Subject: MAX 2 - An opinion
Oh boy...!
I just reinstalled my GOG version of MAX 1 & 2 and figured; "Hey, let's see how MAX 2 feels."
So I played a few turns, oh wait, no I had the real time feature ON. I was not that bad. To be honest, I never gave this Game a real chance. Let me rewind.
Its the year 1998
I am passing a Gamestore when it happened. A shiny gamebox hits my sight.
M.A.X.2!
Wow, it flashed me right away. Though there was a soldier standing in front of a scout? Wait-what? Ah never mind, its just coverart right?
It would cost me 80 bucks to buy it. I couldn't afford it but my friend had the needed money saved up for this!
"Hey Arthur, I have MAX2! Come over NOW!" I was so hyped and took my kidz BMX-bike to get to him as fast as I could.
*My Nickname was not yet set
We installed the Game on his machine. Done with the Setup the Intro autostarted.
M.A.X. 2 Intro on Youtube
https://youtu.be/4IClEWlHMOg
We saw a Logo; A cat playing sax, Flat Cat Studios.
* Flat Cat studios was a label from Interplay especially for strategy games. Ali Atabek was leader of the label. 1*
The music starts weird, resembles a part of an old classic, Frère Jacques, and changes into warfare sounds and video.
First scene we see is a battlefield with a demolished Eifel Tower and some tanks rolling over the destroyed city.
Next scene let us witness an fast attack on a base by some aircrafts and terrain units. Same in the next part, just with snow, a different base structure and from an aircraft attack perspective. Last but not least, a soldier walking on a battlefield away from the camera; Three dead comrades war-granestones are shown in the front.
All scenes get combined by a big M.A.X.2 logo animation, that gets destroyed by four missiles and ends with an explosion. The End. I mean, welcome to the Main Menu.
It was similar to the M.A.X.1 menu by functions, but different by cosmetics. It has a mixed artstyle; A bit technical but also organic towards the bottom.
Some nice functional extensions were made. For example, there was a Internet Game Multiplayer mode with Internet servers/rankings etc. This might sound mandatory for today standards, but 1998 it was a rather new feature. (Today games require to be online to play them, ha!)
We sat there, clicked around, and we noticed
many differencesunderneath.
What shocked us were the fundamental differences, that hid the new, probably smart features from us. Original M.A.X. Concepts seem mixed and reused for new purposes. Following are some examples:
Gameplay-wise
- You don't need any Connections between the buildings anymore. This was weird, cause we were used to built our Connectors, but destroy enemy Connectors for strategic reasons.
- Optional RTS Feature.
You could disable all Turn Based game features. We know, M.A.X.1 had already a hybrid gameplay feature called "Simultaneous Turn". The Turn Based features stayed, like units steps and shots, but could be used by all player in the turn, instead of one player after the other. We liked this features, though it limited a deep strategic experience. It has a more action based approach.
So to be able to disable the Turn Based gameplay elements completely, was frightening enough.
- 6 Players could play against each other instead of 4!
- Different Terrain Height and accessibility.
Here is a small list:
Quote:GREEN (Normal) - All land units can move and build.
YELLOW (Rough) - No building, double movement cost except infantry.
ORANGE (Hill) - No building, no movement except infantry (who pay double).
LIGHT BLUE (Shore) - Amphibian movement only. Water building only.
DARK BLUE (Ocean) - Ships and amphibian movement only. Water building only.
Expanding strategic gameplay possibilities. Units would go up slower over some difficult terrain, which would lead to cost more steps. Definitely a nice feature.
-Less menus to Build something
Select a Build unit and a pop up shows, where you can click on the building you want to build. Nice.
Presentation
I have mixed feelings here. Artwork and Music has been reused or remixed from M.A.X.1, clearly to see and hear.
- Units have Voices! Units speak to you when they get clicked. So have these a human inside?
- Reworked old Unit Profile Images. Really nice ( come almost as close as the artwork by Khesm
->
https://www.maxr.org/showtopic.php?id=817
- A new parallax engine, that lets you scroll to 60 degrees, it claims.
- New 3d style units ingame. The buildings look over-sized(you might say bloated) and are set in a weird view angle. Not my cup of tea, tbh.
- The Artstyle of the new races and clans is going into a new direction. IMO its not the best execution, and doesn't fit in the overall technical flair of the rest of the Game.
The Concord Members were changed or let me put it differently, unveiled to the Player in a new fashion. Suddenly, the Clans of the Concord had a Face. Alien-like creatures with animal inspired looks. See here ->
They introduced even a new enemy organic alien creature race ! The Sheevat.
While in the original M.A.X. we had Concord Clans with different Bonuses, based of the human factions, suddenly we have the alien races with the human clan specifics.
