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[[File:Max-Payne-2-The-Fall-of-Max-Payne-Cheats-and-Secrets-2.jpg|frame|"The cold night unfolded. In front of me, those eyes, slits of white promising-"<br />"Max, stop it."<br />"Sorry, force of habit."]]
{{quote|''"Love hurts. When you look down the barrel of a gun, time slows down."''|'''''Max Payne 2''''', trailer.}}
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Three years ago, NYPD detective Max Payne's wife and baby daughter were killed in their home by junkies strung out on the designer drug Valkyr. Since then Max has transferred to the DEA and gone undercover with the Punchinello mafia family, intending to bring the Valkyr drug ring down once and for all. Then one night, as New York settles into the worst snowstorm in decades, Max's partner is murdered, Max is framed for it, and his cover is blown. With the police hot on his trail, Max wages a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|one-man war]] on the mafia, killing everyone in his way as he gradually unearths the truth behind the creation of Valkyr and the death of his family.
This [[Third-Person Shooter]] from Remedy was an attempt to break video games into an untapped genre, [[Film Noir]]. A mixture of both the film and graphic novel treatments of noir, it featured such stalwart elements of the genre as the hard-boiled cynical hero, the capable and mysterious femme fatale, and the convoluted criminal plot with myriad linear and tangential echelons of villains, all played under a gravel-voiced narration laden with gothic imagery and twisted arthouse metaphors. There are even a number of references to Norse mythology.
The game's biggest selling point, however, was the use of ''[[The Matrix|Matrix]]''-style [[Bullet Time]] (despite the game being in the works before the movie came out), which allowed the player to slow down
Two years later, ''Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne'' came out, in which Max investigates a highly organized and well-funded group of assassins who are wiping out the powerful syndicate The Inner Circle, while becoming entangled with the Circle's possibly-trustworthy-who-knows hitwoman [[Back
Due to a combination of ''Max Payne 2'' selling poorly and Remedy getting [[Development Hell|bogged down]] working on ''[[Alan Wake]]'', it took eight years for ''Max Payne 3'' to be developed and released. It was developed entirely by Rockstar, with no design work but constant feedback from Remedy. Set eight years after the end of ''Max Payne 2'', the third game finds an alcoholic Max trying to make a fresh start by accepting a job as a private security guard for the wealthy Branco family in Sao Paulo, Brazil. After his employer's young wife is abducted by a band of paramilitary extremists as part of what appears to be a ransom plot, Max sets out to sober up and get her back. It has received quite favorable reviews from critics, and despite being released the same day as ''[[Diablo III]]'', it managed to sell 3 million copies in the first week. Tying in with the release of ''Max Payne III'' is a mobile port of the first game, with War Drum Studios (now known as Grove Street Games) handling the conversion and released on iOS and Android in 2012.
A [[Video Game Movies Suck|Hollywood movie]] based on the characters was released in 2008 to a poor reception, but modest commercial success. Related tropes should go [[Max Payne (
In 2022 Remedy announced that a remake of the first two games in the series is in development in association with Rockstar, using Remedy's own Northlight Engine.
▲A [[Video Game Movies Suck|Hollywood movie]] based on the characters was released in 2008 to a poor reception, but modest commercial success. Related tropes should go [[Max Payne (Film)|to its separate page]].
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* [[Bullet Time]]
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* [[Adventures in Coma Land]]: Max practically has dual US-Comaland citizenship.
* [[Aesop Amnesia]]: Well, not exactly a specific aesop, but the writers have had to reset Max's internal struggles with each game to keep the conflict going. At the end of the first game, Max is pretty satisfied with himself, remarking that he's a winner and that his ghosts have released him from his haunting. In regards to his killing spree, he says that Woden "had better" keep his promise to make the charges go away. In the second game he's done a 180, claiming that he had wanted to be punished for what he had done, contradicting his comment in the previous game and retains the same guilt and pain he originally had. This is at least partially justified by Max saying that he had lied to himself that it was over. By the end, Max has apparently once again made peace with himself and figured out who he is. By the third, he's become an alcoholic who ends up run out of town by the mob and drinks on the job.
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* [[AKA-47]]: Averted, all the weapons are referred to by either the correct name, or the manufacturer. The only exception is that Max's sniper rifle is just referred to as "Sniper Rifle".
** Played straight aside from a few weapons in the third game.
* [[The Alcoholic]]: In the second game Bravura is a recovered alcoholic. He believes Max has a drinking problem.<ref>
** Max has descended into alcoholism as of the third game, and about midway through begins the struggle to quit.
* [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us]]: Max does this in part 3 {{spoiler|after wiping out the entire UFE battalion at their HQ.}}
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*** Except that in the Asgard Building "there were rows of cabinets, full of files." And Max claims that "The serpentine secret society went back a long way, always pulling strings from the shadows". Besides - Vlad had plenty of reasons to lie {{spoiler|to the guy he was about to kill about the organization he sought to eradicate}}.
** They may or may not be Ancient, but they definitely are a [[Government Conspiracy]], with all these Senators in cahoots with them.
