New Max Payne 2 trailer

Remedy and Rockstar have released another Max Payne 2 trailer following the gold announcement earlier this week. The trailer is available in resolutions from 320x164 to 640x328, and you can get it from the likes of 3D Gamers (who have torrents) and 3D Downloads (who have also mirrored it in Windows Media format).

From the trailer, it looks like Max is back and on classic form. "I lied to myself that it was over... and it wasn't over. It would get worse before the end," he confides in a typically grave voice over, before we're treated to an array of superbly detailed facial close-ups and fight scenes, with enemies being blown halfway across the room on the end of a 9mm bullet, explosions wreaking havoc in crowded areas, and ragdoll enemies being hammered against walls and dislodging the furniture in their death throes.

In one particularly glorious encounter, a black-clad enemy is thrown against a shelving unit stuffed with plastic tubs, boxes and other items, and it all comes tumbling down around him. As the game's lead writer Sam Lake told GameSpot recently, Havoc physics allowed Remedy "to forcefully move around and break enemies and surroundings with bullets and explosions, being able to enhance that effect dramatically with bullet time, and then have those objects affect each other in turn adds a great deal to the action."

It's also clear that the slow-motion combat is still firmly in place, and that Max will be doing the business with handguns, machine guns, shotguns and Molotov cocktails to name a few, not to mention leaping through panes of glass and following high calibre sniper rounds from barrel to bonce. It's also clear that we can expect more of the deadpan humour and cutting asides courtesy of fictional TV shows playing on television sets. One phony copy show, Dick Justice, is said to be a parody of the original Max Payne.

We're really looking forward to this, and the scenes of Max getting thrown about and shot coupled with the love story angle and desperate - almost futile-sounding - music give us hope that Remedy has crafted another breakthrough in cinematic action gaming. Since we'll be getting our hands on Max Payne 2, we'll be sure to let you know how it turns out closer to the October 24th release date.