18 Action Video Games You Must Play Before You Die

18. Max Payne 2

You must experience: Your first twin pistol-toting dive into a roomful of guys, taking them all out in one arc of bullets and falling bodies. Although the Matrix tie-in games were a little hit n' miss (fans still had a blast with Enter The Matrix at the time) it was over to Remedy and their Max Payne titles to deliver on that endlessly appealing premise of slow-motion bullet-dancing gun battles, alongside in this case all the trimmings of a gritty film noir tale. The first Max Payne remains a brilliantly playable arcade-style shooter with its influences worn firmly on its leather jacketed sleeves, but it's with the second one where you can tell the developers were comfortable enough with their formula to introduce things like havok physics, ragdoll'ing bodies, vastly superior graphics and even a reload animation that although it made zero sense, looked unbelievably cool in super slo-mo. Rockstar's third entry is a cracking take on the character too, but it's these original developer-helmed iterations that have more quotable and memorable lines than Age of Ultron does special effects.