* [[Anticlimax Boss]]: Several. Jack Lupino is as tough as a boss should be, since he takes more bullets than most ''groups'' of enemies you meet to kill, but most bosses are either relatively easy to take down, or suffer from a crippling weakness to being shot a dozen times. In the second game, Kaufman is made out to be a really tough guy, to the point that when you meet him, you know it's going to be tough, but he still goes down to a third of a magazine (ten bullets) from an AK-47. ▼
** Even Lupino is laughably simple, since you fight him in an absolutely huge cathedral and his only weapon is a teeny little sawn-off shotgun with no range at all. It's his cadre of [[Elite Mooks]] that makes him dangerous.▼
** Played straight and averted in the third game; {{spoiler|Becker and his cohort}} aren't too tough themselves, the former being more of a mere survival gauntlet and the latter being that and a [[Puzzle Boss]], but a couple of times throughout the game, Max encounters armored foes with heavy weapons who are nigh impossible to kill quickly without taking insane amounts of risks. This is especially the worst at the {{spoiler|Imperial Palace}}, where [[Timed Mission|you have about twenty seconds to kill a single one of these guys]] or [[Nintendo Hard|die and get sent to the last checkpoint of the whole section]]; many players get stuck here.▼
* [[Animation Bump]]: From the first game to the second, and an even bigger one to the third (which drops the graphic novel portions entirely in favor of a TV-esque filter with shifting colors and static lines).
* [[Announcer Chatter]]: Any time you or a teammate activate a burst, or a vendetta is started/settled, Max will chime in with something appropriate.
{{quote|
* {{spoiler|[[Antagonistic Offspring]]}}: {{spoiler|Victor Branco is eventually revealed as this}} in ''3.''
* [[Anti
* [[Anti-Hero]]: Max is a III or a IV.
▲* [[Anticlimax Boss]]: Several. Jack Lupino is as tough as a boss should be, since he takes more bullets than most ''groups'' of enemies you meet to kill, but most bosses are either relatively easy to take down, or suffer from a crippling weakness to being shot a dozen times. In the second game, Kaufman is made out to be a really tough guy, to the point that when you meet him, you know it's going to be tough, but he still goes down to a third of a magazine (ten bullets) from an AK-47.
▲** Even Lupino is laughably simple, since you fight him in an absolutely huge cathedral and his only weapon is a teeny little sawn-off shotgun with no range at all. It's his cadre of [[Elite Mooks]] that makes him dangerous.
▲** Played straight and averted in the third game; {{spoiler|Becker and his cohort}} aren't too tough themselves, the former being more of a mere survival gauntlet and the latter being that and a [[Puzzle Boss]], but a couple of times throughout the game, Max encounters armored foes with heavy weapons who are nigh impossible to kill quickly without taking insane amounts of risks. This is especially the worst at the {{spoiler|Imperial Palace}}, where [[Timed Mission|you have about twenty seconds to kill a single one of these guys]] or [[Nintendo Hard|die and get sent to the last checkpoint of the whole section]]; many players get stuck here.
* [[Arc Words]]:
** The opening monologue of each game includes the phrase 'they were all dead'.
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* [[Arrow Cam]]: Employed whenever Max or Mona use a sniper rifle. The third game includes slo-mo bullet hits for some enemies, usually the last one in a group.
* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]]: When Max finds Nicole's computer, he says, "Hacking through Horne's computer would have unearthed criminal plans, strategies for world domination, spy helicopter reports, illegal wire tap recordings, Internet porno, all of the above, take your pick."
* [[Art Evolution]]: In the first game, all the characters in the graphic novel sequences were played by random dudes from the programmers' offices, and it definitely shows (the goofy grins that everyone sports in the supposedly "serious" scenes is a pretty big giveaway). In the second game the character models were based on actual professional models, giving the cast a more polished, if less unintentionally amusing, appearance.
* [[Artificial Stupidity]]: Cleaners in the second have a tendency to run after their own grenades. Halfway referenced by Max:
{{quote|
▲* [[Art Evolution]]: In the first game, all the characters in the graphic novel sequences were played by random dudes from the programmers' offices, and it definitely shows (the goofy grins that everyone sports in the supposedly "serious" scenes is a pretty big giveaway). In the second game the character models were based on actual professional models, giving the cast a more polished, if less unintentionally amusing, appearance.
* [[Art Shift]]: In the first game, the Captain Baseball Bat Boy series is a [[Peanuts]]-esque newspaper comic with the titular character being a Charlie Brown lookalike. In the sequel, it is in the style of a [[Saturday Morning Cartoon]], and the titular character is now in full-on super-hero getup, wearing a mask, a cape and wielding a laser baseball bat. A commentary on Television Adaptations perhaps?
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: The laser sight attached to some of the weapons in the third game actually makes your aim actively worse.
* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: You'll find yourself leaping through the air firing your handguns akimbo a lot.▼
* [[Awesome McCoolname]]: Max Payne. Even the villains lampshade this.
{{quote|
** As do the other policemen. [[Deconstructed Trope|Apparently, Payne is a name that will most likely "make 'em remember" and even get a
▲* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: You'll find yourself leaping through the air firing your handguns akimbo a lot.
* [[Badass Bystander]]:
** On one level in the ghetto, a random civilian SUV drives by an alley you're stalking through. If you are particularly trigger-happy and shoot it, it will crash and the driver will come after you, guns blazing.
