"They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger...and then it was over." Rockstar are the true masters of ice-cool dialogue, and 2001's Max Payne was a love-letter to film-noir dialogue and 'I-wanna-be-that-guy' detective stories, creating not only one of the best video game characters of all time in Max, but also one of the most fun, industry-rupturing mechanics in history - the invention of the slow-motion-lover's Bullet-Time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPSN-DW0oDo As the game starts with Max perched on a rooftop - his pasted-on face grimacing iconically - he delivers the above line of dialogue in the way that let you know exactly what you were in for, and with a wink and a nod to Quentin Tarantino we would then delve back into the past few days' events to see how everything fit together. Game noir perfection.
