After porting GTA San Andreas to the Vita, it seems that TheFlow’s interested in porting more games to the console using Android versions which ought to expand its port library quite a bit! In this article, we’re going to look at a Max Payne port for the Vita by TheFlow and fgsfdsfgs together with some others’ help.

What is Max Payne and what about its Vita port?

Fancy playing Max Payne on the Vita? TheFlow and fgsfdsfgs have you covered! (Source: VitaDB link below)

Max Payne is a pretty well-known video game released in 2001 for various platforms including Windows, the PlayStation 2, XBOX and most recently Android among others. Being a 3rd-person game in nature, this game revolves an NYPD officer trying to solve the murder of his wife and daughter in connection with a drug trafficking case. Overall, the game received positive reviews with scores usually topping 80% while also being the recipient of many awards.

Moving over to the PSVita version of the game, its README states that it’s based upon the Android port as it effectively runs its original binary while patching it and adding some code of its own. Seeing how it is based on the Android port, you must supply your own game files which could be easily obtained if you have purchased the game on your smartphone.

How well does Max Payne work on the Vita?

While it runs well enough, Max Payne still has some issues to keep in mind (Source: VitaDB link below)

Its developers note that the Max Payne port in its current state is not fully stable with the GitHub release post shedding light on some issues the initial release suffers from:

• After loading 2 or 3 levels, the game might crash due to a memory leak issue so keep this in mind if you plan on longer gaming sessions
• Loading levels and starting the game takes a while so be patient
• Intro movies don’t play and the key binding menu doesn’t display button names properly

Other than the issues above, Max Payne is running quite decently on the console with the frame rate definitely being playable although from some YouTube gameplay videos, it seems to vary depending on the situation as it’s sometimes in the 20FPS range while less taxing scenes can easily do 60FPS.

Conclusion

Unlike most other homebrew, installing the VPK isn’t enough and you have to do some other stuff like installing 2 plugins (kubridge and fdfix), extracting the PSM runtime shader compiler & copying over the apk/obb files of the game to your console before you play the game! Instructions on how to do all of this can be found on the port’s GitHub Release Page.

Max Payne for the Vita GitHub Release Page (download link + instructions): https://github.com/fgsfdsfgs/max_vita/releases

Max Payne for Vita VitaDB link (alt download link): https://vitadb.rinnegatamante.it/#/info/612

TheFlow’s Patreon (donations): https://www.patreon.com/TheOfficialFloW