Game:

Max Payne (2001)

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Max Payne is a BAFTA award winning third-person shooter video game developed by Remedy Entertainment, produced by 3D Realms and published by Gathering of Developers in July, 2001 for Windows. Ports later in the year for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 were published by Rockstar Games. A Macintosh port was published in July 2002 by MacSoft in North America and Feral Interactive in the rest of the World. There were plans for a Dreamcast version of Max Payne, but they were canceled due to the discontinuation of the console.

Max Payne is one of the first video games to incorporate "bullet time" into its gameplay, made famous by The Matrix trilogy, as gunplay allows for slowing down of time to dodge bullets. The game features a distinct gritty film noir spirit and uses graphic novel panels in place of cut scenes to narrate the game. Max Payne is heavily influenced by the Hong Kong action cinema genre, particularly the work of director John Woo, as well as hard-boiled detective novels by authors like Mickey Spillane. Having been developed by the Finnish company Remedy, the game contains many allusions to Norse mythology, particularly Ragnarok, and several of the names used in the game (Alfred Woden, Alex Balder, Aesir Corporation, Asgard Building, Valkyr) are those of the Norse gods and mythos.

Max Payne received very positive reviews from critics and was praised for its exciting gunplay and use of noir storytelling devices. A sequel called Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne was released in 2003. As of March 12, 2008, the Max Payne franchise has sold over 7 million copies according to Take-Two Interactive.

In March 2009, Rockstar Games announced Max Payne 3 to be released in Winter of 2009. It will be available on PC, PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.

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