Hall of Mirrors (Max Payne 2 Modification) (PC)

Models

The Sweepers are in, the Clerics are in (even the HoM team are there) and these models are nicely done. They are pretty clean and there are no obvious faults that I could detect when playing, the visor shattering effect on the Sweeper’s motor-bike helmets really adds to the whole feeling in the game as well, and we had to administer several shots of Prozium to other movie fans that were fortunately enough to be around at the time of our testing/reviewing of this particular mod.

Sound/Music/Video

The team has made sure that there are several key pieces of music from the movie, integrated into the game. They have tuned some of the sound effects it seems whilst adding various quotes from the Sweepers and enemies and certainly once more the big thumbs up have to go to Mr. Anderson for his excellent work on the tutorial video, this piece of work certainly needs to be seen since it takes an inventive approach to the task and provides an excellent atmospheric tool for the player to soak up even more of the movies’ atmosphere.

AI

The Sweepers are aggressive and they take no prisoners, they’re a relentless foe that will hunt you down no matter where (or if) you try to run. The other Clerics are likewise pretty tough and troublesome, they will use their Gun Kata moves and acrobatics to try and take you down at every opportunity.

Overall thoughts

There are some glitches now and then, a few bugs with the sound dropping out and the control system will give you a headache until you get used to it. The mod will seem short to some people but those people need to take a look at the meat and bones of the mod, the skin is important but under it there’s a lot going on and the team’s had to do all of this from scratch – making use of the engine, and the engine is a pain to work with from personal experience. Rico’s fine work on the animations allows gamers to experience Gun Kata in a game as close as they are ever going to get, since the 100 Bullets game was canned and would of featured a simple Gun Kata style system/gameplay.

The HoM mod team has done a pretty incredible job with this addition to Max Payne and they produced a fine product at the end of it, with pretty much top-class production values and a wealth of content for the Equilbrium fan.

As always the HoM team are available through the unofficial fansite forums, where they have promised to listen to feedback

Click here!!!

The mod is fun and frenetic in places, the Gun Kata system is quirky but works and you can play the original game storyline with it. Which does definitely even the odds when Max – goes Cleric. There are some good maps that the HoM team have created and it all goes a long way to making the mod pretty special.

Best of all it is: FREE!