Remedy's stylish third-person shooter clung tightly to a few major cliches of its own when it strutted into our lives back in 2001. The gunplay-heavy third-person action, the brooding neo-noir style, the grizzled protagonist, these were narrative and game design elements we had seen many times before. But Max Payne had an ace in the hole, a neat trick which instantly shot this moody shooter from zero to hero. We're talking, of course, about bullet time. How many times in your gaming life have you run into a room full of terrorists, shot them one by one, and then scurried on? Like, a bazillion times, right? But when Max Payne arrived, it was different - until you've charged headfirst through a double swing-door with an Uzi in each hand, spun around, jumped backwards to slide along the office counter on your back, still firing endlessly from both weapons, only to come to a rest lying on the carpet, empty magazines clicking in yours hands, dead bodies everywhere, papers and bits of broken furniture scattered in the air... until then, you haven't lived. This time-warp mechanic had been toyed with before, but Remedy absolutely nailed it with Max Payne and its sequels. Now it's everywhere - the slow-motion run'n'gun angle has been slotted into so many shooters (both first- and third-person) that we barely even notice it anymore. Call Of Juarez, FEAR, Red Dead Redemption, TimeShift... good, bad and ugly games have tried to cash in on the magic of Remedy's most successful franchise.
Game-obsessed since the moment I could twiddle both thumbs independently. Equally enthralled by all the genres of music that your parents warned you about.
