Game:

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003)

Category:

Walkthrough

Duration: 3:11:03

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2

Plot
Two years after the events of the first game, Max Payne (voiced by James McCaffrey) has been reinstated in his old job as a police detective for the NYPD. One night, he is called on to investigate a gunfight at a warehouse owned by his old ally, Russian mobster Vladimir Lem (Jonathan Davis), who has since become a wealthy and powerful crime boss. Max discovers that the warehouse was attacked by a group of hitmen called "the Cleaners", and is surprised to run into Mona Sax (Wendy Hoopes), who he thought had died two years ago. He then heads to a restaurant owned by Lem and rescues him from their mutual enemy Vinnie Gognitti (Fred Berman), who has since become the underboss of the New York Mafia. Lem claims that Gognitti is trying to monopolize the black market gun trade and sees Lem as a threat. After evading an attack by the Cleaners in his apartment, Max tracks Mona to an abandoned funhouse and learns that the Cleaners are after anyone who knows about the secret society, the Inner Circle. While attempting to track down a contact, Mona is arrested and taken to the police station, despite Max's protests.

While at the station, Max overhears his new partner, Valerie Winterson (Jennifer Server), talking on the phone about Mona. The station is attacked by the Cleaners, who are looking for Mona. Mona breaks out of her cell, and after fighting off the Cleaners, she and Max begin hunting down the people responsible for the attack. Their search leads them to a construction site, where Max and Mona are again attacked by the Cleaners. After they leave, Winterson arrives and holds Mona at gunpoint. Mona claims that Winterson is there to kill her, while Winterson insists that she is simply trying to arrest a fleeing fugitive. After several moments of consideration, Max fatally shoots Winterson, allowing Mona to escape. Before she dies, Winterson shoots Max, hospitalizing him.[5]

The Cleaners raid the hospital building looking for Max, but he manages to fight his way out. He visits Senator Alfred Woden (John Braden), the leader of the Inner Circle, who reveals that Lem is his former protégé and hired the Cleaners to kill Gognitti and Woden, so that he could secure control of both the criminal underground and the Inner Circle. Max raids Lem's restaurant, killing several of his henchmen, and discovers that Winterson was Lem's mistress. He races to Gognitti's hideout to save him from Lem, and the two flee to Mona's funhouse hoping that she can help them, but Lem ambushes them. He reveals that Mona is a hired gun for Woden, with orders to kill Lem and Max. Lem murders Gognitti and shoots Max, leaving him for dead. Mona rescues Max, and together, they go to Woden's mansion to save him from Lem.[5]

At the mansion, Mona knocks Max to the ground in an attempt to follow her orders to kill him, but discovers that her feelings for him prevent her from doing so. Realizing Mona will not kill Max, Lem shoots her, then kills Woden when he confronts him. Recovering, Max fights Lem as the mansion burns around them, and eventually kills him. As the police arrive at the scene, Max returns to the wounded Mona, who dies in his arms.[5] In an alternate ending unlocked on the highest difficulty, Mona survives, and she and Max kiss.
Gameplay
Max Payne 2 is a third-person shooter, in which the player assumes the role of Max Payne, and plays as Mona Sax in a few levels.[1] Initially, the player's weapon is a 9mm pistol. As they progress, players access weapons including other handguns, shotguns, submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and hand-thrown weapons. To move the game along, the player is told what the next objective is through Max's internal monologue, in which Max iterates what his next steps should be.[2]

When first played, the game offers one difficulty level that is adjusted automatically if the game is too difficult for the player. For example, if the player's character dies too many times, the enemies' artificial intelligence is made less effective, while more health in the form of painkillers is made available. After completing the game once, other difficulty levels are unlocked.[3] Two special game modes are also activated: New York Minute and Dead Man Walking. In New York Minute, the player is given a score based on the time taken to complete each level. The Dead Man Walking mode places Max in one of five scenarios, in which he must survive for as long as possible while fighting off endlessly respawning enemies.[4]

Max Payne 2 allows the player to enable bullet time, a mode that slows time, while still allowing the player to aim in real-time, to give the player more time to determine what they want to do. In this mode, the screen's color changes to a sepia tone to act as a visual cue. When in use, the bullet time meter will decrease until it is either empty or the player disables bullet time mode. The meter will eventually increase when not in use, and can be replenished quickly by killing enemies.

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