THE STORY

It’s the age old story of boy cop meets girl, boy cop marries girl, girl has baby, boy cop crosses the mob, mob murders girl, baby and boy cop’s partner, boy cop gets framed and goes on the run determined to hunt down the truth and those who did him wrong in a blurry, neo-noir explosion of sideways jumping, dual-gun firing, bloody psychotic violence. A classic…

THE EXPERIENCE

It’s been a long time coming, but finally the original, ground-breaking cinematic shoot ’em up that is Max Payne has made its aggressive way onto Android. A reboot of the decade old console killer, fully optimised for the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core mobile processor, everything that made Max such a hit then is here again now – bullet time slo-mo action, dark, twisted storyline complete with scene-setting voiceovers, atmospheric, razor sharp graphics and plenty of gore. An instant winner then? Well, no, not quite.

Whilst a tremendous amount of work has been put into making Max leap seamlessly from console to Android, it’s clear the controls proved something of an issue. Despite a whole Tutorial section to teach you how to walk, turn and generally move in a manner that won’t see you gunned down in a hail of hot lead by even the most pathetic of perps the second you blunder blindly into a room, unless you’re the Dalai Lama, you’re going to get annoyed. And, as you can imagine, this is a massive downside.

THE BOTTOM LINE

But then, few console crossovers are perfect; and even fewer are as complex as this. With much to recommend, great graphics and an immersive story, a little frustration is a small price to pay for an experience so rich. Despite the flaw in the game’s playability, Max Payne’s Mobile is the welcome arrival of an absolute classic.

Additional information

Current version: 1.0
Requires Android 2.2 and up

Download the Max Payne Mobile app from Google Play

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