Viqor played Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Started, and played through roughly half of, Max Payne 2: the Fall of Max Payne. From the start, it's immediately obvious that Max Payne 2 is a significant improvement over the original. In the style of Metal Gear Solid 2, Uncharted 2, and even Half-Life 2, Max Payne 2 refines the rough concept of the original game to near-perfection. Continuing to fire after a shoot-dodge, improved dream sequences, liberal (read: gratuitous) use of environmental physics, ridiculous (and awesome) bullet-time reload and bullet-time that encourages (instead of punishes) continuous use make The Fall of Max Payne live up to the John Woo pretensions of its predecessor. Even the quirky self-aware humor from the first game is improved by way of weirdly entertaining TV shows scattered throughout the game. Combat is silky-smooth in the sequel: movement and aiming are amazingly precise (the best of any third person shooter ever, in my opinion), while bullet-time and shoot-dodging both feel great and are genuinely beneficial to gameplay.