** In an early level in the second game, you have the ability to rescue a prostitute and a wino (who happens to be an ex-maverick cop) from a burning building. Both are carrying pistols, and will gladly take on the mob with you.
** There's also an [[Never Mess
** The third game introduces Brewer, a nutty survivalist of a neighbor in Max's new apartment in Hoboken. He blows the face off a mob assassin to save Max, then {{spoiler|detonates a suicide vest in the hallway to "cleanse them in fire" and blows up a good half-dozen mobsters.}}
* [[Badass Beard]] [[Beard of Sorrow|Of Sorrow]]: Max's scruffy beard in the third game.
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* [[Bad Dreams]]: Boy ''howdy'', does Max have these. Often, these segue into [[Nightmare Fuel]], and the levels in the first game move into [[Scrappy Level]] territory.
* [[Bag of Spilling]]: Max is twice relieved of all or most of his weapons in the first game, and three times in the second. Generally Justified (captured by bad guys, left for dead, in a hospital, etc). The third game constantly justifies it with most missions taking place on different days and Max showing up with the logical equipment for the job, instead of meeting his boss with a grenade launcher strapped to his back.
** In the later levels of ''[[
* [[Bang Bang BANG]]: Averted with the 9mm pistol, which actually sounds fairly like the real thing. Played straight with every other gun, though.
* [[Bank Robbery]]: Max stops one of these near the beginning of the first game, completely unintentionally (he was there for a meet with Alex about something completely unrelated).
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* [[Bench Breaker]]: In the first game, Max waits until Franky is out of the room and then falls backwards on his chair in order to crack the wood.
* [[Benevolent Architecture]]: Every single door in the city seems to be double-hinged.
* [[BFG]]: The Pancor Jackhammer in the first game. The Striker-12 shotgun and Mona's Romak PSL in the second game. The M82 anti-materiel rifle, RPD and [[HK 21 E]] in the third.▼
* [[Black Helicopter]]: Shows up near the end of the first game. Trying to fight it is suicide (it has a minigun, you don't), but you still have to do it (just once, though).▼
* [[Big Applesauce]]: The first two games are set in New York, using fictional locations. The third has flashbacks as well.
* [[Big Bad Friend]]: {{spoiler|B.B. in the first game, Vlad in the second, and Victor in the third.}}
▲* [[
* [[Big No]]: Max does this after his family was killed in the prologue, and it's full of [[Narm|Narm-y]] goodness.
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: Given that the third game takes place in Brazil, it's natural that much of the dialogue spoken by enemies and side-characters isn't in English. Max doesn't speak Portuguese, so the subtitles provide no translation.
** Notable in that there is ''so much'' flavor dialogue in Portuguese (and Spanish).
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: Well, it ''is'' [[Film Noir]].
▲* [[Black Helicopter]]: Shows up near the end of the first game. Trying to fight it is suicide (it has a minigun, you don't), but you still have to do it (just once, though).
* [[Bling Bling Bang]]: Golden Gun parts can be collected for use in single-player and
* [[Blown Across the Room]]: When you use a shotgun, count on [[Mooks]] getting this treatment.
** In the first game especially, ''any'' kill shot, from ''any'' gun will do this.
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* [[Callousness Towards Emergency]]: Justified in the first game, since {{spoiler|the lady at the other end is the [[Big Bad]]}}.
* [[The Capital of Brazil Is Buenos Aires]]: All over the place in the third installment. One would wonder why the Brazilian characters speak in a Spanish accent... or why the vegetation and climate are from a completely different part of the country.
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: ''3'''s [[Elite Mooks|U.F.E]] are heavily inspired by the [[wikipedia:
** The Comando Sombra were likewise inspired by a real-life São Paulo gang called the [[wikipedia:Primeiro Comando da Capital|PCC]].
* [[Career Killers]]: The bad guys that Max guns down, particularly the Trio from the first game, are hitmen. Mona, on the other hand, is an assassin. The second game almost universally has Cleaners - Mafia goons who hit a place and clean crime scenes up - as a ubiquitous enemy.
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* [[Climbing Climax]]: End of the first game.
* [[Cluster F-Bomb]]: Vinnie Gognitti. In the first game, it's a [[Gosh Dang It to Heck|Cluster Frick Bomb]]. The sequel gives us the genuine article. {{spoiler|Vladimir Lem}} lets out a good number of F bombs too, mostly when [[Villainous Breakdown|things start going sideways for]] {{spoiler|him}}.
* [[Cold-Blooded Torture]]: Max tortures Gognitti in order to find out Lupino's whereabouts in the first game.<ref>
** Passos in ''3'' tortures an injured gangster to find the location of some stolen ransom money.
* [[
* [[Continuity Nod]]: Max guessing that he'll find the third game's final boss ({{spoiler|Victor}}) at an airstrip. "Rich people love to fly away."
* [[Continuity Cavalcade]]: ''Max Payne 3'''s mission "Ain't No Reprievement Gonna Be found Otherwise." ''Every''body's buried in the same cemetery.
* [[Convection, Schmonvection]] / [[Hollywood Fire]]: On both games you have to navigate through burning buildings and the heat isn't a problem at all. If you touch the flames, however, you get damaged. In the sequel, characters at least cover their mouths against the smoke. A section of the third game takes place in a bombed building that's badly damaged enough to be practically ''melting'' under the heat, but Max and the enemies don't seem to mind much even when walking on glowing red beams.
* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: Nicole Horne.
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* [[Da Chief]]: Bravura, in the sequel.
* [[Dark Action Girl]]: Mona Sax.
* [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!]]: Despite the third game's more closely resembling ''[[
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Max adds lots of snarky comments in his monologue during levels. And Mona isn't exactly snark-free herself.
* [[Decoy Leader]]: Max kills a lot of people, mistakenly thinking they're behind everything, only to find out that he aimed too low, and subsequently going after the next person on his hit list.
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* [[Determinator]]: Rampaging through hundreds of enemies while subsisting only on painkillers. In the second game, Max squares his badassness and determination: {{spoiler|He gets shot in the chest, thrown off a high cliff, is next to a bomb when it explodes, and ultimately gets ''shot in the head with a magnum'', and not only lives from all of these incidents, but keeps on truckin' to get shit done. Damn.}} Early in the third game he even takes a glancing shot from a .50 BMG anti-materiel rifle and all he needs is some painkillers and bandages to get him back to normal.
* [[Dirty Cop]]: {{spoiler|The entire UFE in part 3.}}
* [[Do
* {{spoiler|[[Driven to Suicide]]}}: {{spoiler|Victor Branco hangs himself when he gets incarcerated in the epilogue of the third game. Though it is implied it also could've been a faked suicide as retribution.}}
* [[Dull Surprise]]: The uninterested "Aaaaah" sound the [[Mooks]] make when you kill them. Many people also commented on Max's strangely constipated expression in the first game.
* {{spoiler|[[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: Beating the 2nd game in the hardest difficulty setting nets you an ending wherein Mona survives. [[Road Cone|Given the 3rd sequel in the game,]] [[Doomed
* [[Ear Worm]]: Both the game's theme tune and the song "Late Goodbye" by [[Poets of the Fall]] in the second game. The latter is also an in-universe example, as various characters in the game are heard singing it or playing it on pianos.
* [[Elevator Action Sequence]]: Inverted; the elevator rides are often a heaven-sent chance to reload, let the painkillers kick in and generally draw breath. {{spoiler|Until the very last level. [[Guide Dang It|Look up, through the glass panel in the roof of the elevator.]] Yep, those are claymore mines lining the shaft.}}
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* [[Enemy Mine]]: The [[Escort Mission]] in ''Max Payne 2''.
* [[Enemy Chatter]]: You can listen in on the [[Mooks]] talking about action movies and TV series.
* [[Escort Mission]]: In ''Max Payne 2'', to the irritation (or amusement, considering who the escortee is) of many players. The third game also has an annoying one involving {{spoiler|covering Passos with a sniper rifle as enemies keep coming after him}}.
* [[Everybody's Dead, Dave]]: The very first line of the first game: "They were all dead." Also occurs in the third game {{spoiler|during the attack on Branco's building after telling Rodrigo to close up his office...}}
* [[Evil Counterpart]]: Max and Mona for Vlad and {{spoiler|Winterson}}. Even their clothing colors mirror each other, and the {{spoiler|criminal/cop}} genders are reversed. Note also how {{spoiler|Winterson and Vlad apparently can't keep their hands off each other,}} while Max and Mona barely touch the other. Except for that one scene.
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* [[Face Heel Turn]]: {{spoiler|Vlad, though he was never really a face, just on Max's side for a time.}}
* [[Facial Composite Failure]]: In Max Payne 3, Max sees a newscast that reports that he is wanted for questioning as the unidentified man that has been seen leaving {{spoiler|Rodrigo Branco's blown-up company headquarters}}, the report also shows a facial composite that looks almost nothing like Max in-universe, but fans of the series will recognize it as [[Creator Cameo|the constantly constipated Max Payne from the first game that was based on Sam Lake's face]].
{{quote|
* [[Fake Nationality]]: {{spoiler|Raul Passos from ''3'' is actually Colombian whereas Max believes him to be Brazilian.}}
* [[Family Values Villain]]. "Vladimir was one of those old-time bad guys with honor and morals, which made him almost one of the good guys." Even in the sequel he tries to confine his battles to fellow criminals. {{spoiler|It doesn't work, as he realized far too late that [[Death Seeker]] Max would drop his death seeking in favor of pursuing one of those... "[[Belligerent Sexual Tension|complicated]]" relationships with Mona. [[It's a Long Story]], but the result puts him in Max's gunsights, making his death pretty much a [[Foregone Conclusion]].}}
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* [[Gun Porn]]: The guns have detailed animations, which was uncommon in third person shooters at the time of the first game. They also make pretty sexy sounds while reloading during [[Bullet Time]].
* [[He Knows Too Much]]: The reason Michelle was marked for death in the first game.
* [[Hero Insurance]]:
** Explicitly explained in the first game. In exchange for killing Nicole Horne, Alfred Woden promises that no charges will ever be filed against Max for any of the murders he's committed in his quest for revenge. Quite justified, because Woden needs something to offer to Max.
