![]() In Max Payne 2, Mona is a hired gun who’s been procured to kill Max Payne, yet finds herself torn between an obligation to her boss and a newfound desire for her target. The most commonly used box art image is strictly black and white, and depicts titular character Max embracing femme fatale Mona Sax. Sure, it helps that the box art hits you over the head with its tagline, “A Film Noir Love Story,” but that doesn’t detract from the wonderfully evocative artwork. It’s a stark, minimalistic cover that manages to convey a handful of noir themes with ease. The box art for Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne has no illusions about what atmosphere it’s trying to capture. It’s about subtle inflections, facial tics, and a quiet unease that belies the torrent of angst and suspicion in each character. Noir isn’t about over-the-top violence or huge explosions. Our decisions, about whom to take at face value and who to distrust, become very real and boast serious consequences. It allows us, the reader/player/viewer, to feel a palpable anxiety towards each person we encounter. ![]() A tenuous trust in others fuels noir fiction. Noir films, books, TV shows and videogames are consistently populated with shady women whose intentions can’t be known until it’s too late. That line is the crux of just about every single piece of crime fiction created, especially within the noir genre. “For this to work, I was going to have to trust her.” Max Payne utters those lines of narration before you take control of him, bursting out of an elevator and slow-mo shooting a handful of personality-less baddies.
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