After first playing this probably when i was 7 years old back in 2007, I come back to finally beat it. In hindsight this REALLY has bad game mechanics. Crouching is a one shot death which sucks, but shooting while standing is essentially a waste of time in most cases. Only exception is when going through an entrance, as enemies will pull out their guns before the game lets you act. That's not to mention the very simple gameplay loop of moving until you see enemies on the next screen. Also why do we even need to holster our guns?
However the presentation is really cool with rotoscope animations and Max Payne comic-style cutscenes with real live actors and backgrounds. I can see the appeal of the visuals back in 2004, and I think it mostly holds up even in 2024. Overall I finished it in 5 minutes cheesing the crouch and shoot mechanics as soon as I enter the next screen, but I enjoyed my time with it. I'm writing hundreds of words over a short flash game, that was probably made just for fun by some teens or college aged dudes, who also released it for free. But I'm doing it because holy shit it feels good to play this again all these years later as it was a very memorable piece of my childhood. I hope that the creators are doing well all these years later, and thank you guys for releasing this! Russian Affairs 2 could have been awesome.