** One wonders how Max managed to beat the rap from his antics in the second game, given that he kills hundreds of goons, actively assists a wanted assassin in killing even more goons, and Act III outright has Max being hunted for {{spoiler|shooting his partner. Plus, Woden gets killed near the end of the game leaving Max without any friends in the power elite to bail him out.}} For what it's worth, everyone Max kills is either a mobster or secret society rent-a-commando actively trying to murder him, and {{spoiler|his partner was literally in bed with the [[Big Bad]].}}
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** The Crachá Preto in the third.
* [[Hit Scan]]: One of the first games to make a big deal of averting this; all of Max's weapons fired modeled projectiles, the bullet-time mechanic was created largely so you could see this more clearly.
* [[Hollywood Satanism]]: Jack Lupino's obsession in the occult in 1, where he has a room in his nightclub strewn with Satanic paraphernalia all over. Turns out that his devil-worshipping schtick was due to his addiction to Valkyr driving him to a hell of a delusion, making him believe that he was a wolf and a messenger of Hell.
* [[Hollywood Silencer]]: Taken to egregious levels in 3, where Max duct tapes a water bottle to the end of his pistol at the beginning of Chapter 12. ''And it works.''
* [[How We Got Here]]: The first game opens immediately after Max kills Nicole Horne, and then flashes back to how he got involved in the whole thing. The second game start right after {{spoiler|Mona dies}}, then flashes back to Max in the hospital after {{spoiler|falling down a hole}} earlier that night, which serves as the first level of the game. At the end of the level, Max finds {{spoiler|Winterson's body}}, which causes him to flash back (that's right, a flashback within a
* [[Hyperspace Arsenal]]: Max can fit a ludicrous number of guns in his jacket in the first two games, but it's averted in the third game. He can carry one large rifle or shotgun and two smaller weapons (also letting him mix and match them, so he can carry an Uzi and a revolver, one in each hand if you wish). Max will even realistically carry his longarm in his off hand due to the lack of a sling, even during cutscenes. And if he needs to go [[Guns Akimbo]], he has to drop the long gun. The game even [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|edits cutscenes to take account of whether or not Max entered the scene carrying a rifle]] and has to put it down or have it taken, and he later carries a duffel bag throughout a level.
** [[Shown Their Work|The Beretta Model 12 submachine gun has also had its stock and foregrip removed to allow it to be fit in Max's shoulder holsters]] (although both it and the Sawed-Off Shotgun still look ridiculous when they're stowed there).
** There's an element of [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]] in play in the early games, however, as several frames in the graphic novels in the first game depicts Max carrying a duffel bag full of weapons.
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* [[Idiot Ball]]: In ''Max Payne 3'', Max is apparently so drunk during the Panama mission that he {{spoiler|completely overlooks how suspicious Passos is acting, and only starts realizing how hinky the entire thing is in hindsight, when he's sober and talking about it two months later with de Silva. It's possible he reacted to finding the ship's passengers' bodies by crawling even further into a bottle and has been trying not to think about it at all, but it's still a fairly significant plot hole.}}
** Also when Max {{spoiler|sees Fabiana and Marcelo being held at gunpoint by Serrano and his cronies, he carelessly busts through the door, turns his gun on Serrano, yells at everyone to drop their weapons despite the fact that he's outnumbered at least 12 to 1 and he almost immediately gets disarmed and Fabiana gets shot as a result, wouldn't it have made more sense for Max had shot Serrano and his mooks through the window? then maybe he could've saved her.}}
** Max notes how stupid he's being throughout the game. In the final level, he even points out exactly how stupid his plan was and how a perfectly sensible one was available. The implication seems to be that Max has something of a death wish and/or is an adrenaline junkie and/or his substance abuse is ''really'' screwing him up.
** Some of Max's dialogue hints at a [[In
* [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]]: Lampshaded by Max during Mona's section in the second game:
{{quote|
** Painfully averted in the first game, where enemies can peg you in the face with a pump-action shotgun blast from the other end of a football field, and in the third game, where some soldiers can drop smoke grenades that don't impede their aim at all.
* [[Important Haircut]]: Max shaves his head in the third game after failing to prevent a kidnapping {{spoiler|and murder}}.
* [[Indecisive Medium]]: The comic book cutscenes.▼
* [[Inexplicably Awesome]]: At no point is it ever revealed how the eponymous seemingly ordinary New York cop in an ostensibly realistic noiresque setting can have fighting abilities like some refugee from [[Heroic Bloodshed]] and can take ridiculous amounts of injury as long as he has painkillers at hand.
* [[Infant Immortality]]: Gruesomely averted in the first game. We see a bloody crib and what's left of Max's baby in the very first level.
* [[Ink Suit Actor]]: People might not initially be aware, but in ''Max Payne 3'', young Max looks an awful lot like his voice actor, James McCaffrey. It seems that this time around, Rockstar modeled the character after his original actor instead of either Sam Lake or Timothy Gibbs.
▲* [[Indecisive Medium]]: The comic book cutscenes.
* [[Inspector Javert]]: Bravura in the original game was out to capture Max Payne. Even ignoring the fact that he was framed for Alex Balder's death, Payne killed at least a dozen mooks before that scene, and hundreds after.
* [[Ironic Nursery Tune]]: heard in Max's first nightmare along with his dead baby's cryings.
