Max Payne vs. Wei Shen: The Edges

Weapons

Long Range: Heckler and Koch G36 Assault Rifle vs. Enfield SA80 L85A2 Assault Rifle w/Heckler & Koch AG36 Grenade Launcher

First up, a dual between both of these warriors’ long range weapons. These guns are in many ways remarkably similar; they have the same caliber round (5.56x45mm NATO), have the same ammo capacity (30), and almost the same rate of fire (750 vs. 755). Both assault rifles are noted to be lightweight and easily maneuverable for urban combat situations, with the G36 having a slight advantage in weight, (8 lbs to roughly 11 lbs), but being longer than the Enfield (39.33 in vs. 30.91 in). In terms of maneuverability I would give a slight advantage to the Enfield, seeing the greater difference in length (roughly 9 inches) versus the much smaller difference in weight (a 3 pound difference). However, these weapons are designed to be long ranged, and their overall effective firing range is one of the most important factors here. And effective range is where the G36 dominates, having more than twice the distance of its Enfield counterpart.

But Wei’s rifle has one final trick up its sleeve, its underbarrel grenade launcher. With it Wei can destroy potential cover for Max, flush him out of hiding, or just simply blow him away. While Max is very durable, a direct hit from a grenade is beyond his ability to survive, and even non-direct hit still has a chance to tear up his insides with shrapnel. However using the grenade launcher against Max poses one giant risk for Wei, that can be seen at around 3:30 in the video below.

That is Max is accurate enough to shoot grenades out of the air when in bullet time. As Becker found out the hard way, this can cause the grenade to blow up right in your damn face. If this happens to Wei, there won’t be much left of him but a bloody smear. Worst of all, Wei won’t know to anticipate this and may end up pushing the attack with his grenade launcher when it would have been wiser to back off. The way I see it is this; if Wei decides to use his grenade launcher against Max, he better well kill him with the first shot, otherwise he runs the risk of Max’s bullet time turning his own weapon against him. For this large risk/reward factor, I’m giving the edge to the “safer” gun, the G36.

Edge: Max Payne

       

Mid-Range: Dual Taurus PT92 Pistols & Taurus MT-40 Submachine Gun vs. IMI Desert Eagle Mk. 1 Pistol & Heckler and Koch UMP45 Submachine Gun

A two weapon comparison this time, let’s start with each sides pistols first. If these were two real world gunmen, I would give the edge to the PT92 easily. It’s a lighter, more accurate, and simply more practical combat weapon. While it doesn't have the ridiculous stopping power of the DE, it does hold more than twice the number of rounds, allowing it user to put a greater amount of lead downrange both quicker and more accurately. So why is this even a debate you may ask?

Because neither of these two are real world gunmen and regularly display feats of firearm skill that would probably make Chun Yow-fat green with envy. Wei can fire the notoriously powerful DE with one hand for goodness sakes. How he does this without dislocating his wrist is beyond me…but enough with questioning videogame logic. Max on the other hand can dualwield his PT92s without any real loss of accuracy, which is equally insane. So we have two guys who can pull off feats of inhumanly good aiming with their weapons. Accuracy wise it’s essentially a wash, although with bullet time in effect Max would likely edge this out slightly. However what I think pushes the pistols the furthest in Max’s favor is his ability to dualwield. While this does offer some disadvantages, namely that he loses whatever larger weapon he’s carrying at the time, it does give him a considerable firepower advantage over Wei (regardless of the DE’s .50  round). While dualwielding, Max can fire 34 rounds before even having to reload versus Wei’s 8. So more than four times the number of bullets flying through the air (and even is he only uses one at a time still twice as many). So for the advantage of dualwielding and having a lighter and more compact gun, Max bests Wei in pistols.

But the comparison doesn't end there, because to decide who rules mid-range we also have to look at submachine guns. Wei’s UMP45 has a slight advantage in stopping power over Max’s MT-40 (.45 vs. .40), but the MT-40 in turn has a MASSIVE range advantage (164 feet vs. 492 feet). That combined with its superior rate of fire (twice the amount of the UMP45 with 1,200 rpm to 600), tilts the edge of submachine guns into Max’s favor.

Taking the advantage of both pistols and submachine guns nets Max the overall edge here.

Edge: Max Payne

                       

Short Range: Franchi SPAS-15 Shotgun vs. Hawk Semi-Auto Shotgun

Both shotguns are twelve gauge, meaning they’ll hit with roughly the same amount of power. Size wise, the Franchi is both slightly heavier and longer, but that's not enough to take away from the Franchi’s main advantage of having slightly greater ammo capacity than the Hawk (8 rounds to 5). A very slight advantage, but one that I feel gives the SPAS-15 a leg up on its competition.

Edge: Max Payne

Special 1: Melee Combat vs. Kung Fu

While Max is doubtlessly a skilled hand to hand combatant, Wei would in all likelihood wreck him in melee. He has superior technique, training, and experience fighting in hand to hand, and is in overall better physical condition than his opponent. Max only occasionally engages in melee fights, often only after he’s been disarmed and has no other choice but to do so. Even if Max is armed he should be cautious of getting too close to Wei, as Wei has shown to be very skilled at disarming gun wielding opponents.

