Today is 14th February! Valentine's Day! No matter how you view the occasion, there is one man who hates this time of year more than anyone else; a man whose heart is filled with darkness and whose voice is filled with metaphors. Yes, Max Payne.
I wanted to start updating the Max Payne 2 section of the site, which gave the perfect excuse to pick up the 2003 title again and play it. (As if you need an excuse.) By the end, any illusion that Max has experienced any luck at all in his life vanishes and you can't really see that he would put himself mentally into the position of having romantic feelings for anyone else afterwards.
In short, he would make a really rubbish greeting cards writer, especially for Valentine's Day...of course this is still something we would be quite interested in seeing. Below are a selection of Valentine's Day cards with actual quotes from the game, taken out of context:
A romantic meal! Two dozen red roses! Your partner's face lit up by candle light...You reach across the table, take their hand, and in a deep, haunted voice you ask the question: "This is love? Love hurts." You and your partner decides to skip desert and you head back home for an early night. Only to witness your belongings and pet hamster being thrown from the second floor by your very angry and very ex wife. Love hurts.
You may think about a lot of things while kissing; how much you love your special someone, how much they love you, what will you cook for dinner that night. Although the philosophical concept of causality which stretches back to Aristotle? Really?
You've decided to leave work early to have a late lunch by the lake with your partner. You bring an expensive bottle of champagne you've been hiding away for the past month. The wine is the same brand as the one you had to toast your wedding engagement. You also bring a selection of flat bread and pancakes because your partner always said that they love pecking ducks and pancakes. They arrive twenty minutes late, apologising profusely. You brush aside any inconvenience and grab the bottle of champagne and two polystyrene cups from a plastic bag. Handing one of the cups over to your partner, you begin to pour the wine while explaining the meaning behind the sentiment.
You talk a little bit too much, revealing more about your background then your partner knew. They learn that you were a former drug dealer and that you were the one who ran over your now-Mother in law, and that's why you first met in Hospital. Seeing their horrified face, you try to fix the topic, turning it more twisted. You blunder about how, if they were dead, that you would kiss them and there would be darkness in their mouth, and like Thomas Hardy you would keep their coffin at the foot of your bed for several days.
Ultimately you end up sitting a nearby bench, drinking half the bottle of champagne, wearing the rest.
I discovered recently that I am a collector of a great many things. Some I were familiar with...others not so much. I have a vast range of badges,
coasters, rocks, hats, scientific calculators, swords, science fiction guns, and Daleks. I can honestly say with pride and confidence that I have not been hording past crushes in boxes. At least that's what I tell the police....Thomas Hardy would understand.
Despite being on the same day every year, there are some annual events which we always end up delay going shopping for. Valentine's Day tends to be that event for a lot of people. Desperation setting in is never a great feeling nor a pretty sight, and the shops reflect this.
So when you get to the store, you're left with the the slightly brownish roses with half the petals on the floor and an angry looking spider on the leaf, and the really awful cards. Both options are so bad that you would consider going to another shop, but it's getting late. You consider Valentine's Day's commercialism while fighting the shop's self-check-out machine. Arriving home you greet your wife with the brown roses and a small bemused puppy you "adopted" on the way. You then hand her the card. Fortunately she's not really paying attention to your lack of romance, only focusing on the card's design which reveals your somewhat-controversial plot and contentedness with her sudden demise.
After your previous three relationships, you should really have learnt by now not to be such an ass. Although the worst is yet to come...
.
After a lot of thinking, I've concluded that there is absolutely no instance in which you can give this Valentine's Day card and have it be deemed "appropriate". The only situation where this could actually be more disturbing was if this genuinely happened and you sent your unknowing lover on a Valentine's Day treasure hunt. The only fitting final clue would lead them to a freshly planted rosebush in your back garden and this card tangled among the thorns.
Happy Valentine's Day!
