Max Payne for PC is one of my all time favourite games. I loved the grittiness, the action, and especially the bullet time, something that has become sort of a series trademark. It was only recently i had heard of a GBA port. When i found out, i got so excited, i instantly sprinted out of my classroom (i was at school) and dashed straight home, mowing down anything in my path and causing several thousand dollars in damage. When i got home, i immediately went onto vizzed and played the game! OK, the "skipping class and causing several thousands of dollars in damage" part is fake, but i still played the game! Unfortunatly, it was horrible. Let's find out why!

Story: This is the only really good part of the game, and only because they copied it over from the other versions. NYPD officer Max Payne returns home one day to find his wife and baby daughter murdered by junkies high off a new street drug called "Valkyr". He decides to transfer to the DEA to investigate the drug and its origins, going undercover as a mobster. After a meet-up ends with the murder of his parter, Max is framed and a city-wide manhunt is ordered. Now, Payne must evade both the police and the mob, all while searching for answers. Unlike a few name Rockstar titles, this story is quite serious and mature, which i enjoy.

Graphics: This games graphics look like they could have been MUCH better. Humans lack faces (Except for in the comic book style cutscenes), blood is nothing but a mess of red pixels, and things like walls and floors are just brick or tile textures repeated again, and again, and again. As for the aforementioned cutscenes, they're basically copied from the PC version, only they're of lower quality and are a lot darker. The darkness does however add to the grit factor a bit so i have to give it that.

Sound: The soundtrack is carried over from the PC to the GBA. The repercussions of transferring the music from PC to a significantly less advanced console are horrifying. Quite simply, listening to the soundtrack is like listening to a chainsaw buzzing. This isn't an unfair judgement, there are plenty of PC-to-GBA ports that have amazing music. Why the tunes for this game are so bad, there is no excuse. As for the sound effects, they're even more annoying! Most of them sound like someone beating your head in with a bat, and it's just as painful. If you want to stay sane, turn the sound off.

Addictiveness: Just by reading the other sections, you can probably guess how fun this game is. Not fun at all, of course! If you want fun, play this game on the PC or one of its other console ports.

Depth: Many levels have been shortened from the PC version. This means instead of it taking me 7 hours to finish the game, i could complete it in just 4 hours. There are almost no secrets to discover (unless you count barely hidden ammo stashes, of which there are many), so you'll find the only real thing for you to do is to keep moving.

Difficulty: I find that the game is actually a little bit more difficult than the PC version. The problem is less with the stages and the enemies as is is with the screen. The game is displayed with an isometric viewpoint, which frequently conflicts with the stages that were made for a third-person perspective. For example; if i'm heading down a hallway or popping out from a corner, i can get shot by an enemy i couldn't see unlike from a third-person perspective, where i could very well see the enemy and hit him first. However, once you learn to use bullet-time and painkillers effectively, this becomes less of a threat.

Max Payne for GBA is an attempt at a port gone horribly wrong. With sub-par graphics, awful music, no replay value, and its only selling point being the story, you'd best pass on this if you seek a good shooter game for the GBA. If you're looking for a good Max Payne title, play any other version of this game.