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** The ill-fated Alex Balder is named after the Norse god Baldr, who is betrayed and killed at the beginning of Ragnarok.
** Don Punchinello is a reference to the [[Punch and Judy|Victorian-era puppet show character]], signifying that the don is Nicole Horne's puppet.
** Horne's last name itself is a reference to her evil nature, given the traditional horned appearance of [[The Devil
*** Also, she's referred to as "the hag" repeatedly. In keeping with the Norse theme, that's N. Horne = [[The Hecate Sisters|Norn]].
** Jack Lupino's name conveys his wolf-like tendencies. During his crazed tirade, he makes a reference to "the wolf" and howls. This might be considered another Norse reference as well, to Fenris.
** Rico Muerte's last name is Spanish for [[The Grim Reaper|death]].
** The Sax twins' names are Mona and Lisa.
** Ragna Rock is a reference to Ragnarok, the Norse
** The Aesir Corporation is named after the Aesir, the chief pantheon of Norse gods.
** Max learns about Project Valhalla by accessing a computer network called Yggdrasil, the name of the giant tree from which Odin was hung, an ordeal which gave him secret knowledge.
** Valkyr drug makes user high with potential deadly results. Much like Valkyries, flying creatures who take the warriors to Valhalla. After they die, of course.
** Most of the names of the second game's levels. Though most of the allusion goes to the quotes present within the level, some are relevant to the general situation ("No 'Us' In This" is a level where you would expect to have {{spoiler|Mona}} as a sidekick, but she runs off) or even gameplay features ("Dearest Of All My Friends" is exactly how much you have to protect {{spoiler|Vinnie}} during the game's [[Escort Mission]]).
* {{spoiler|[[Mercy Kill]]}}: {{spoiler|You have the option to give one to Becker in the third game, but he dies on his own if you refuse, which also nets you an achievement and unlocks [[Defeat Means Playable|his burnt, half-dead corpse as a playable character in
* [[Mighty Whitey]]: A [[Smug Snake]] military leader accuses Max of trying to be this in a confrontation towards the end of the third game. It rings pretty hollow considering that he and his men have been {{spoiler|pretty much ''re-enacting the Holocaust'' with the city's poor and criminal element by kidnapping them and harvesting their organs.}}
* [[Misaimed Realism]]: In ''3'', the aim point realistically shakes and moves along with Max's hand movements when [[Laser Sight]]s are equipped. An interesting idea in a hardcore tactical shooter like ''[[ARMA: Armed Assault]]'' or ''[[Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (video game)|Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six]]'' (the original one). In a [[Heroic Bloodshed]]-inspired game where the [[One-Man Army]] protagonist liberally uses [[Leap and Fire]] [[Guns Akimbo]]? That's just [[Cool but Inefficient]] at best, outright harmful at worst.
* [[Mook Promotion]]: In the first game, Vinnie Gognitti is a ratty, low-level flunky who Max chases and torments for information, and is so pathetic Max figures he's not even worth killing. By the second game, Vinnie seems to be pretty much running the entire Mafia, due to Max having killed everybody else in the Family hierarchy during the course of the first game.
* [[Multiple Endings]]: In ''Max Payne 2'', {{spoiler|Mona lives if you beat the game on the "Dead on Arrival" difficulty.}}
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** A police sketch of Max in the third game looks like his facial model from the first game.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Nicole Horne, Jack Lupino, Rico Muerte, and Max Payne himself.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: {{spoiler|Max's alliance with Vlad Lem in the first game sees him stealing a huge
* [[Nintendo Hard]]: Even since the first game, a small bite in your luck can result in Max taking a large amount of damage that could become troublesome for you down the road, whether via wasted painkillers or otherwise. Through gratuitous usage of Quicksaves, however, one can essentially retry a specific gunfight as much as they want to lessen the amount of health/ammo expended or so forth.
** Naturally, the hardest difficulties [[Harder Than Hard|put a limit on the amount of quicksaves per level you could do,]] to the point that if one doesn't ration them carefully, a single enemy getting a good shot in [[Check Point Starvation|could send you pretty far back, if not to the beginning of the level entirely.]] Console gamers were stuck with checkpoints.
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** They also mention working a wedding in Aruba.
* [[Nostalgia Level]]: [[Nostalgia Level]]: The nightclub "Ragna Rock", which serves as the final level of the first chapter in the first game, and is revisited twice in the sequel in various stages of renovation.
** Hoboken in ''3''. A Max Payne game without a seemingly
* [[Not What It Looks Like]]: Vinnie's Captain Baseball-bat Boy collection.
{{quote|
* [[Numbered Sequels]]
* [[Obstructive Vigilantism]]: One of the graphic-novel cutscenes has Max contemplating this, but he ultimately decides to come clean. Sort of.
* [[An Offer You Can't Refuse]]: Vlad says this to Max when they meet the first time. Then he says [[I Always Wanted to Say That|that he always wanted to say that]].
* [[Once Killed a Man
* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: Brewer from the 3rd game.
* [[Only Known
{{quote|
* [[Outrun the Fireball]]: Max's escape from Cold Steel facility in the first game.
* [[Past in The Rearview Mirror]]: From the second game:
{{quote|
* [[Pistol-Whipping]]
* [[Plot
* [[Police Brutality]]: Vinnie screams "Stop! Police brutality!" while Max tortures him, to which Max quips "Uh-huh. I rate pretty high on that."
