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Max Payne Review for Game Boy Advance (GBA)
Posted on Sunday, January 11, 2004 @ 04:36:13 am E.S.THandheld games of this genre shouldn’t be this good. We’ve seen other isometric games for the GBA, like the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series and 007: Everything or Nothing, and while these games are good in their own little way, they don’t really stand out or make you say “wow!”. Well Max Payne, developed by Mobius Entertainment, does just that. The game, Published by Rockstar—the people who brought you the Grand Theft Auto series—delivers a world full of action, excitement, and an arsenal of bad-ass guns. The M on the box isn’t there for nothing, either. Max Payne is one of the few Mature games on the GBA, and that’s for good reason: it’s packed with plenty of blood and gore and intense adult-friendly dialog.
Max Payne's gameplay is unreal. You will, no doubt, be absolutely astonished with how well Mobius Entertainment created this action-shooter title. Since this is on a tiny GBA screen, using the semi-weak GBA hardware, your initial thought may be that this game couldn’t possibly be as good of an experience as the original 3-D version. However, it’s just as good and, dare I say, better. You’ll be able to run and jump as Max, and while the controls take about 15 minutes or so to get used to (I actually had to remap my D-pad keys) once you get the hang of it you’ll be takin’ out baddies like there’s no tomorrow. Mr. Payne is also very agile, for being on a GBA; he can roll to dodge and even dive in slow-motion to take out multiple targets at once. The nifty auto-aim system will always be nice to you, so a good 90% of the time you’ll hit the target you were aiming for.
You have an arsenal of over 13 different weapons to control, which is more than enough to complete the game and still have a little extra fun. Also, real-time damage can be done to almost every item and wall that surrounds you. When a bullet is shot at a wall, the wall chips off and leaves a bullet hole remaining. If you chuck a grenade at a wooden crate, it gets blown to pieces. However, if decimating your surroundings isn’t your cup of tea, feel free to know that you can still react with almost any item on screen. You can turn on showers, flush toilets; you can even play an entire drum set that maps the Game Boy buttons as different percussion instruments. And as for enemies, well, wherever you shoot one, a realistic blood splatter will appear behind and below your target.
If you’ve ever played the original version of Max Payne, you already know how our dear friend, Max, has this nice little ability to slow down time, or rather, go into Bullet-Time mode. The gameplay, without a doubt, revolves around using Bullet-Time to your benefit. When you’re in slow-mo mode, it’s almost impossible for the enemies to hit you, and of course the exact opposite goes for you. Unfortunately, you can’t stay in Bullet-Time forever because you have a little hour-glass gauge that goes down the more you use slow-mo, and goes up the more kills you get. Since this game revolves around using Max's ability so much, it's obviously a wonderful experience. Going into Bullet-Time mode is what makes this game more than just an action shooter and is why the name "Max Payne" will be remembered in gaming history.
Graphically, this is best game of its class on Game Boy yet. The character models don’t look like something an infant created out of Play-Doh, like most GBA rendering attempts, but, in fact, look realistic and crisp. Even the stage maps are presented with depth, making it hard to get confused if one level of floor is higher than the other. There is slight slowdown every so often, but that’s the game just proving to you how much it’s making the GBA hardware work. In the options mode, there’s also a Brightness control, which is uncommon for handheld titles. Unfortunately, one of the only problems with Max Payne is the camera. You’ll constantly find yourself wondering where you’re being shot from, because the small GBA screen might not be showing you all of the enemies in the area. This becomes frustrating when you’re running and shooting in random directions, praying that you’ll eventually hit the desired target (which, with the auto-aim feature, won’t be too difficult).
An amazing attribute of this game is the fact that the entire cut-scene dialog is both spoken and written, and with over 40 minutes of cut-scene goodness, that’s a lot of great voice acting to listen to. Though the dialog is slightly fuzzy, due to the Game Boy Advance’s hardware, it’s still amazing that Mobius Entertainment somehow fit that number of sound files onto a small cartridge. The background music isn’t too bad either, and even slows down when you use Bullet-Time mode. Every weapon also has a different sound effect that is surprisingly well done. Also, if you’re not fond of either the sound effects or music, there are volume controls in the options menus for both.
As for replay value, that’s another one of the only aspects of the game that’s not perfect. Once you beat the game, which is only a meager 12 missions long, you unlock two more modes that are basically “medium” and “hard” mode. The odds are, because of the rockin’ gameplay, you’ll play through the entire game at least twice, and you’ll have favorite missions you’ll visit. Still, with all this being said, when you skip through all the cut-scenes it still remains an, overall, short game. A cool feature that will keep you occupied for a couple hours is the fact that once you beat the game the whole way through, you unlock a cheat menu that will give you invincibility (link to video), all guns, and infinite ammo to mess around with. When it’s all said and done, Max Payne is one of the top titles for the Game Boy Advance around. Anyone who owns a GBA should pick up this game, and any fan of Max Payne who hasn’t got Nintendo’s handheld should purchase one just so they can experience the top portable action game to date. Review By: Dacvak - 5191 Reads
Max Payne Review Scores for GBA :
| Gameplay |
| 9.8 |
| Graphics |
| 9.1 |
| Sound |
| 8.5 |
| Replay |
| 7.4 |
| Overall |
| 9.2 |
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