The PC hit famous as the first game with "Bullet Time" barrels onto the Game Boy Advance in all its guns-a-blazing, over-the-top glory.

In the pulp-fiction prelude, Max is a New York cop living an idyllic life on a tree-shaded street -- until he comes home one day and finds his wife and infant brutally murdered. When he finds out the killers were whacked out on a new designer drug called Valkyr, he joins the narc squad and goes undercover, vowing to bring the big cheeses to justice. But when a meeting in a subway station goes bloodily awry, the cops join just about every Manhattan gang in pursuing Max. As if that weren't enough drama, all the action takes place in the midst of a huge snowstorm, with news bulletins warning citizens to stay home.

Max Payne weighs in at a hefty 128 megabits, with most of that taken up by Max's growling narration in the lengthy slide-show cut-scenes. Bad stuff is always about to happen and Max knows it, but as he says before one typically lurid level, he's not smart enough to turn back. If he were, we wouldn't have much of a game, would we?

But of course the real action lies in the game's cool Bullet Time mode, which looks like something out of a John Woo movie. With a squeeze of the button, both you and your enemies slow way down -- but you can still fire at your real-time rate. The music halts, Max dives, aims and fires at the same time, and the bad guy's cries of pain slow down to a spectral roar.

Based on the original worldwide smash Max Payne for the PC

12 levels in three chapters

Fully voiced in-game narrative

More than 10 weapons, including dual handguns, sawed-off shotguns, grenades and Molotov cocktails