Max Payne is awesome! With excellent graphics and great panache, it tells the film-noir like story of a desperate cop-turned-outlaw looking for revenge for the murder of his wife and kid. But the plot isn't what people care about in action game, typically. The gameplay is a whole different story. The game is third-person perspective, and you guide trench-coat clad Max through a variety of shady urban settings, wreaking havoc and laying waste to all Bad Dudes in your path. You have at your disposal a variety of realistic weapons and a little mechanic called "bullet time." Bullet time is meter that fills up the more bad guys you kill. When you activate bullet time, the game slows down to a slow-motion pace, allowing you to dodge bullets and pull of awesome acrobatic stunts. This adds another level of depth to action games, and is quite fun to experiment with. My only complaints are that dialogue is wrought with trite poetry, and the graphics, while awesome, are sometimes a little awkward. I give it a five out of five.