** Not to mention {{spoiler|the UFE}} in the third, who essentially {{spoiler|gun up an entire favela and ''burn Marcelo alive.''}}
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** Then in the third game, a news report clue shows an artist's rendering of Max, and it's the Sam Lake face in all its squinty, eyebrow-raising glory.
* [[Psycho Serum]]: Valkyr; {{spoiler|originally conceived as a [[Super Serum]], the military abandoned it after the negative side effects (addiction, hallucinations, violent tendencies, declaring yourself to be the Fenris Wolf) became known. Nicole Horne, the project lead, decided to sell it as a street drug. In the process, she had Max's wife killed.}}
* [[Punch Clock Villain]]: One overheard conversation in the first game has a mook telling other that he isn't a cold-blooded killer, but a family man working 9 to 5.
* [[Puzzle Boss]]: Both games' final bosses stay well out of your line of fire, requiring you to find an indirect way to kill them. One boss in ''Max Payne 3'' has to be coaxed out of cover by {{spoiler|shooting the weak ceiling above him.}}
* [[Ragdoll Physics]]: Implied in the first game, but actually present in the second. The third game uses the Euphoria software that was present in ''[[
* [[Rare Guns]]: Less than twenty Pancor Jackhammers were ever produced. Funny how more than that can be found in [[Big Applesauce|New York City]].
* [[Real Is Brown]]: The present-day missions in ''Maxy Payne 3'' occur in São Paulo, while the flashbacks take place in icy New Jersey.
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* [[Sadly Mythtaken]]: A minor example, but several times during the comparisons to [[Norse Mythology|Ragnarok]], comparisons are made to Fenris Wolf eating the sun. Actually, the wolves who pursue the sun and moon, and who will eat them during Ragnarok, are called Sköll and Hati, both separate from Fenris.
* [[Sarcasm Mode]]: Max loves this, along with [[Deadpan Snarker]], and it pisses off a lot of his enemies.
{{quote|
'''Max''': Niagara, as in you cry a lot?
'''Inner Monologue''': He had a bat and I was tied to a chair. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do. }}
** Also:
{{quote|
'''Max''': (chuckles) Angie! Tell me, how much did Dime cost you? [[A Worldwide Punomenon|I'll bet it was more than his name]].<br />
'''Punchinello''': Max Payne?!<br />
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* [[Schmuck Bait]]: While in the police station in the second game, you can come across a heater with a big sign on it saying, "DO NOT USE." Use it, and apparently the temperature in the station goes way up; not only do the two people nearby call Max out on it, but other people complain about the heat and think someone turned on the broken heater.
* [[Shout-Out]]: In one level, Max bursts into an apparently empty apartment, with a machine pistol lying on the kitchen counter. [[Pulp Fiction|Then a thug casually walks out of the bathroom.]]
** In the first game, you can find a picture of a [[Commander Keen
** This exchange between two bums:
{{quote|
'''Bum 2''': Yes, sir! It's like
'''Bum 1''': [[REM|And I don't feel fine.]] I don't feel anything! }}
** A mobster can be found killed with a wooden stake in a boarded up room. Near him some letters in blood on the wall spells "[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|BUFF]]".
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** In ''Max Payne 2'' there is ''Dick Justice'' (a blaxploitation parody of the first game), ''The Adventures of Captain BaseballBat Boy'' (based on the comic strip of the same name, which appeared in the first game), and ''Max Heat'', a porno. ''Lords and Ladies'' and ''Address Unknown'' episodes are also seen throughout the game.
* [[Shown Their Work]]: In 3, Max carries a G36 assault rifle variant by the carrying handle. Despite the name and appearance, that's not what that part of the gun is used for. It is, however, a common mistake made by people unfamiliar with such weapons, such as former New York cops with drinking problems.
* [[Singing in
{{quote|
* [[Slipping a Mickey]]: Mona does this to Max in the first game, right after he says "As long as you don't try to slip me a mickey."
* [[Sniper Scope Sway]]: A pretty standard version. Hold your breath and all movement ceases. Move and the sway becomes much worse, crouch and it lessens. The sniper shot bullet cam can get pretty annoying.
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* [[Think of the Children]]: The police precinct in ''2'' features a civilian reporting on her husband, whom she's convinced is learning to kill from [[Murder Simulators|playing violent video games]].
* [[This Is Reality]]: In a blatant comment on the first game's reveling in [[Film Noir]] and revenge tropes:
{{quote|
* [[Title Drop]]: All of the chapter titles are spoken during cutscenes, usually as part of Max's [[Internal Monologue]].
* [[Tone Shift]]: ''3'' dispensed with the noir setting, cartoonish bad guys, and graphic novel format, though the meat of the gameplay is unchanged. Fans complained in droves, so Rockstar added some flashback levels to pay homage to Max's origins.
* [[Took a Level
* [[Took a Level In Dumbass]]: Possibly due to the aforementioned drinking, Max holds the [[Idiot Ball]] at least twice in the third game (see above).
* [[Train Escape]]: Done by Vinnie Gognitti in the first game.
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* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Both Horne and {{spoiler|Vlad}} undergo these as Max closes in.
