Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne - Part 1

1. Prologue, Part 1

Open the nearby cupboard for two painkillers. Get out of the room, and enter the door to your right once you are in the corridor. Max asks if anyone is there, but the only answer he gets are some weird voices coming from inside of his own head. In this room, run towards the white door at the end, and Max will hallucinate even more. He sees Mona in a red jacket. Exit through the white door. In this room, a Cola machine will be placed to the left of where you entered. It is sponsored by Address Unknown, a wacky TV-show. Enter the door to the right of the 'ICU' sign, and answer the phone that is ringing. Payne hallucinates, and hears Nicole Horne asking "Is this the Payne residence?" You hear a doctor talking. Exit this room, and go a little left for three painkillers hidden inside a red box at the floor. Exit the room using the nearby door.

A corpse is lying on the floor. You pick up a 9mm Pistol on the floor, and a commando enters the room. Take him down, and exit the room using the door the commando came from. A cut-scene where Max sees Mona and Winterson. Exit the room, and watch the drawings on the windows in front of you, where the Max Payne 1 prologue is explained. Max is a policeman, he has a family, the family is killed, and Max starts to cry. Run to the right, ignore the reception, and watch the episode of Address Unknown. After this episode, various commercials will air. One of them is for Vladimir Lem's new restaurant. Get into the elevator that has opened.

Down here, Jim Bravura will encounter you. He thinks you are guilty, and that you have murdered your partner Winterson. Things suddenly speed up, and Bravura is shot down by a commando. The elevator you are in falls down, and you lose your guns. Down here, you see Winterson's dead body, and a graphical novel showing police officers and Mona begins. The level ends.

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2. Elevator Doors, Part 1

Watch the graphical novel of Max explaining what happened after the first game in the series. Alfred Woden cleaned him of his actions, and made him look like a hero. Payne never thanked him. You also get to know that Payne transferred to the NYPD, where he is now working as a detective. Some gunshots have been heard at a warehouse owned by Vladimir Lem, and Max drives there to check out what is happening. You hear a woman's voice screaming for help.

Open the door on the rightmost black van for a painkiller and some ammo for your 9mm. Behind Max's car, there is an entrance to the backyard, so run in here as all the other entrances to the building are locked. Enter the building, and keep running until you hear a terrible scream and some gun shots coming from a secretary's corner. You find out that what was going on was just the show Dick Justice airing on a TV. Watch it to find out how Dick's venture started - his family got killed, and Dick decides to make them pay. There is a painkiller in the drawer near the TV. Run through the building until you meet a man.

This guy says he is working for the Squeaky Cleaning Company, and says that the noise came from the gun workshop upstairs. Payne asks him to follow upstairs. Once the man has opened a gate, and says he goes after you, blow his brains out, and continue into the next room to find another cleaner that is armed. Kill him using your 9mm. In the lower right part of the room, a Ragnarock sign is visible. You remember it from Max Payne 1. Exit the room using the gate in the upper left part of the room.

Get a painkiller from the cupboard on your right side, and kill two cleaners in the next room. Continue through the door in the corner, and start running up the stairs. You hear two cleaners planning to get out of here.

Activate Bullet Time once you start getting close to the top, and shoot the first cleaner. Once at the top, take down the second one. You are in the gun workshop that the cleaners have been talking about. Walk through the door, and run left to pick up ammo from the two cupboards. Listen to the answering machine, to hear Annie Finn. The one that has left a message is Vladimir. He says he is sorry he could not make it there because something came up. If you look around, you see the big 'Vodka' sign that Vladimir is going to use for his new restaurant. Now exit the room through the nearby door.

You get to a dark small room. Continue and you hear the woman's voice. In the room where you hear the voice, there is a painkiller and some ammo inside two lockers. Continue toward the voice and through a door. A cut-scene where Annie Finn is being threatened by the cleaners. Annie is killed, and you have to deal with the two cleaners. Use some Bullet Time. Annie mentioned that she was working for Vladimir before she was killed, and the cleaner responded that she was not working for anyone anymore.

