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The lucky folks at Gamespot have recently gotten their hands on a final copy of Max Payne, the highly anticipated Hong Kong-style shooting fest just released by Remedy Entertainment and 3D Realms, and have posted their initial impressions of the game.

The game starts mundanely enough, with Max Payne saying goodbye to a co-worker as he heads home to his family. Once he arrives home, players can take control of him, and upon entering the house, will be greeted with gunshots and screams coming from the house's upper floor. Bursting in on the scene, Max finds his family brutally murdered, giving him the
catalyst he needs to start kicking some butt.

Gamespot notes that much of the action sequences of the game are spent in slow-motion, or "shootdodging." Often Max will enter a room with several enemies, and apparently it is almost impossible to survive these encounters in real-time. The shootdoding meter is refilled by killing enemies, which means that players can afford to use it judiciously. However, different weapons, such as pistols and shotguns, have different timings in usage, a factor that must be taken into account when moving in slow-motion.

Gamespot is also quick to point out the amazing graphical detail of Max Payne. Rats scurry about in the subway, hotel walls have peeling wallpaper and water-damaged ceilings. They note that, on the PC version, a Pentium III 600 equipped with a GeForce 2 running at 1024x768 performed quite solidly at default settings. To back up their graphics claims, Gamespot has also seen fit to post many new screenshots as well as additional movies showing off Max Payne's graphical splendor.

For those who can't wait to get their hands on this title, be sure to give Gamespot's recent write-up a look. A Mac version has been announced by MacSoft, though there's no work yet on the development schedule.

Gamespot - Hands-on: Max Payne

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