* [[Vocal Dissonance]]: Max's voice ''really'' doesn't fit the facial expressions Sam Lake uses in the first game.
* [[Walk It Off]]: If Max or Mona are injured beyond a certain point, they walk with a limp and the amount of damage slowly decreases until it is at this threshold. The second game dispenses with the limping.
** In the third game, Max takes a .50 to the arm and is left stumbling and half-coherent from blood loss and shock, but is back to normal with painkillers and bandages.
** More to the definition of the trope, the third game's
* [[Wasn't That Fun?]]: Subverted in ''Max Payne 2''. After getting rid of dozens of mobsters trying to kill Vinnie Gognitti and finally escaping, Vinnie comments "Well, that was fun - [[Dissimile|in a fuckin' terrible, sick, not-at-all-fun way]]".
* [[We Can Rule Together]]: {{spoiler|B.B.}} offers this to Max in the first game. Max doesn't even flinch for a second in rejecting it.
{{quote|
'''Max''': "Maybe, but I can make damn sure none of you do either." }}
* [[We Gotta Stop Meeting Like This]]: Mona Sax says this to Max upon meeting by drawing guns on each other for the second time in the game. {{spoiler|It's also the line spoken by Mona upon their first meeting in the second game.}}
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* [[What Measure Is a Mook?]]: Played with in the first game - Max himself does not even try to pretend his actions are morally justified, and at the beginning of the next game is wracked with guilt about all of the people he's killed. However, the news anchor Kyra Silver continually tries to paint him as some sort of heroic, crusading vigilante, much to his and Bravura's consternation.
** The third game averts it by virtue of having ''every'' enemy be a lethal and hostile aggressor, usually killed in self-defense while being harried and threatened. Later on in the game, you learn that all the people you kill are ''very'' likely terrible, terrible people who will otherwise never be held accountable for their crimes. [[Crapsack World|Yes, there are that many of them]].
* [[Why We Can't Have Nice Things]]: During the escort mission, if you shoot Vinnie's Captain Baseball-bat Boy collector's items, he will begin protesting your actions, claiming that they would have been worth a lot of money. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, he wouldn't be caring for more than a few minutes....}}▼
* [[Why Won't You Die?]]: {{spoiler|Vlad}} delivers one to Max in the second game.▼
{{quote|
* [[World of Symbolism]]:
** The original game is all an allegory for Ragnarok. The story is set during the worst blizzard in the history of New York, which parallels the Fimbulwinter that starts off Ragnarok. It begins with the murder of Alex Balder, who represents Baldr. Jack Lupino explicitly identifies himself as the Fenris Wolf at one point, and runs a club ''called'' Ragna Rock. Alfred Woden (Odin), a one-eyed and secretive man who apparently knows all the secrets in the world, dispatches the lone mortal hero against the forces of the duplicitous Nicole Horne, who has already ensured the deaths of everyone in Woden's circle except himself. The drug Valkyr is also a reference to Valkyries, who transport the dead to the afterlife.
** The second game includes a number of references to ''Paradise Lost'' and ''Genesis,'' with Vlad representing the serpent/Satan, Woden representing God and Max & Mona representing Adam & Eve. The final level includes wall art depicting the Garden of Eden.
▲* [[Why We Can't Have Nice Things]]: During the escort mission, if you shoot Vinnie's Captain Baseball-bat Boy collector's items, he will begin protesting your actions, claiming that they would have been worth a lot of money. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, he wouldn't be caring for more than a few minutes....}}
▲* [[Why Won't You Die?]]: {{spoiler|Vlad}} delivers one to Max in the second game.
▲{{quote| {{spoiler|Vlad}}: "What the fuck is ''wrong'' with you, Max, why don't you just ''die!!!'' You ''hate'' life, you're miserable all the time, afraid to enjoy yourself even a little. Face it, you might as well be dead already. Do yourself a favor, give up!"}}
* [[Wreaking Havok]]: Most obvious in one of the rooms in the backdrop of the funhouse, in which the player is given the opportunity to lob rubber balls at various props purely to show off the physics engine. The third game moves over to the Rage engine and comes with all the requisite next-gen physics upgrades, including a section where you can shoot the wheel block away from a truck and let it roll down a ramp to crush some bad guys loading it up.
* [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]: The Cleaners fall into this a few times, often getting action movie tropes completely wrong... and them completely dead.
{{quote|
'''Mook 1''': Red, blue or green?
'''Mook 2''': In the movies, it's always red or blue.
'''Mook 1''': So, green?
'''Mook 2''': NO, NOT THE GREEN
'''''BOOM!''''' }}
* [[Wrongful Accusation Insurance]]: He got off whatever charges that could be laid against him from the first game, due in no small part to {{spoiler|Alfred Woden}}. Lampshaded by Max Payne noting that he must have had to work ''big time'' to cover up him raiding a corporation.
* [[X Meets Y]]: ''Max Payne 1 & 2'' is ''[[John Woo]]'s'' ''[[Heroic Bloodshed]]'' genre meets ''[[Film Noir]]'' meets ''[[
** ''Max Payne 3'' is ''[[Man
* [[You Watch Too Much X]]: When Woden introduces Max to The Inner Circle, he says that they have watched too much ''[[The X
----
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