Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up... an orphan. Max Payne had a hard childhood thanks to his alcoholic mother and traumatized Vietnam veteran father. They both died while he was still young. He did love his grandfather, though.
Living... in New York. During the '80s, after joining the New York Police Department, Max started building a life in the city and living his own “American Dream.” He married Michelle and bought a house in the New Jersey suburbs.
Profession... undercover DEA agent. Max was eventually promoted to detective, and worked on some high-profile cases. But after a drug-related attack on his family, he joined the DEA to get revenge.
Interests… drugs. Later in life, as Max began to fall apart, he developed crippling drug addictions, mostly to painkillers.
Relationship Status... widower. Michelle was the love of Max’s life, and being married to her made him the happiest he had ever been. However, after a home invasion leaves both her and their baby daughter Rose dead, Max is shattered. The only woman he has now is femme fatale Mona Sax.
Challenge... cracking the Valkyr case. Whoever was behind the murder of Max’s family is affiliated with the mysterious “Valkyr” drug epidemic. So that’s the mystery Max must solve. But with the Mafia pursuing him, as well as the police after he is framed for the death of his own partner, finding the answers won’t be easy.
Personality... vengeful. To Max, there is no more meaning to his life beyond getting revenge for the death of his family. However, when he does eventually achieve this, he is left adrift, purposeless, and even worse off. As he says, “There are two types of people: those who spend their lives trying to build a future, and those who spend their lives trying to rebuild the past.”
Get to Know him in...
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Coming together to solve a series of murders in New York City are a DEA agent whose family was slain as part of a conspiracy and an assassin out to avenge her sister's death. The duo will be hunted by the police, the mob, and a ruthless corporation.
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For Max Payne, the tragedies that took his loved ones years ago are wounds that refuse to heal. No longer a cop, close to washed up and addicted to pain killers, Max takes a job in Sao Paulo, Brazil, protecting the family of wealthy real estate mogul Rodrigo Branco, in an effort to finally escape his troubled past. But as events spiral out of his control, Max Payne finds himself alone on the streets of an unfamiliar city, desperately searching for the truth and fighting for a way out.
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Max Payne 2 is a third-person shooter, in which the player assumes the role of Max Payne, but also plays as Mona Sax in a few levels. Initially, the player's weapon is a 9mm pistol. As they progress, players access other 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.
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Max Payne is a third-person shooter in which the player assumes the role of its titular character, Max Payne. Almost all the gameplay involves bullet time-based gun-fights and levels are generally straightforward, occasionally incorporating platforming and puzzle-solving elements. The game's storyline is advanced by the player following Max's internal monologue as the character determines what his next steps should be. Several of the game's levels involve surrealistic nightmares and drug-related hallucinations of Payne.