Collect the Sawn-Off Shotgun on the table, and run out of the room. You run into two cleaners. Run back to the small dark room and from there head right. Four cleaners, so crouch behind a crate to take them out. You find a Pump-Action Shotgun and an Ingram. Police sirens start making noise. Run through a door, and across a flat stairway. A cut-scene showing Mona Sax coming out of an elevator, killing three cleaners, and seeing Max show. Mona escapes after saying "We gotta stop meeting like this."

Try opening the elevator, and you find out that you cannot enter yet. So, open the door to your right, shoot the two cleaners below you, and backtrack to the elevator, and use it go go downwards. Max realizes that the cleaners are trying to get away, and that backup has finally arrived. Walk through the open gate, then right and kill the cleaners you meet. Continue into the next room, and the cleaners crash a truck into the wall. Take them out, run to the right side of the room, and take a quick trip inside the the entrance, and then run out again, as a stand is falling on you, and you die if it hits you. Kill the last cleaners, and exit the room through a door close to some bodybags lying on the floor.

You see a cut-scene where Winterson saves you from being hit by the escaping car. A graphical novel starts. Bravura thinks it is too bad that Annie Finn died, but changes the topic to a murder case where Mona is suspected. The senator Sebastian Gate has been murdered. Payne keeps his mouth shut, and does not mention that he saw Mona at the warehouse. Winterson gets the case. Now, a phone rings, and an officer answers what appears to be a call for Winterson. Her 'boyfriend is calling.'

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3. A Criminal Mastermind, Part 1

The graphical novel shows Max driving toward Vodka, the restaurant that Vladimir is opening one of these days. Max needs to tell Vladimir about the murder of Annie Finn, since she was employed by him. Once Max arrives, Vladimir is being trapped inside the building. Max decides to help Vladimir out, and uses the backdoor to enter the building.

Run to the far right side of the room to collect some painkillers from a dead man. Head back and go up the stairs. At the top, activate Bullet Time and kill the mobsters waiting for you. Walk to the right, and enter a room with a microphone inside. Use it to tell Vladimir that you are coming. There is a huge drawing of Captain Baseballbat Boy on the wall, by the way. Also, on the other wall you can see a diploma proving that Vladimir has supported the Brooklyn School of the Blind. Pick up the Painkillers that can be found in the lockers in this room, and head up the next set of stairs. Watch the cut-scene where a Russian named 'Mike the Cowboy' takes out several mobsters. He asks you if you really are Max Payne. If Mike survives the level, you meet him again later in the game.

Pick up the ammo that was left by the mobsters, and head up the stairs with Mike behind you. Watch an episode of Captain Baseballbat Boy. Continue running to the right, and into a room with several mobsters in. Use Bullet Time to take them out. Pick up all the ammo, and some painkillers. Continue running forward and up some stairs. Open a door and walk inside. Kill the two mobsters placed straight behind the door, and then the one that appears to your right. Mike drops down to the left of the door you came from, so follow him, and collect all the painkillers you run into. There is also a mobster to the right of the locker with all the painkillers in. Run before Mike and enter the door to the left of the painkillers. Shoot the mobster you see in front of you once you have entered, and then the one to your left.

Wait for Mike to come after you, and then start running down the closest stairs while shooting enemies below. Two mobsters enter from a yellow door close to the bottom. Vladimir is also having a hard time, as you can hear from the huge speakers. Open up the yellow door, kill the mobsters inside by crouching and using Bullet Time, and collect the ammo and painkillers from the locker at the end of the room. There is a brown door in the room that you should open up Ange walk past. Make sure that you run before Mike, as he might get killed fast if he enters first. Activate Bullet Time, take out the mobsters below you, and then the ones to your left. There is a Shotgun at a table to the left too.

Run over to the opposite side of the room, and go down to where the corpses of the mobsters you just shot lie. Collect their ammo, painkillers, and continue through a rather dark passage into the next room. Mike is a great help. Shoot all the mobsters you can see, and then collect the painkillers. Crouch behind some furniture in the right corner of the room, and shoot anything that moves, as long as it is not Mike. When you have killed enough mobsters, a cut-scene showing Vinnie Gognitti and his mobsters and Vladimir starts. Vinnie does not like it when he realizes that you are here, so he sends three mobsters off to kill you. They enter through a door. Kill them, and use this door to get to Vladimir. If you instead choose to go through the other nearby door, you see lots of stuff from the old Ragnarock.

