Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne Reviews

I didn't really like the story much of the sequel, but it is still worth a try. This one is my siblings' favorite out of the whole franchise. The movement and combat mechanics are so smooth and nice. I just wish it had gotten a better story.

I remember playing this in 04 the physics were a new thing in video games and the game dont look to bad for 21 years old! as with all max paynes games they are great games

Great story, gameplays familiar to the first but refined and the graphics are great for the time

Continuation of the first, more guns to play with and some quality of life changes.

it was decent but not as good as the first one. Its not bad but it was a good enjoyable game

Same as MP1 - it’s really impressive how well the 2003 game holds up in 2025. I prefer MP1 slightly > 2 in terms of gameplay but there are some really creative set pieces in this game, and the storytelling is top notch. With that said, Max is clearly not a good dude. The story does a better job showing that he’s not making the best choices than MP1. While they keep the sexual content unseen visually for the most part, there is a lot of verbal stuff. Not appropriate for kids whatsoever. Really impressive but be advised if you play it.

This follow-up game holds its own and delivers solid visuals and a well-crafted film noir-like story. It's worth checking out if you're a fan of the first game. Highly recommended. "Hurt my ass, Payne was his name, Payne!"

This has been my favorite game of all-time for about 20 years now, and I have played it across all platforms that it has been released for. Obviously, this is the best way to play it, the way it was made to be played. For all of the aging it has done since 2003, it still holds up just as well as day one in my heart. Nothing really ever needs to change about this game. Well, the widescreen fix (shouts out ThirteenAG) is pretty nice to prevent some stretching at modern resolutions. But nothing on the actual gameplay side. I love this game. Shooting in regular speed, shooting in slow motion, diving in slow motion, its all great. Story and characters are memorable, the voice acting is great (RIP James McCaffrey). Go play this game.

The game is unplayable on modern PCs without a fan made patch/fix, so installing that is the first step in making Max Payne 2 work. Other than that, it's still a good experience, and even though outdated, slow time mechanics still work and offer a lot of fun. And the story and the writing are as great as they have always been. However, the game is not without its drawbacks. It has arguably the worst NPC escort mission in the history of videogames, and dream scenes have so much blur you'd want to puke. Moreover, level design seems like a step back compared to the first Max Payne: there's too much backtracking and many locations are reused later in the game. And even though MP2 is rather short, you will definitely notice that. Thankfully, its length is actually a plus: just as you get tired of the gameplay, the story comes to an end. And if you want more, there are higher difficulties and an arcade game mode where you have to kill endles waves of spawning enemies.

Just thought I should say this to anyone who is struggling to play the game on Windows 11. I spent 2 days trying to get the game to work, however it kept randomly crashing, sometimes after 10 minutes and other times as soon as I booted up the game. I followed every guide, downloaded every fix, but nothing seemed to work. Until some random comment on reddit from awhile ago suggested to change steam.exe affinity to 1 cpu in task manager. As soon as made this change the game worked. I've so far been able to play the game over the past day and with no crashes. I hope this helps anyone who is thinking of getting the game or is struggling to run it.