I'm sure everyone is familiar with the Megaman series.
I think this is the first Megaman game that has crossed
over from the Nintendo to the computer, although I am not
really sure. You play as Megaman X who has been recently
discovered by Dr. Cain, who was on an archeological dig.
Although Cain was looking for evidence of Mesesoic plant
life to support his "theory." Although he doesn't find
the Mesozoic plant life he was after, he does discover
the rementnats of Dr. Light's lab (don't you hate it when
that happens?). After messing around with Dr. Light's
designs, Dr. Cain creates a new batch of smarter, stronger,
faster etc... robots which he names "Reploids."
Unfortunately, the Reploids begin to go bad. So what do you
do? Create MORE Reploids to hunt down the maverick
Reploids. This new group of robots become known as "hunters"
and are lead by the Reploid named Sigma.
Naturally, Sigma becomes a maverick and decides that humans
are limiting the growth of the Reploids, therefore, humans
must be destroyed (of course). However, luckily for the
human population, Megaman X is willing to take up the job
of hunting down the maverick robots.
It is at this point that you take over Megaman X's quest
to pick up where the original Megaman left off (i.e.,
saving the world). Just like the old Nintendo games, you
can choose to fight the bad guys in any order. However,
in a newer twist, there are several powerups that Megaman
X can acquire without defeating an end boss. These powerups
also reveal some of the story and are told by Dr. Light.
I guess it was just a good thing that these maverick robots
decided to create bases where Dr. Light had conveniently
placed powerups for his future superstar! But they do help
keep the story line moving and make the game more holistic
instead of just another game of mashing buttons (although there
is plenty of that.)
This game was a lot of fun, espcially because I grew up
plaing megaman on the NES. Naturally I looked forward
to this game, and I was not disappointed either. Capcom
ported Megaman X directly from their SNES version to the PC.
The only major differences are that some of the areas in
the SNES version are not present in the computer version,
which is too bad.
In today's market of high powered graphics cards, many
people will be disapointed by Megaman X's side scrolling
perspective. Also, some of the graphics will look pretty
dated when compared to new games like Quake III and Unreal
Tournament. However, one advantage to both the side
scrolling and the graphics is that they are very reminiscent
to the SNES games, which has a nostalgic factor to it.
As for gameplay, I used a gravis gamepad which
allowed me to customize my buttons. The characters
respond well to your movements, and there is a quick
learning curve to the various atacks and moves that
Megaman can perform.