Half-Life's Max Payne mod gets its final major update

Half-Payne is, as the name suggests, a mash-up of two classic PC shooters: Half-Life and Max Payne. Basically, it gives Gordon Freeman the same skills that Max has, including bullet time, a dive move, and painkiller healing. Creator suXin has now released what they call its "last major update", which adds a random mod feature, Twitch integration, and a new nightmare dream sequence.

If you turn random mods on, you'll periodically activate one of the many tweaks that suXin has added during development. For example, you might be granted infinite ammo—and then, when that wears off, you might get a wobbly camera that makes aiming hard, followed by a modification that pushes you back every time you take damage. It means that no two play sessions will be the same.

One of those random mods is the rather disturbing 'Payned', added in this update. It transforms all enemies and NPCs into Max Payne, but doesn't alter their body shape or head size, which leads to some twisted character models. Barnacles (the tongue things), just become Max's glorious face. You can see it in action in the trailer, above. 

Twitch integration revolves around those random mods: you can let viewers mess with you by voting on the next modification, which sounds like fun.

The new nightmare sequence is another tribute to Max Payne, adding a dream sequence into the Apprehension section of Half-Life. The update also adds a Gungame mode that forces you to use random weapons.

The whole thing is a great excuse to play Half-Life all over again, and both bullet time and Max Payne's trademark dives look like they transfer surprisingly well to Valve's shooter. You can download the mod from its ModDB page.