Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (PlayStation 2, 2003)

In today's standards of video games, I don't think this game would rate that high at all. It's a good game, I'll give you that, but there are too many little things that would make me rate this game above 3/5. It's just a fun bullet-time 3rd person shooting action game but with its errors, it's a mediocre experience at best. Well, with no further ado, let's go into pros and cons of the game.

PROS
1. Improved bullet time. The meter increases the more you hit enemies
2. easy controls, for the most part
3. good voice acting, for the most part
4. fun weapons from malakov cocktail to MP5 to Dragnov to pump-action shotgun
5. new fun modes (only unlocked after you beat the game in Detective mode) such as Dead Man Walking (try to survive in a hellish scenario as long as you can), harder difficulties, New York Minute mode
6. good story (though first max payne had better storyline)
7. comedic television shows. mostly adult humor though. also lots of funny stuff aside from the main plot
8. just pure action fun. great way to blow off stress

CONS
1. frustrating camera rotation some times, esp. in important battles
2. no auto-save. For example, if you didn't MANUALLY save after finishing Ch. 1 and you die in Ch. 3, you go back to your last MANUAL save. God, Max Payne 1 had auto-save, why not this game?!!!
3. linear paths, very very linear
4. on harder difficulties, A.I is crazy. Not smart, just crazy regarding their accuracy and their evasion skills. Imagine 007 Goldeneye with A.I. tuned up to 100% difficulty
5. the load time. God, the load time... That's why I stopped playing hard difficulty because once you die, you have to suffer a load time that would make you wait in line for hotdogs instead of waiting for the last savepoint to load.
6. compared to today's standards, graphics are horrific and ugly. This game was lucky I cared more about gameplay than graphics because otherwise, I wouldn't have give this game more than 2 minutes.

Well, so that's what I have to say about the game. It's a good game, don't get me wrong, but those little flaws could get you. So decide for yourself if you want this game or not. Personally, I think if you want a Max Payne game, get the first game instead. The sequel really makes you want this to be the last game of the series. It sure made me hope that this game resulted in the FALL of the max Payne series.