Enhanced Difficulty v. 1.2 file

This mod is aimed at making Max Payne 2 more challenging! If you agree that the original game was too easy, then you should try this.

This version of the mod also allows you to play extra levels from mods: Mission: Impossible - New Dawn, Mona: The Assassin and Max Payne Chronicles.

To play this mod, copy the files (movies folder, Enhanced Difficulty 1.2.mp2m and Enhanced Difficulty MI - New Dawn.mp2m) to your Max Payne 2 folder, launch Max Payne 2.exe and choose "Enhanced Difficulty 1.2" or "Enhanced Difficulty MI - New Dawn" from the "Choose customized game" menu.

List of changes (v. 1.0):

Enemies:
- Enemies are much more accurate than before;
- Accuracy reduction multiplier while shootdodging was lowered;
- The ratio of enemies health, Max's health and weapon damage has been changed. Enemies can take more damage; Max, on the contrary, dies easier (and so does Mona). In the original game Max could easily survive 2 grenade explosions - not anymore!
- Enemies spend less time in stunlock when taking damage - this makes firefights MUCH more difficult!
- You can't knock enemies off anymore by jumping on them or hitting them with a door;
- The effectiveness of body armor on enemies was slightly increased - damage multiplier changed from 0.4 to 0.3;
- Kaufman and Vlad are now vulnerable to headshots - in the original game, headshots did them as much damage as if Max was shooting them in the torso;
- Bullet speed for enemies was increased (in the original game, Max's bullets and enemy bullets differed greatly in flight speed, here the difference is not so significant). This probably affects the ability of Max to dodge bullets.

Weapons:
- Picking up ammo boxes and weapons gives you less ammo (not for all types of weapons);
- Some weapons (deagle or striker) have less bullets in the magazine;
- The amount of ammo Max can carry has been lowered (that includes grenades and molotovs);
- Rate of fire for many weapons has been changed (mainly increased). The machine guns now finally feel like machine guns!
- Bullet spread for all weapons was lowered.

General:
- Difficulty levels - Detective, Hard-boiled and DOA - are almost identical. The only difference is in the amount of saves available. Detective has 7 saves per level, Hard-boiled has 3 and DOA has 0 (only autosave at the beginning of each level is available on DOA);
- Dynamic difficulty adjustment is turned off;
- Bullet time (BT) mechanic was remade. No more passive refill of BT, the maximum amount of BT was lowered to 10 seconds, killing enemies gives less BT, "depth" (multiplier) of BT was decreased;
- Headshot damage multiplier increased from 3 to 8. Headshots are the key to victory!
- Bullet camera was turned off while sniping (I always thought it was annoying);
- Dual Desert Eagles and Dual Berettas have reload animations from Payne Effects;
- New blood texture;
- New sounds and textures for some weapons;
- "Jump to chapter" menu now allows you to choose the difficulty.

Updates in v. 1.1:
- At the beginning of the levels Max has low bullet time (just like in Max Payne 3). Exceptions are the levels that take place in the same area (Max's house for example or Construction Site, as Mona);
- Healing rate from a painkiller increased from 1%/sec to 3%/sec in order to make firefights more dynamic;
- Player can shootdodge even with 0 bullet time available;
- Camera flight during bullet time reload ("whirl") was turned off; Max and Mona are no longer immortal during "whirl" reload;
- Level selector was fixed (in v. 1.0 it sometimes gave player a beretta with a single bullet - now it gives more ammo);
- Sounds of picking up 2 handed weapons, painkillers and ammo boxes were taken from Max Payne 1;
- Small visual changes like shotgun bullet hole textures from Max Payne 1...;
- The delay between a cutscene and the ability to skip it was turned off;
- Cheat "getinfiniteammo" was enabled; cheat "coder" now gives Max infinite painkillers (useful for tests);
- Intro video doesn't pop up when running the game.

Updates in v. 1.2:
- High-quality levels from the Max Payne Chronicles and Mona: The Assassin mods have been added to the game!
- Significantly reduced bullet spread! Almost all weapons, except shotguns and dual ingrams, fire at the exact point where you aim;
- Mona's health has been slightly increased. Now if she has full health, she survives after getting shot by a Desert Eagle;
- Max's health was increased by 5 times on levels with Mona (Construction site), so that he's likely to survive survives in firefights where the player cannot help him;
- Added a little bit of damage to sniper rifles;
- A cover for the main menu of the mod was made;
- Player now has more weapons when loading individual levels from the Level selector. A set of weapons for each level is different (unfortunately, it does not work on all the levels in the game);
- Fixed a bug with reloading weapons during dodge - in version 1.1 it was turned off for Max, but for Mona it remained;
- Fixed a bug with instant health recovery from painkillers when the player reloaded dual berettas;
- Fixed a bug that after entering jump10/20/30 cheats, player acquired immortality;
- Cheats "noclip" and "noclip_off" were enabled - the purpose is the same as in Max Payne 1, to allow the player to walk through moving objects like closed doors etc.

Update of 29 oct 2023:
- High-quality levels from Mission: Impossible - New Dawn have been added to the game!

A huge thank you to Impossible Mod Force Team, who gave us Mission: Impossible - New Dawn modification for Max Payne 2:
Jurgen "theHunted" Oswald, Florian "luther[imf]" Kipf, Michael "ethan[imf]" Wegener, Helder "HP" Pinto, Michael "HUBI" Haublein, Alexander "RnB" Pippan, Sayantan, Uisor, theManCalledZee, Eric Russoniello, Martin Sabel, Rick Anderson, Dan Choina, Mat Recker, Jason Hafenstein, Buster Blakeney, Jackie Hafenstein, Rammathorn, Charles F. Bieber. Jr., Tommy Bowen, Corwin, Mr. Anderson, monk, biXen, Ghast, JeyBee, Aztec, Chris Pletl, Christoph, Froz, Master Fusion, Sayantan, X_x, Marvel, Mixuk, Mika, Aavenr, Maxey and everyone who helped with the creation of M:I - New Dawn (2001-2005)!

Special thanks to Clément Melendez aka "Corwin" - the creator of "Max Payne Chronicles" and "Mona: The Assassin" mods, who kindly allowed me to use his amazing levels in this mod! You can check his website here: Clement-melendez.com
I'm also grateful to the whole team that worked on "Mona: The Assassin": Mikael "mixuk" Kasurinen, Diego "Aavenr" Jiménez, Carl "Cshedd" Shedd, Johan "Jokke_r" Robertsson, Mikael "Lunar Blue" Paunila, Markus "MK" Kohlpaintner, Johnathan "Maddieman" Hallier, and, once again, Clément "Corwin" Melendez.

I'm also grateful to the creators of the mods: Lethal mod 1.1, Payne Effects, Killer mod v. 1.1 and Cinema.

If you enjoyed Enhanced Difficulty 1.2, you can also check my mod for Max Payne 1 that increases game difficulty:
Moddb.com
Have fun!
- onehundredpercentass