A cut-scene shows Vinnie escaping, and Vladimir thanking you for saving him. He could kill you, he says. The following graphical novel lets you know that Vinnie is trying to kill Vladimir because he is competition on the illegal weapons market in New York. Vladimir says that Annie Finn was a princess, and that she was killed for no reason. Max is offered a drink, but does not want one.

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4. The Depths of my Brain, Part 1

A graphical novel makes it clear that Max has trouble sleeping at night. You see a picture of his wife, with Max's wedding ring close to it. On the TV, Address unknown is airing. You can hear the main character John talking about having entered a parallel reality - Noir York City. You can also hear the words 'The Flesh of Fallen Angels,' which refers to Jack Lupino and Max Payne 1. Lupino had gone mad, destroyed by Valkyr. Now, Max stands up, as if he is dreaming.

In your room, you can see pictures of Max and his family, and pictures displaying 'Hero Cops' Max Payne and Alex Balder. If you try to turn off the television, there is no reaction. Walk out of the room and to the left. A drawing of Mona will suddenly appear from the other side of the exit door. Run into it, and continue running forwards, then right past the crates. Follow the corridor down the stairs and into a morgue. Walk to the right side of the room, and watch Mona's dead body roll out. Whoa, now she appears behind you, alive. If you touch her, she moans Max's name. Answer the phone in the left part of the room. You hear Vladimir talking. You find yourself outside suddenly, and a sign displays Max Payne, and the text 'everyone I touch dies.' You are cornered by the police. They shoot you.

The next thing that happens, is that you are being heard by Winterson and Bravura. Winterson tells you that you have got a phone call. They shoot at you. Shoot back. Max finally wakes when someone knocks on his door. Max gets his gun, and opens up.

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5. No 'us' in This, Part 1

Mona enters the room, and explains that she, and Max, are being targeted by someone. A moment after, Max is almost killed by a sniper. Mona escapes. Run into the room to the left, and make a phonecall to Winterson. Get the painkiller on the right side of the bed, pick up the ammo in the locker that you can find in the bathroom, and then exit using the bathroom door. Out to the corridor using the most solid looking door. You can see that Mona has killed quite a few cleaners. Head left, and then left again, to see an old lady shooting a cleaner. Talk to her, and she will give you a shotgun.

Steal the painkiller from one of her drawers, and exit her room. Jump out the open window to your right, and jump from one ledge to the other one. Ignore the black car, and get inside the window close to the last ledge as soon as possible, as you want to avoid the cleaners coming from the car.

There is a phone, but you cannot use it for anything good. Enter the door to the left. If you turn off the TV, the old man wakes up, but you do not need to do this. Jump out of the window in the old man's room, get into a new corridor, and kill all the cleaners there. Go left and talk to the lady dressed in red. She gives you painkillers if you wait for her to stop talking, as she unlocks her bathroom where the pills can be found. Go into her stove, get into the door on the right, and jump out of the window. Kill the cleaner below you, and jump onto the stairway to your left, walk up, and enter the room the sniper at the start of the level was shooting from.

Someone has been watching Max for weeks, as there is lots of data on him. Pick up the Sniper Rifle from the floor, and listen to the recording device on the table. One of the calls recorded features Max calling a Phone-Sex line, just wanting to talk to someone. If you look into the scope close to the window, you see a cut-scene where Max's room blows up. Get out of the room, pick up a painkiller in the photo-room to the left, and then exit through the other door outside of the photo-room.

Walk until you hear a someone saying "oh my God." Kill the cleaners coming from upstairs and run upstairs, all the way to floor 7 (it says 7 on the wall). Get into the elevator, go down, and be fast and kill the cleaners you meet, as they are trying to kill a man. The Ingram is a good choice in this situation. Follow the man to where he sits down and pick up a shotgun. Follow the signs in the ceiling to the basement. Once you are at the end of the stairs, there is painkillers on the right.

