R.I.P. Max Payne

I effin' love Max Payne. He's the ultimate badass of the "realistic" part of video game world, a character built up by the most overused detective movie clichés, who operates not just with bullet shower from a wide range of guns, but also a handful of cynical one-liners you gotta love.

Never mind the the awfully mediocre Hollywood transition with Marky Mark - Max Payne 1 & 2 still remain the pioneers and remembered classics of the third person shooter/action genre. They have cheeky humour in contrast of the usually dark, moody storylines, adrenaline pumping action scenes, simple, but addictive and cool music tunes, and from a historical point of view, the very first gameplay usage of the so-called bullet time effect. I could list hundreds of other reasons, but right now I'm just going to ask your trust if you haven't tried these games. In a nutshell: Max Payne kicks ass.

Well said, kid.

Now, what can you do if you have a franchise this good? Yup, you have to ruin the whole thing. Max Payne 3 is coming soon, which would be awesome news for us, fans, but. Quoting from Wikipedia:

This is the first game in the series not to be developed by Finnish game developer Remedy Entertainment and not being written by series creator Sam Lake.

Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'? Sam was the soul of the whole thing, even Max's appearance was designed after him in the first game. So how come not he's doing it? The game's release date was pushed back several times, and people are starting to realize that without the Finns, it may suck. Hard.

Now, the good news: last week Remedy's Alan Wake was released, a survival horror-TPS game, also written by Sam. Thanks to TFYM I had the pleasure to play with it, and I gotta tell you, it's friggin' awesome. Like a twisted Stephen King book, set on the location of Twin Peaks. I'm encouraging all my readers to check it out, and I won't spoil much of it, except for one certain thing. During the gameplay chapters you'll find manuscripts for a novel, and there's two pages written about - you guessed it - Max Payne, read by James McCaffrey, the guy who did Max's voice in the first two games. You can hear them in the first minutes of this video:

Yes, seems like Max's brain is spilled out on snow, and he's ready to join his dead family, finally. I have a feeling this is how Sam gives his opinion about the third game. Don't worry fans, it doesn't matter - Max is dead, actually, dead for good. And, coming from the series' creator/writer, I'd list this as canon, no matter how Payne3 will end up after all.

Well, goodbye, Max. Your suicide didn't disappoint us, it fits you. I hope you find your loved ones, and peace, eventually.

:(