Game Reviews

Max Payne Mobile

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Max Payne Mobile

With his trademark grimace etched permanently on his face, Max Payne certainly blazed a trail when he exploded onto the PC gaming scene way back in 2001. His violent debut pioneered the concept of slow-mo bullet-time, setting a new high watermark for action gaming.

More than a decade later, Max's brutal quest for vengeance can now be carried around in your pocket. We've already experienced the rather disappointing iOS version of Max Payne Mobile, but thankfully this Xperia Play edition manages to rectify many of the faults we highlighted.

Getting physical

The most obvious improvement is the introduction of physical controls. On iOS, controlling Max was problematic due to the frenetic gameplay and multiple on-screen buttons.

On Sony Ericsson's gaming handset, this ceases to be an issue: all of Max's actions are mapped to physical keys, and his movement is influenced by the left-hand touch-sensitive pad.

This arrangement feels natural and intuitive, allowing you to perform all kinds of gun-based acrobatics with the minimum of hand contortion. The only negative is the slightly erratic camera, which is controlled by the right touch-pad. It's skittish and difficult to manage during an intense gunfight.

Putting aside the significant impact of the new interface, Max Payne Mobile is very much the same as it was on iOS. The easy difficulty setting - surely introduced to compensate for touchscreen controls - remains. This makes the game a little too easy, but other difficulty levels are available to restore some semblance of challenge.

The Xperia Play is now over 18 months old, and its lack of graphical grunt is becoming depressingly apparent. Max Payne Mobile is prone to slowdown and jerkiness, although we should point out that it's still likely to look better than it did when you were running it on your PC all those years ago.

While it may not run as smoothly as we'd like, there's no denying that the Xperia Play version of Max Payne Mobile is the best available on any mobile device.

Max Payne Mobile

Despite some framerate issues, the Xperia Play version of Max Payne's debut is the best mobile offering currently available, freeing the renegade cop from the hellish mess of touchscreen controls
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Damien  McFerran
Damien McFerran
Damien's mum hoped he would grow out of playing silly video games and gain respectable employment. Perhaps become a teacher or a scientist, that kind of thing. Needless to say she now weeps openly whenever anyone asks how her son's getting on these days.