Talk to the man singing on 'Late Goodbye' to get the code for the 7th floor - 667, neighbor of the beast. Back to the elevator and kill the cleaners you meet on your way for a Kalashnikov. Take the elevator up, use the numpad close to the door to open it. Walk left and kill three cleaners. Enter the room they were coming from. In the bathroom, you find four painkillers, and in the stove. A dead woman is 'watching' Address Unknown. Outside the bathroom, there is another door. Enter and kill a cleaner. Before jumping out of a new window, collect the ammo from the drawers.

Equip the Desert Eagle and kill any cleaners that might appear below you, and head left once outside the window. Follow the ledge all the way. Jump over it when you meet gaps, and kill the cleaner that attacks from an open window. You make your way to a open window that you should use to get back into the building. Pick up a painkiller found on top of a drawer, and exit the room.

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6. A Sign of Her Passage, Part 1

Run forward through a white door. Kill the cleaners but watch out for their grenades. One of them drops a painkiller. Run up as long as you can and get the Kalashnikov ammo from all of the crates. Run down until you hear a man screaming. Run into the wooden piece that is blocking the door, and let this bum follow you down the stairs. He used to be a police officer. You get to some smaller stairs once you are done with the bigger ones. At the bottom, go through the 'EXIT' door, and talk to the prostitute. Turn around and walk down the corridor and kill three cleaners at the far end.

Enter the basement by using the door that the last cleaners came from. At the bottom of the basement, use the valve there to turn of the gas to stop a fire longer up in the building. With the bum and the prostitute still following, head up and kill three cleaners. Go back to the floor where you first met the bum when he was trapped behind a door. At the end of the corridor, go to the left into a room that has been destroyed by fire. If you go right once you are in here, you can get two painkillers. Jump out of the leftmost window, equip the Kalashnikov, and kill the cleaners that appear below you. Use the gap to walk as far as you can, and more cleaners appear. Kill them and jump onto the stairway at the end of the ledge. Use it to go to the top onto another ledge, and then jump across a gap to yet another ledge.

Jump onto a new stairway. It collapses. Drop down to a new stairway to the right, and when this one collapses, drop down to one on the left. At the bottom, you meet lots of cleaners.

A graphical nove shot Bravura, going mad over what he says is a kindergarten of people going berserk and killing each other. He takes pills to cool himself down. Max thinks about what really happened, and the fact that Vladimir told him that Vinnie Gognitti was behind it all. Back at the office, Max sees that Mona has tried to call him. Winterson catches Max while calling back, and tells him to not do anything stupid. Max gets Mona's home address.

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7. A Linear Sequence of Scares, Part 1

Max arrives at the address Mona gave him. Walk past the slopes and there is a sign that reads "Welcome to Noir York City." Continue onto the road. To the left, a girl made of paper looks like she is bleeding to death, under the letters The Flesh of Fallen Angels. Continue walking past the inverted letters that read Mirrors are more fun than television. Walk past a paper girl getting off-headed by a murderer, and answer the phone. An artificial voice tells John to watch out for the murderer in the television series. Go into a cage, it takes you to The Pink Bird Mental Institute. Walk until you pass a bathroom with the letters Murderer on the floor, and into a new cage that takes you up. Continue walking. You get to a room with spinning floors. Go toward Schizo Street. Answer the phone, and progress through the black spinning room with all the stars. Walk left and go behind the scenes.

If you enter the first door on your right, you can play around with the games engine. there are balls, tires, a balancing piece of wood. Nothing big though. Continue up the stairs. Running forward and jump onto the roof to your right. Jump inside the window. A Dick Justice poster, a photograph of Mona, Lisa, and a Lords and Ladies show on the TV. In the kitchen at the far left, there is no food in the fridge, but some apples and a painkiller on the table. Walk into the next room. Max realizes that this is where Mona lives. Steal Mona's MP5's, ammo and Painkillers that lie scattered around. If you look at the wall near the weights, there is a great easter egg in the form of a poster where Kenneth Yeung is mentioned. Yeung is the creator of a Kung Fu mod for Max Payne 1. Go into the bathroom to meet Mona. Watch Mona's back when she gets dressed. Or, pretend like you are doing that.

