Max Payne (series)/Headscratchers

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Max Payne 1

Max clearly took steps to disguise his identity for his undercover work in the first game, except he used his real full name, which is still connected to his past life as an NYPD officer. Granted it was most likely so the player didn't get confused when the police & news are naming the "wrong person" in their manhunt but how was it that neither the Punchinellos nor the police realized he was really a former NYPD cop or DEA agent? Did Max make no friends going through the academy or on his police beat that would realize the criminal on all the news broadcasts looks suspiciously like, and has the same name as, someone who went through police training academy and had served the NYPD among them? Regarding the Punchinellos, Max's dream sequence showed he & Alex Balder had made headlines a few times: wouldn't the criminal cartel perform some sort of cursory background check on Max before accepting him into their ranks? There's also the question of how exposed and high profile the story of the murder of cop's family (and a wife who worked in the DA's office) would be, which would have given Max a great deal of public exposure and even more opportunities for the crime family's background check to pick him up as "That guy whose family was killed by Valkyr addicts and has a major reason to want to screw us up big time".

• • Perhaps they did realize it, but just figured he'd gone off his rocker after his family was killed.
  • Just make it look like he got "fired" after his family died, and desperately needs the money. Happens a lot in real life.

Max Payne 2

• Okay, this is a pretty strange one but why exactly is Vlad targeting Max? Max has no real issue with Vlad and while he tore a hole through the Boss' cleaners in the first level, he's under the mistaken impression Vlad is the lesser evil by the second level and even saves Vlad's life. So, WHY?
  • Max is Alfred Woden's high face card, he has a history with Mona, and Vlad knows that Max doesn't let things go. Vlad knows that in order to kill Woden, he needs to kill Mona, and that means he needs to kill Max. He'd obviously prefer otherwise but knows there's no way around it.

Max Payne 3

• At the end of the game you basically have Becker, who's had a grenade go off in his face and is clearly not going to make it, and if you shoot him he died. But, if you don't shoot him then he dies anyway from his wounds. What was the point to having a choice to shoot him or not if the outcome was more or less the same?
  • He suffers in agony for a bit and that extra suffering unlocks his skin for multiplayer.

Movie

• Why IS everybody hallucinating the same thing (the demonic Valkyries)?

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