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Max Payne just turned 20. The neo-noir third-person shooter that popularized the use of "bullet time" throughout the series is celebrating 20 years since the launch of the first game. Max Payne came out on July 23, 2001 from Remedy Entertainment.
The game tells the story of a pill addicted former NYPD cop Max Payne and his attempts to hunt down the people responsible for the murder of his wife and child. As the story unfolds, Payne finds himself forming uneasy alliances, and uncovering a major conspiracy involving a new drug called Valkyr.
Max Payne is a game that spawned two direct sequels along with a less than stellar movie adaptation starring the lead singer from Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.
Remedy Entertainment's own Sam Lake was made famous for being the original face of Max Payne. That caked on raised eyebrow glare found on Max's face in the first game is none other than Lake's own face. Sadly, Max's look in Max Payne 2 moved away from using Lake's likeness, but that original face will forever live on in our hearts.
Sam Lake made a short YouTube video to thank the fans and celebrate 20 years of Max Payne. Lake is joined by Max's voice actor James McCaffrey to create this wonderful little tribute.
Oh yeah, they still got it.
If you're interested in the series and don't own all of the games yet, they all seem to be on sale for the next couple of days. You can get all of them for at least 65% off through Steam.
The last game in the series, Max Payne 3, came out back in 2012. Since then there hasn't been a single peep about the franchise. Maybe we'll see a Max Payne 4 one of these days. Man, wouldn't that be awesome?
As it stands, the Max Payne IP is currently owned by Rockstar Games. During a time of financial trouble for the studio, Remedy was forced to sell the IP to Rockstar in 2002.
Sad to know the majority of the original Max Payne team aren't even with Remedy Entertainment, so getting the same people to bring back the fun of Max Payne 1 and 2 will be difficult. That and they probably need the rebooted 3D Realms to guide them on how much environmental interactivity there needs to be.
And then there's Remedy themselves, who keep starting new projects (by constantly signing new agreements) and never really giving closure to any previous ones. Alan is still underwater after the lake ocean hybrid spits the wife out (probably regained insanity since it's been that long), Jack is still blankly staring at nothing remaining indecisive (and gaining insanity in the process), and Max is suffering from heat stroke as he lays there all alone (going insane and hallucinating Michelle and/or Mona). Jesse's not insane yet, since her story is still too recent.
Sigh, I miss Max Payne and the Kung Fu mod.