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. 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 Payne's surrealistic nightmares and drug-related hallucinations.
Initially, the player's weapon is a semi-automatic pistol. As the game progresses, other weapons become accessible, including melee and hand-thrown weapons. Some weapons can be dual-wielded. Max regains health by taking painkillers, which can be found throughout the levels. The game's AI is dependent on pre-scripted commands: most of the behavior exhibited by enemies (such as taking cover, retreating from the player, or throwing grenades) is pre-scripted.
The gameplay of Max Payne revolves around bullet time, a form of slow-motion — when triggered, the passage of time is slowed down to such extent that the movements of bullets can be seen by the naked eye and enables Max to perform special moves. Although Payne's movement is also slowed, the player is still able to position the aiming reticle and react in real-time, providing an advantage over enemies. Occasionally, when the last character of an enemy group is killed, the viewpoint switches to a third-person view circling a falling body. Likewise, the camera may follow the path of a bullet fired from a sniper rifle.
The "Dead on Arrival" game mode limits the player to only seven saves per chapter, and the "New York Minute" mode forces the player to complete each chapter within the allotted time, which is replenished by killing enemies. Upon completing the game on "Dead on Arrival", the player unlocks "The Last Challenge" ("End Combat" or "Final Battle" in the different versions), featuring a fight in perpetual bullet time against the "Killer Suit" hitmen.
Plot
The story is told in medias res and consists of three volumes: "The American Dream", "A Cold Day in Hell", and "A Bit Closer to Heaven". The game begins in January 2001, as New York City finishes experiencing the worst blizzard in its history. The intro sequence shows Max Payne (James McCaffrey), a renegade DEA agent and former NYPD officer, standing at the top of a skyscraper building as police units arrive. He experiences a flashback from three years ago. Back in August 1998, Max returned home in New Jersey to find that a trio of apparent junkies had broken into his house while high on a new designer drug called Valkyr. Max rushed to aid his family but was too late: his wife (Haviland Morris) and their newborn daughter had already been brutally murdered, much to his devastation. After their funeral, Payne transferred to the DEA.
Two and a half years later, Max is employed as an undercover operative inside the Punchinello Mafia family responsible for the trafficking of Valkyr. His DEA colleague B.B. gives Max a message asking him to meet Alex Balder (Chris Phillips), his handler and best friend, in a subway station at Roscoe Street. Max's arrival at the subway results in a shoot-out after he encounters mobsters working for Jack Lupino, a Mafia underboss in the Punchinello crime family, attempting a bank robbery by breaking through from the station. Working his way back to the surface, Max encounters Alex, who is killed by an unknown assassin. Payne becomes the prime suspect in Alex's murder because he is still undercover to the media and the fact that he fled the crime scene. Additionally, the Mafia find out that he is a cop and want him dead.
While searching for Lupino in businesses owned by him, Max busts a Valkyr drug deal and discovers that the Russian mobster Vladimir Lem is engaged in a fierce turf war against Punchinello's men. While searching, Max gets a phone call from a man named Alfred Woden, stating that the police have been tipped off as to his location, and he escapes. Max eventually finds Vinnie Gognitti, Lupino's right-hand man; he wounds and chases Gognitti through the city and learns the location of Lupino's hideout, a nightclub named Ragna Rock. After gunning down the insane Lupino, Payne meets Mona Sax (Julia Murney), a contract assassin, who pours him a drink which turns out to be laced with a sedative. In this state, Max is found by the Mafia and is dragged away to be tortured.
Max manages to escape from the Mafia-owned slaughterhouse and enters a brief alliance with Lem. He agrees to kill one of Vladimir's traitors, Boris Dime, and his men aboard the cargo ship Charon at the Brooklyn waterfront. The ship is carrying a shipment of high-powered firearms belonging to the Russian mob, which Max keeps in exchange for the favor. After surviving a bomb ambush at the Mafia restaurant Casa di Angelo, Max uses the Russian weapons to storm the residence of Don Angelo Punchinello. There he finds the body of Lisa Punchinello, Mona's sister, and discovers that the Don is only a puppet in the Valkyr market when the mafioso is killed in front of Payne by agents of Nicole Horne (Jane Gennaro), the ruthless CEO of the Aesir Corporation. Horne injects Max with an overdose of Valkyr and leaves him for dead, as he experiences a drug-induced nightmare and suffers internal torment from his feelings of guilt for not being able to save his family.
After surviving the overdose and awakening, Payne pursues his only lead to a steel foundry located over a hidden underground military research complex. Inside he discovers that Valkyr is the result of the Valhalla Project, an early 1990s U.S. military attempt to improve soldiers' stamina and morale following earlier Ladder experiments; the project was sharply halted due to poor results but was later secretly restarted by Horne through Aesir. He discovers that his wife accidentally found out about the project, and Horne let loose the crazed Valkyr test subjects into his house. Aesir initiates "Operation Dead Eyes" to get rid of evidence and witnesses, including their scientists. Max escapes the bunker at the last moment just as it self-destructs.
Max gets a call from B.B., who arranges a meeting at an underground parking lot. At this point, Max has already figured out that it was B.B. who shot Alex and framed him for his murder. The meeting turns out to be an ambush, and a running gun-fight commences as Max chases B.B. through the garage. After killing the traitor, Max gets another phone call from Woden asking him to come to the Asgard Building. Alfred reveals himself to be part of a powerful secret society called the Inner Circle, which has strong ties to the U.S. government. The Inner Circle members inform Max about Horne's identity but cannot pursue her themselves because "their hands are tied". They ask Max to kill Horne in exchange for dropping any criminal charges against him. Suddenly, Asgard is overrun by Aesir gunmen who kill everyone in the meeting room except for Max, who escapes, and Woden, who pretends to be shot. Max has to fight his way out of the building.
Max arrives at the main office of Aesir Corporation and makes his way through the high-tech security building while avoiding strafing runs by a minigun-armed helicopter. Along the way, he runs into Mona again in an elevator, but Horne's men shoot her in the head after she refuses to kill Max; her body vanishes when Max goes back to the elevator. At the top Max confronts Horne, who escapes to the roof and boards the helicopter. Max shoots the guy wires of the building's antenna, which snaps off and crashes into the helicopter, killing Horne. The game's storyline arrives at the point where it first started: the NYPD ESU arrives at the scene, arresting Max and leading him out of the Aesir building, where he sees Woden. Knowing that Woden will ensure his safe passage through the judicial system, Max smiles.