Edge: Wei Shen

  

Special 2: Bullet Time vs. Vault Shooting

Two different versions of bullet time face off! Max’s may be one of the originals in gaming, but can it handle the kind used by this up and comer? Looking at the easiest advantages right off the bat: Max’s bullet time is more easily spammable than Wei’s, which needs to be set up through the environment first, while Max only needs to have adrenaline available to use his. His ability to shootdodge in addition to using his standard bullet time also gives him greater versatility than Wei, who is mostly limited to only being able to do one thing with his bullet time (vault over cover). Max on the other hand can catch Wei off-guard by attacking from a variety of different angles (such as diving over whatever Wei is using for cover), and shootdodging is very unpredictable and could easily be used to throw Wei off balance.

On the other hand though, shootdodging can also be a risky technique to use. If not done with some tactical planning (which Max is frankly pretty bad at), he may accidentally find himself leaping into a wall, or worse, right into Wei’s line of fire. While vault shooting is fairly simplistic, there is also very little risk to using it, and if Wei actually decides to use tactics he can use this technique to quickly transition from cover to cover, while Max has to recover after every shootdodge.

A fairly close edge, but I’m giving this to Max. He can use his own bullet time much more easily than Wei, has a greater number of options in using it (ranging from simply improving his accuracy to shootdodging), and frankly seems to incorporate shootdodging much more in his combat style than Wei does with vault shooting.

Edge: Max Payne

Defense: Both of these fighters can take a punch…or fifty. Seriously both of these guys have blatantly superhuman toughness, with Max able to survive being shot in the back, fall multiple stories, and then be in fighting shape a few hours later. Wei on the other hand survived being tortured, shot point-blank in the chest with a shotgun, and being in the midst of a fairly large explosion all in short order. While neither are bulletproof, it’s going to take some serious firepower for either to die. In terms up durability feats, I think Wei barely edges out Max here. He’s younger and is in better shape, meaning he’ll have overall better stamina. And while Max’s durability feats may sound better at first glance, it’s important to note that being shot in the head or surviving that multiple story fall put him out of commission for a considerable amount of time, while Wei was still in fighting shape following his injuries. The main factor that makes this edge difficult to decide is the presence of Max’s painkillers. It is important to note that painkillers will NOT auto-heal Max as they do in the games, as that’s edging too close to gameplay mechanics for me. They will serve the purpose that they do in the story, which is to well…kill Max’s pain (hardy har har). Wei still gets the edge for superior durability feats, although painkillers even this one out a little.

Edge: Wei Shen

X-Factors

Tactics: No Sun Tzus here. Both are mediocre tacticians with little in the way of combat strategy beyond running and gunning. Although both are competent at using the environment around them, neither are perfect, with Max’s shootdodging technique allowing for more tactical versatility but also putting him at risk being riddled with gunfire, while Wei’s vault shooting is tactically safer but more limited in its uses. Looking more carefully though at the times they actually used other tactics besides mindlessly spraying bullets though, I would give the edge to Wei here. He has shown to use stealth much more often than Max (sneaking into buildings to plant bugs) and is more inclined to think on his feet (turning Winston against Ming, managing to sneak past someone by pretending to drunk) than Max is.

Edge: Wei Shen

Training: Both have standard police training, with Wei having trained with both the San Francisco and Hong Kong police, and Max having received training with the NYPD and the DEA. Unfortunately, finding specifics about each departments training methods is difficult, as their websites are annoyingly vague, but both should be roughly even here.

Edge: Even          

Morale/Motivation: Both are very strong willed individuals, known for pursuing vendettas to the point of recklessness. Neither really have the edge over the other here, nor is there anything about their opponents or this particular battle scenario that will make either of them fight harder.

Edge: Even

Experience: This is unfortunately a bit of a lopsided comparison, as Max has three games to Wei’s one. This means that Max has a much greater breadth of experience than his opponent, having faced both a much wider variety of enemies, and higher quality ones at that. While Wei almost exclusively takes on the members of rival triads, and in rarer cases the police, Max has gone up against two different Mafioso families, the Russian mob, essentially the entire elite police force of Brazil and won! While Wei is very experienced, he simply can’t match Max here.

Edge: Max Payne

Weaknesses: Both are psychologically messed up beyond belief and would probably leave most therapists sobbing in a corner listening to their life stories. On one hand Max’s trauma seems to run deeper and affect him more on a regular basis, but he actually managed to find some degree of peace with himself by the end of the third game, something that Wei was unable to do. Honestly though, neither are particularly skilled enough in psychological warfare to mess with the other during the fight, so it really comes down to physical weaknesses, that’s where Wei beats out Max. He’s more than 10 years younger, is in much better physical condition, and doesn’t have the physical drawbacks of being an addict.

Edge: Wei Shen

            

Now with the edges totaled up, who will prove deadliest? Will Max's greater experience allow him to triumph over this newcomer, or will Wei send Max into a early retirement? You'll soon find out...or at least as soon as my time for writing stuff like this frees back up.