The history of PayneReactor

About PayneReactor

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Written by biXen

PayneReactor has existed in one form or another since 1999. It was called Insane Payne back then. This is the latest incarnation of my Max Payne fansite, and the backend and design is all done by me biXen (Kristian), Cypress (Patrick) is doing most of the content. Feel free to use the contact page in the menu to get in touch.

Image showing PayneReactor anno 2001

PayneReactor started as a fansite back in 1999, it was called Insane Payne at the time. After a decent amount of visitors and due to my insight into how the game would turn out (due to good contact with the developers in Remedy), the site was quite popular and I was approached by Game Reactor and agreed to put the site under their "umbrella" in 2001 naming it PayneReactor (see image on the right). I got an interview with Remedy that was translated from my English site to the Danish/Norwegian/Swedish of Game Reactor at the time to open the cooperation.

At the launch of Max Payne the site had over 500,000 visitors in that month, but by the time Max Payne 2 was released in 2003 I was running the site independently, but kept the Reactor in the name. I got great support from Rockstar Games and was even invited to try out the new Dead Man Walking mode of the game in New York before launch in October 2003. Since then there's been a lot of mod activity as Max Payne games are highly moddable, but after 2006 it's been pretty quiet, until now, with the announcement of Max Payne 3.

After using the previous CMS made by Mattze (he's now running Codename GTA, Codename Saints Row and more sites) I decided he didn't have the time to maintain my sites as well, so I redesigned my sites and implemented them with Joomla.

In 2010 / 2011 as news of Max Payne 3 draws closer we're again focusing on the content of the site.

Most of the content and graphics for the site are provided by Cypress (Patrick), a veteran Max Payne fan who helped out a lot with Payne/WakeReactor since 2004. Really appreciated as my days are a bit busier than when I started this site.

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  • Hristo Petev
    Hristo Petev 4 months ago
    I am student in Sweden. The topic of my master thesis is "Procedural mission generation for Grand Theft Auto". I will create a software tool that will generate GTA missions based on players' preferences. To create quality missions, I need to know what players like. I have created a survey on my personal website: http://petev.net/gta/ . Could you put some banner or link to the questionnaire? Your website is computer game oriented, and it is a perfect place for GTA players to visit.