10 Video Game Sidekicks Who Kicked Your Ass
6. Vladimir Lem - Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne
In the first Max Payne, Russian mobster Vladimir Lem is a relatively minor character who nevertheless enters into a partnership with Max, exchanging information, weapons, and so on.
In the sequel, however, Lem has a much larger role, where it's eventually revealed that this otherwise charming Russian mobster has become an over-ambitious tyrant, with designs of controlling New York's entire criminal underbelly.
And eventually, this leads to Lem attempting to kill Max in order to tie up all loose ends, by straight-up shooting Max in the head and leaving him for dead.
But Max Payne being Max Payne, that's apparently nothing that a few painkillers can't fix, right?
Soon enough, Max gets back on his feet - with some help from lover Mona Sax - and readily storms his former pal's compound for a final showdown, where after much overblown heroic bloodshed, he finally takes the guy out.
If the first Max Payne painted Vlad as an entertaining - albeit certainly not harmless - mobster-type, the sequel transformed him into a grade-A double-dealing scumbag.