Max Payne, as far as I'm concerned, was more than just a fantastic game, it was a trendsetter. Game Developers started noticing that thick, intense plotlines should be a hell of a lot more integral to the over all experience, and most of the respectable big, high-budget games after MP1 started following suit. Not to say Max Payne was the first game to implement a plotline as immersive as it was, but it was probably the first to really bring it into the limelight as a primary ideal.
Yeah, or maybe it simply told other developers "hey, this bullet-time mechanic is pretty neat!!!"
Are you people serious? My friend and I played through Max Payne 2 on one of the harder difficulties and we were getting frustrated at the terrible A.I. just as much as we were laughing at the horrendous dialogue and writing. Not corny/cheesy? What in the Hell did you people play? "HELLO?! MONA?!" is an inside joke of ours.
Watch the cutscenes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTBrgxiWm7A
These are painful to listen to. "The past is a gaping hole. You try to run from it, but the more you run, the deeper, more terrible it grows behind you, its edges yawning at your heels. Your only chance is to turn around and face it. But its like looking down into the grave of your love. Or kissing the mouth of a gun, a bullet trembling in its dark nest, ready to blow your head off." OK, so that was a bit long-winded.
"I was hurt. My crime, what I had done, was like a hungry pit behind me." Max, OK, we get it, the past... it's like a hole that keeps growing. "I had to run, get as far away from it as possible." Or face it, right? "You can't run from your past. You'll end up running in circles." Yeah, so you have to face it! "Until you fall back down to the same hole you were trying to escape from, only the hole's grown deeper." What?! "The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror, as you piece it together, you cut yourself, your image keeps shifting, and you change with it." AHHHH!!!
I think my favorite part of the game is when Max gets trapped under rubble and you have to snipe enemies that are rushing toward him as Mona. They just run up to a defenseless Max until they're like a foot away before shooting him. The stupidity of the scenario in general had me cracking up the entire time.
People will latch onto anything underrated just to be unique, I guess.
