Remedy
Max Payne

They were all dead. The final shot was like an exclamation point closing everything that had happened. I eased my grip on the trigger. For it to make any sense, I had to go back 3 years, to the night when my torment began. Life was smiling at me. A small house in New Jersey across the river, a beautiful wife, and a lovely little girl. The American dream come true... but dreams sometimes turn into nightmares.

Year of grace 2001. A game hits the store shelves that will completely revolutionize third-person action games. Max Payne is released.

The plot, the game's core, is spread over three chapters of 9-10 levels each. Max, a police officer, finds his family (and life) destroyed in just a few hours by four drug-addled punks. Our (anti)hero's revenge will start with eliminating small fry and eventually reach the shocking truth.

It will be the incredibly hard-boiled and noir atmosphere that permeates the entire game, the sharp banter of the various characters, the pearls consistently dropped by our Max, the bullet-time (introduced for the first time in a video game), or the (yet-to-be-developed) love story with the beautiful Mona, but for this writer, this game will forever remain a masterpiece.

Aided also by a voiceover finally up to the task (invaluable Giorgio Melazzi), this nightmarish journey into the limits of madness and crime in a Noir New York City never so cynical and realistic (no glitter, only pain) flows probably too quickly, so much so that when you reach the conclusion of the adventure, there is almost regret for having completed the game.

A character expertly portrayed and incredibly charismatic will have to fight against a large array of rather picturesque enemies (who could forget the hateful Jack Lupino or the ditzy Vinnie Gognitti) and against his own (genius) nightmares.

To play and replay. The rest is history.

It will have a sequel "The Fall of Max Payne," slightly less successful than this first chapter but still constructed with pure class.

Just a few months ago, news of a third chapter, even more violent and vicious than the first two, coming out this winter. Developed by Rockstar Game (Remedy still dealing with the story/farce of Alan Wake, potentially a masterpiece) it left me puzzled by the first screenshots. It will certainly be a gamble.

I will definitely get it, even though I am more than sure that the atmosphere of the first two episodes will never be matched by this third game, nor by a thousand other third-person action games.

Legendary.

Colder than a walk in a fridge... cold as the barrel of a gun.