In the graphical novel, Max asks Mona about exactly who is trying to kill them. Mona says that The Inner Circle wants everyone who knows about them dead; she has a contact inside. Max thinks she means Alfred Woden. Mona does not, and offers to take Max to her contact.

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8. The Million Dollar Question, Part 1

A graphical novel shows Max and Mona driving to meet Mona's insider contact. However, when they arrive at the correct location, the cleaners have also arrived, and have killed off the security guards. Mona gives Max a microphone and a headphones so that they can stay in touch while Max goes upstairs, and Mona controls the elevators.

While going upwards, Max asks Mona about how come she is still alive, after taking a bullet in the first game. Mona says that the bullet might still be there. The elevator opens. Go forward, use a weapon's shot to show the bad guys that you are here, and some cleaners attack from the left. Enter the first room on your right hand after having faced the cleaners. Inside this room, there is lots of blood on the floor, and some cleaners are standing around. Kill them off. Mona tells you that several Inner Circle members like in this building. Go inside the bathroom to find a skinny guy lying dead in the bath. This is not Corcoran, the man you are looking for. Take the painkillers from the medicinal cupboard and exit the room from where you entered. Walk to the other side, and try to open the door. You hear a girl having sex with someone. She is without a doubt making things sound 'hotter' than they really are. Turn around and go to the opposite side of the room, but this time, try the door to the left of the one you used last time.

This door is locked, and Mona tells you to go back and enter the skinny guy's room again. Walk out on the balcony, then left past a fence, and into the room you can see through the window. Max tells Mona that he is in. Go upstairs, kill a bucketload of cleaners using Ingrams, steal the painkillers in the bathroom, and enter the bedroom to find Corcoran dead. Max sees a picture of The Inner Circle on the drawer in the bedroom, but has to hurry back.

Still being upstairs, take the door that leads out of the room and to the right. Cleaners attack coming from the room to your right. Kill them and run down the stairs to the left of where the cleaners were shot down. A cleaner is playing 'A Late Goodbye' on the piano. Listen, then kill him and his friends. Before going out on the balcony, you might want to try shooting at the balls on the poolboard. Once on the balcony, go left, kill the two cleaners and drop down the the balcony they lie on.

Enter a new room through the white door. Kill the cleaners you can see, and head to the kitchen to your right for some cover while taking out the rest. There is a cleaner in the kitchen to kill before taking cover. When they are dead, exit the room by going forward from the kitchen. Kill three cleaners, and enter the door to the left of the dead cleaners. Go past the stairs into a bathroom to get four painkillers, then head down the stairs.

Mona tells you to go right, but instead go forward to watch an episode of Address Unknown, about John entering the club named The Pink Flamingo, and getting chased away by men in clean, white uniforms. Head right and a cleaner attacks you. Mona tells you that she is out of ideas. Enter the room the cleaner was guarding, kill the two cleaners in here. Mona is attacked by cleaners. Max's contact with Mona is broken.

Jump through the open window, press the button to go down, while watching out for grenades being dropped. At the bottom you see a man blown out of a window. Kill the cleaner inside, run past the window and lean against the wall, you can get into a shrine at the other side of the corner. This is a shrine dedicated to Miika Forssell. Go back and enter the window, and collect the painkillers on the table. Exit the room, kill some cleaners, and watch the hardass cleaner Kaufman, which is the one in command here, enter from an elevator along with some subordinates. Equip the Kalashnikov or the Ingrams, or the MP5. Activate Bullet Time, and kill Kaufman and the others from behind the wall you are standing close to. Headshots make this easier. Some cleaners attack from behind. Once Kaufman is dead, an elevator opens with an attacking cleaner. You can either enter the elevator to end the level, or go back to the room you came into using the window, and turn on the TV for an easter egg featuring GTA-like graphics.

A cut-scene shows Winterson, along with NYPD officers. They have arrested Mona, and Winterson asks Max about what the heck he has been doing here. The million dollar question.

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