Max Payne - Feel the Pain of the Anti-Hero

I received my X-box video game console as a holiday gift back around 2003. I didn't use it much, until I bought a video game named Max Payne in a now defunct Borders Book Store (back when they sold video games). It took me a few weeks to finally put the disc in the system. From the get go, with the excellent graphics and compelling storyboard, I was hooked. However, it was the main character, Max Payne that made the game unique.

Max is a detective in the undercover drug unit for the New York City Police. He is a depressed and sullen individual because his wife and toddler daughter were brutally slain by drug addicts years ago in a home invasion. As the game progresses, Max narrates the video game in a gloomy, monotone voice. He shares his thoughts, worries and nightmares with video game users. Payne is a loose cannon, yet determined to find out who the people were that masterminded the killing of his family. He's a killing machine who'll gun down a mobster without remorse, yet still maintains a sense of right and wrong when it comes to the law.

Despite the atmosphere of mass killing Max falls in love with a female vigilante agent in the video game, Max Payne 2 - The Fall of Max Payne. However, his personal demons still continue to haunt the hero as he recites his feelings to the video game user.

Max is a restless, tortured soul who constantly expresses feelings of darkness and at times, hope. At one time or another, we've all felt the way Max Payne feels. Searching for some light in a long tunnel of darkness. I've been waiting for years for the third Max Payne installment to come out. I know I won't be disappointed.