 I missed out on a lot of 5th and 6th generation console games, I'm talking about stuff like Saturn, PlayStation, Xbox, Gamecube, all that stuff because I was either still stubbornly playing Super Nintendo games, or because I was too busy getting wrapped up in PC gaming, games like Max Payne, and when this game first arrived in 2001 I freaking loved everything about it. The graphic novel presentation, the revenge storyline, the beyond jaded main character and his voice that made him sound like he gargled gravel for fun when he wasn't kicking people's asses, and of course the bullet time combat. This blew my freaking mind at the time, and it's still super fun to this day to go flying around in slow motion blowing up bad guys. Many many years later I come to find out there's a Game Boy Advance version of this game? What? Really? How is that even possible? Yeah I found out about this port sometime last year courtesy of a great video made by Game Vs. Game, and... I was still on the force back then, NYPD, Manhattan, Midtown North Precinct, Hell's Kitchen. Holy crap it's got voice acting for God's sake? That's insane! Okay, so the quality makes it sound like that episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast when he attached a speaker to his head to broadcast his thoughts. Huh? The dreams have a nasty habit of going bad when you're not looking. But still, I mean, that's pretty freaking cool for a Game Boy Advance game. As you can see, instead of a third person view, this version of the game takes place from an isometric viewpoint, and it reminds me of the Super Nintendo version of Shadow Run. The characters here aren't sprites, they're rendered by polygons, and it actually looks pretty nice all things considered. The big problem here though is that the camera is pretty terrible. It is really sensitive, and jolting your viewpoint around when you change direction takes a lot of getting used to. The good news however is that you can switch the controls in the options menu, so if you want up to be, you know, actually up, then you can do that. Otherwise pressing up is going to default to up and to the right, and that can be tough to get used to. Too bad there's no fixing how sensitive the camera is when you change direction. You press B to jump, A to fire your weapon in the general direction of your enemies I guess, there's no real way to aim here, but the game is very forgiving in this aspect. Select lets you use your painkillers to replenish health. You hold L to switch weapons, and R activates bullet time, yes that's right, bullet time in a Game Boy Advance game, and it's actually pretty freaking cool. For the uninitiated bullet time, pretty much just means triggering a super slow motion effect while still being able to control your character. It allows you to dodge enemy gunfire, sort of, but most importantly, it lets you aim and fire your weapon in real time. To put it another way, you get to jump around all badass in slow mo like you're in the matrix. And just press R again to go back to normal, the hourglass on the lower left shows your allotment of bullet time that you can use, and it replenishes automatically, albeit very slowly. Get it? Nyeh? Nyeh? Another surprise is that, while there are some levels that are cut from this version of the game entirely, what is here is reasonably faithful to the original. In fact, in my opinion, it's actually kind of nice that I don't have to deal with that annoying follow the blood trail dream level. But yeah, while this is a pretty short playthrough, the story itself for the most part is all here, or at least all the major components of it, and the level layouts themselves had me saying, hey, I recognize this as I played through this one. This game utilizes a battery save that triggers automatically after you complete each section, and you get 5 lives that replenish for every area that you complete. So yeah, this game is really forgiving, especially since evidently it's just about impossible to get hit by enemy fire when you're in bullet time mode. Forgiving doesn't necessarily mean easy or fair though, since you'll run into plenty of enemies that have the magic ability to hit you from off-screen, so be prepared to deal with that as well. Anyway, yeah, I guess this is just more of an FYI video to say, hey, did you know this existed? Thanks to Game Vs. Game again for pointing this one out, and while this isn't going to sniff a Best Game Boy Advance game's list or anything, I think it's a very clever and well-made reinvention of a PC game, refitted for a portable system, and one of the most surprisingly fun games I've played. No, of course it's not going to touch the PC version of this game, but Max Payne for Game Boy Advance is still an interesting novelty, and actually a fun time. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.