A sequel that very much rings more hollow than the iconic first instalment in terms of its narrative, but makes up for it in spades with small but absolutely essential upgrades to the gameplay that leaves it a lesser, but still worthy follow-up.
Now, that's not to say that I consider the story in this game to be bad, by any stretch. The steps the narrative takes to follow on from the first game is to be commended - my issues lie in the style of which this second outing is presented. The comic book cutscenes remain, but the writing comes across as less snappy - the metaphors are heavily toned down and James McCaffrey's line reads are far dryer, with less of the biting cynicism and more of a cold emptiness. In-game cutscenes are animated in better quality, but lose the pseudo-cinematic direction of the original. Most of all, the story itself is a deeply personal one, to Max himself, rather than the conspiracies of the original he found himself tangled up in - no longer as much of a throwback to the noir crime dramas the original game was a loving homage to.
To put it simply, this felt like a sequel that was never expected to happen, and becomes something different. But that's not to say different is bad.
While the story still remains interesting - certain odd choices and flashbacks/flashforwards aside - it's the gameplay that forms the star attraction this time around, and just as well, because Remedy brought their A-game. Movement feels much smoother (aside from the weird jumping that brings you to a dead stop mid-air like a cartoon character, not sure what's up with that), the shooting is more responsive, the quicksave adaptive difficulty bug brings enemy reflexes and accuracy back down to sane levels. Bullet time is also overhauled, making it less about dodging the slowed-down bullets and more about landing more shots before the goons can fire back, and the bullet-dodge is finally not mapped to the same button as regular bullet time, a big problem from 1. You even get a very cool spin-around fast reload animation, to further incentivise usage.
With all of 1's worst elements addressed and fixed, 2 does not stop there - ragdoll and physics objects are implemented throughout and Remedy have a lot of fun with how they're presented. Certain enemies get a special slow-mo killcam as their body violently descends off of a sheer drop, hitting multiple objects on their way down or landing in a trashcan. The physics objects are mainly just there to look cool, but holy shit for a 2003 game, they blew me away. Little pieces of debris from an explosion slowly falling over as you nudge them really adds so much to so many setpieces, but Remedy wisely stop short of making them any kind of important gameplay mechanic - I mean, this was post-Trespasser and pre-Half Life 2, so I guess that makes a lot of sense.
Level design is far more enjoyable than 1, with surprisingly large-scale areas to engage in combat in, and a lot of entertaining side details to explore or ignore at your leisure. Guard conversations, unread answer machine messages that add extra story details and those random TV shows that have become Remedy tradition from what I've heard. The AI is also very well-made, aggressively chasing the player when you take cover, diving for cover when being shot at themselves, and lobbing grenades and/or molotovs; although their aim is a little haphazard.
My major complaint, if I have to be honest, is the difficulty; I feel like I breezed through the first chapter, and it's to be expected due to one baffling decision: forcing the first playthrough to be on Easy. I don't know if they were afraid of game journalists or something, but whatever the case the game sadly bombed in terms of sales anyway, putting the series on the back burner for a good long time until Rockstar went it alone with Max Payne 3: although given the story in 2, perhaps it would have been better had the series moved on peacefully. I'll just have to see what it brings to the table once I've played it.
So, at the end of the day, the story? I think it's a little worse. The gameplay? Much, much better. Absolute must for third-person shooter fans, or honestly just videogame enjoyers in general.
Now, that's not to say that I consider the story in this game to be bad, by any stretch. The steps the narrative takes to follow on from the first game is to be commended - my issues lie in the style of which this second outing is presented. The comic book cutscenes remain, but the writing comes across as less snappy - the metaphors are heavily toned down and James McCaffrey's line reads are far dryer, with less of the biting cynicism and more of a cold emptiness. In-game cutscenes are animated in better quality, but lose the pseudo-cinematic direction of the original. Most of all, the story itself is a deeply personal one, to Max himself, rather than the conspiracies of the original he found himself tangled up in - no longer as much of a throwback to the noir crime dramas the original game was a loving homage to.
To put it simply, this felt like a sequel that was never expected to happen, and becomes something different. But that's not to say different is bad.
While the story still remains interesting - certain odd choices and flashbacks/flashforwards aside - it's the gameplay that forms the star attraction this time around, and just as well, because Remedy brought their A-game. Movement feels much smoother (aside from the weird jumping that brings you to a dead stop mid-air like a cartoon character, not sure what's up with that), the shooting is more responsive, the quicksave adaptive difficulty bug brings enemy reflexes and accuracy back down to sane levels. Bullet time is also overhauled, making it less about dodging the slowed-down bullets and more about landing more shots before the goons can fire back, and the bullet-dodge is finally not mapped to the same button as regular bullet time, a big problem from 1. You even get a very cool spin-around fast reload animation, to further incentivise usage.
With all of 1's worst elements addressed and fixed, 2 does not stop there - ragdoll and physics objects are implemented throughout and Remedy have a lot of fun with how they're presented. Certain enemies get a special slow-mo killcam as their body violently descends off of a sheer drop, hitting multiple objects on their way down or landing in a trashcan. The physics objects are mainly just there to look cool, but holy shit for a 2003 game, they blew me away. Little pieces of debris from an explosion slowly falling over as you nudge them really adds so much to so many setpieces, but Remedy wisely stop short of making them any kind of important gameplay mechanic - I mean, this was post-Trespasser and pre-Half Life 2, so I guess that makes a lot of sense.
Level design is far more enjoyable than 1, with surprisingly large-scale areas to engage in combat in, and a lot of entertaining side details to explore or ignore at your leisure. Guard conversations, unread answer machine messages that add extra story details and those random TV shows that have become Remedy tradition from what I've heard. The AI is also very well-made, aggressively chasing the player when you take cover, diving for cover when being shot at themselves, and lobbing grenades and/or molotovs; although their aim is a little haphazard.
My major complaint, if I have to be honest, is the difficulty; I feel like I breezed through the first chapter, and it's to be expected due to one baffling decision: forcing the first playthrough to be on Easy. I don't know if they were afraid of game journalists or something, but whatever the case the game sadly bombed in terms of sales anyway, putting the series on the back burner for a good long time until Rockstar went it alone with Max Payne 3: although given the story in 2, perhaps it would have been better had the series moved on peacefully. I'll just have to see what it brings to the table once I've played it.
So, at the end of the day, the story? I think it's a little worse. The gameplay? Much, much better. Absolute must for third-person shooter fans, or honestly just videogame enjoyers in general.