Awesome / Max Payne

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• The opening video made with the game's engine is still as badass and cinematic as ever, no matter how outdated the graphics are.
• Awesome Music: The series has a very apropos soundtrack: from the first game's piano, viola, and guitar main theme to the Storming the Castle theme Mr. Big.
• The whole game is full of make-your-own Crowning Moments of Awesome. Diving sideways with dual Ingrams blazing as you gun down mooks before springing to your feet and throwing yourself backwards underneath another mook's shotgun blast to headshot him is unscripted, completely controlled by you, and totally fucking awesome every time you do something like it.
• Vinnie Gognitti being able to outrun Max with a bullet in his gut, AND BE ABLE TO RIDE ON TOP OF A FUCKING TRAIN! "Fear gives men wings" indeed.
• Max taking down dreaded underworld boogeymen like hitman Rico Muerte, mob enforcer Frank Niagara and Don Punchinello's infamous, psychotic assassins Pilate Providence, Joe "Deadpan" Salem and Vince Mugnaio, aka The Trio, people who have terrorized the East Coast for God knows how long. While for gameplay reasons they're only Elite Mooks, in-universe they're among the most dangerous, bloodthirsty psychopaths to ever walk the Earth.
  Max: (after killing Mugnaio) Punchinello's Trio was done for.
  • Killing Jack Lupino takes it even further, as Lupino is Ax-Crazy and hopped up on Valkyr, giving him some of the highest hit-points in the game; coupled with the power of his sawed-off, it really feels like you're fighting a threat like the mythological wolf Fenrir. When you finally take him down, in the following cutscene, Max unloads all his remaining bullets into Lupino's body to make sure he stays dead.
• The final confrontation between B.B. and Max:
  B.B.: You can't win this one, Max.
  Max: No. But I can make damn sure none of you do, either.
• In grand scheme of things, Boris Dime only exists as an excuse to have Max shoot his way through a ship level, but he has a pretty cool introduction cutscene.
  Boris Dime: (Approaches you in a Dutch Angle) Tell the devil that Dime sent you.
• Max defying all the odds to give Nicole Horne, the one who orchestrated the murders of his wife and daughter, the fate she deserves.
  Nicole Horne: What do you mean "He's unstoppable"? You are superior to him in every way that counts. You are better trained, better equipped, you outnumber him at least 20 to 1. Do. Your. Job!
• Max drops the control tower on her chopper. The best part is the triumphant start of the theme song as Max goes out to the top of the building after everything is over. Even the snowstorm abates.
  Max: And then it was all over.

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