Max payne dream sequence series#

The narrative style and thick atmosphere of the Max Payne franchise makes it ripe for this sort of trippy treatment, and Remedy has proven that they're expert at toying with and subverting their own fiction. Interlaced through these dark moments are breaks where Max realizes he's the star of a graphic novel (the game's cutscenes are comic book pages) or a character in a video game, haunted by speech 'hanging in the air like balloons' or the sensation of someone controlling his every move. Max's guilt and pathos are amped up by way of an overturned crib defaced with blood, and the voice of Max's wife calling out to him, alternately accusing him or pleading for help. The infamous dream sequences from the original Max Payne alternate from whacky, fourth-wall breaking humor to dark reminders of the violent death of Max's family at the hands of hopped-up junkies. Of course, after all the horrors our 'hero' Philip has been exposed to, it's a wonder he ever sleeps at all.

Max payne dream sequence series#

Though the entire Penumbra series is like a bad trip in some ways, this dream sequence, with its human arm lanterns, river of blood, and black void replete with rusty chains manages to stand out from the general atmosphere of darkness and insanity. It's no surprise that the creators of Amnesia: the Dark Descent can sculpt out a killer dream sequence, and the one in Penumbra: Black Plague is a banger. There's the giant, warped flesh monster The Immoral Beast, signifying Vincent's lack of control over his own libido the Doom Bride, a psychotic version of Vincent's girlfriend Katherine in a tattered wedding dress and wielding a giant, blood stained knife and, of course, the giant zombie baby, a hellish representation of Vincent's fear of fatherhood that looks like it would prefer chewing human flesh to the pacifier currently planted in its distended mouth. The true genius/madness of these twisted dreamscapes are the bosses, who reflect some of the real world crises Vincent is grappling with. But that's only the tip of the surreal iceberg that is Catherine's dream world. The other young men he encounters all appear as sheep, often with random articles of human clothing, and to escape Vincent has to scale massive towers of blocks. To start, in the nightmare landscape of his guilt-adled mind Vincent is perpetually in his underwear and sporting a pair of ram's horns, a marker of his infidelity. CatherineД¬atherine is novel in that all its gameplay takes place inside of protagonist Vincent's slumbering subconscious, and it is a bizarre and terrifying place.

Not only is the sequence a great nostalgia piece and top-shelf fan service, it's also a welcome reminder of how far the series has come in terms of advanced graphics and logical controls.

The sequence ends with Snake snapping awake, his face transforming from low res-polygons to modern textures, young Snake aging before our eyes.

Players are transported back to Shadow Moses, site of the original MGS, and play through a sequence in the style of the original game, complete with original PlayStation-era graphics. One of the coolest moments of the last numbered Metal Gear Solid happens when a weathered, ancient Snake starts to drift off on a transport chopper.