with their guns shouting bullets. The simplistic gameplay succeeds though through the level scenario design. Each shoot-out takes place with the perfect level layout, sometimes enemies will run down stairs as Max hides behind crumbled walls, other times Max will have to slow-motion his body through hallways while avoiding the storming assault of enemies hiding in doorways. While most shooters reward a player’s trigger finger, Max Payne 2 rewards a player’s ability to measure one’s environment for nearby cover and high-threat locations.

The game’s weaknesses lie in the technology. Compared to today’s Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games, which can depict a player’s personality through animation and subtle facial expressions, Max Payne 2’s characters seem rigid and emotionless. The lack of expressiveness in the characters can sometimes take a toll on the story, which focuses on Max’s challenges with facing a largely personal story. The developers should be given credit for including graphic novel images between levels to push the emotional side of the characters, but between levels is only a small part of the experience, the lack of consistent emotional acting shows that this game may not age well.

Through the game’s final scenes, the player is left with wonder, concern, and curiousity as Max Payne narrates the story’s final moments. When the credits roll, and the player’s mind is left to assemble the final pieces of the story, one might feel genuine sadness in having to put the controller down and put the game back in storage. For a title that’s more story than game, that says a lot.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is available on most platforms. I played through the Xbox version.