Max Payne's Contest History

Who is Max Payne?
Max Payne is your stereotypical character who loses everything he has, then vows to get revenge on the culprits. Seems simple enough, but if Max Payne were that baseless, he wouldn't have nearly the popularity that he has.

If you get past the cheesy pun that is Max Payne's name, both he and his games are quite good. Max plays the role of the broken man who devotes his life to getting justice quite well, and he also plays the part of someone having nothing left to lose very well. When Max first learns that his family was killed by the hands of drug dealers, he goes undercover in an attempt to both find out what's going on and to get revenge. Unfortunately, everyone else who could have known about the events has also mysteriously died. Max decides that the only course of action to take from there is to go on a massive killing spree aimed at anything dumb enough to move, and this has spawned a decent little series with Max as the main character. Coincidentally enough, both Grand Theft Auto and the Max Payne series are both made by Rockstar, and there are similarities between the storylines of all the games made by the company.

"Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back. I was already so far past the point-of-no-return I couldn't remember what it had looked like when I had passed it." -nMax Payne

Max Payne's Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 2-3

Summer 2002 Contest - South Division - 4 Seed
 * Southern Round 1 --- Defeated (13) Dirk the Daring, 38707 [76.17%] - 12109 [23.83%]
 * Southern Quarterfinal --- Lost to (5) Scorpion, 20754 [34.63%] - 39171 [65.37%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 35th Place [16.64%]

Summer 2003 Contest - South Division - 10 Seed
 * Southern Round 1 --- Defeated (7) Gordon Freeman, 49281 [53.99%] - 41997 [46.01%]
 * Southern Quarterfinal --- Lost to (2) Sephiroth, 18786 [17.33%] - 89595 [82.67%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 51st Place [16.68%]

Summer 2004 Contest - 20XX Division - 12 Seed
 * 20XX Round 1 --- Lost to (5) Tommy Vercetti, 29621 [38.04%] - 48239 [61.96%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 44th Place [18.39%]

Max Payne's series may have generated a lot of surprise mainstream popularity, but GameFAQs defies any and all common logic when it comes to contest popularity. RPG characters and flat-out legends dominate on GameFAQs, and no matter how mainstream the newer characters (Max Payne, Ryu Hayabusa, Tommy Vercetti, etc.) may be in terms of game sales, contest popularity is a whole different animal, as evidenced by Max Payne's performances. His 2003 match with Sephiroth is a perfect example of what happens when an unpopular character goes up against a GameFAQs legend.

It goes deeper than this, as well. Max Payne has two victories, and those wins were against Dirk the Daring and Gordon Freeman. In fact, until Max Payne's surprising overperformance against Vercetti in 2004, Payne was considered a joke by many contest scholars. This guy was blown away by Scorpion, tested by Gordon Freeman, and flat-out killed by Sephiroth. If it wasn't for his surprising showing in 2004, Max Payne may never had seen the light of a GameFAQs contest again. But even with that one performance, Payne's popularity and seeding have dropped year by year. Payne needs a new release, and soon, or he may eventually fall out of grace with the contest field completely.