To be honest, it was a long time ago when I played the Campaign of M.A.X. 1 and who did ever read the backstory of M.A.X. in the manual?
Starmakers, Starlords and the Concord Council...
But wait, it can be explained, let check the M.A.X.2 manual for that info.
So in M.A.X.2 we have practically still 2 races, or 3? Let me quote the M.A.X.2 Manual, p19.
Quote:Before discussing the races, a brief discussion of aliens is in order. There are two kinds of
aliens in M.A.X.2: the friendly aliens who form the Concord and the unfriendly aliens
called the Sheevat. You can play as the Sheevat, but you cannot really play as the
Concord (which is an organization of almost all known intelligent life forms in the galaxy).
Human races (that you may have met in M.A.X.) are bonding with various alien Concord
races as part of their efforts to become full Concord members. Although human beings
are going through this complex bonding process, which involves merging human DNA
with that of various alien species, such races are still called “human” throughout this
manual, while the Sheevat are called “the aliens.”
Among the benefits that human players get for bonding with Concord races is that they
are allowed to use some of the Concord’s alien units, namely the Concord Tanks,
Concord Assault Guns, Concord Gunboats, and Concord Attack Planes. When Concord
units are referred to throughout this manual, it is these units that we mean.
So it does
make sense, that the Clan Selection Screen shows off the "Races". It feels bend a lot, but hey, at least they tried to explain it.
What does it mean for me
Of course you can argue about the visual art style, but what really shocked me, was that it devastated so many of my own visions of the world!
M.A.X. 1 was very different. ( allow me to stress this word further)
Remember the Intro of M.A.X. 1? "[...]Specially selected members of each group became the leaders of the robotic forces.
[...]Only the hardiest and most selfless [...] refuges could tie this drastic procedure. The result was the
MechCommander.[...]
*words might differ
M.A.X. 1 Intro on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0n5JQ0jpgM
This alone sounds so epic! You play as a Brain in an Alien Jar, to survive the FTL traveling through space, who controls an robot* army for some Alien Races. YES! I say Yes to this kind of story!
*robot army - and some free to hunt-hackers who can steal units from the enemy on the battlefield, if they are good.
The Concord arrive to save the Earth, by letting some human faction fight for them over new planets uncolonized planets. The rest of the human race can colonize the new planet later on.
This is what I still feel!
M.A.X. PR1.00 Demo Logo
I felt lost in space, on the way on a new planet. Having power, but also having nothing but the mechanical bolted-down robot body.
It felt great! M.A.X. had always a deserted feeling to me. No speaking Units, only the warmth of a robotic female voice giving me some status notification.
It is technical, cold and driven statistics. The only humans that I felt emotions for were Infiltrators. But who wouldn't. If they succeeded once again to +7, I wanted to pat them-. If they didn't oh well, sad for a turn or two, but let's start to build a new one.
*Good to know: Unit titles can be changed in M.A.X. You can rename a unit of your favor, to strengthen the bond. Or manipulate the enemy strategies with wrong unit numbers!
With M.A.X.2. seeing the Eifel Tower in that Intro, a new kind of Aliens in the Menus, beside that what "we" have evolved into, made me think of Earth, WW1 and cats playing Sax. To me M.A.X.2 was an experiment, bit not a real M.A.X. successor.
Most probably the decision were made by looking at successful Games at that time.
It was released in a time, when RTS Games like Starcraft or Command & Conquer+ started to rise extremely in popularity. I am sure the pressure was high for the Dev Team. They had to implement new ideas, test them, experiment with a short amount of time. As far as I can tell, the development took less than 2 1/2 years. M.A.X. was released in the very end of 1996! M.A.X. 2 mid 1998. It looks like M.A.X.2 was a mix of C&C and the Starcraft Zerg. Sadly.
Well this was a small opinion of this game, hope you could find some stuff interesting.
It is the year 2015, soon 2016. Almost 20 Years of a Game History.
Keep up the good Spirit everybody. Also thanks to all Dev's who help me remember this great piece of History. ( original M.A.X. 1 / 2 Devs also MAXR, Max Touch, MaxGold.. and so on =)
Let me know how you feel, what is your backstory?
Have a nice Christmas and enjoy some screenshots.
Sincerely, yours truly
Sal
Bonus!
Found this from '99. A projection of Interplay's plans as far as I can tell
Sad. but just no.
http://www.sec.gov/...tation.htm
Sources:
1. Ali Atabek, Flat Cat, Jahr 1998, http://www.golem.de/9807/1135.html
Cover Box Shots and Arts
http://www.mobygames.com/.../cover-art
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/max-mechanized-assault-exploration/mobyrank
http://www.ebay.de/...1728657927
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Collector-JEU-PC-MAX-2-Big-Box-Retrogaming-Game-Sp
iel-Interplay-/252193281173
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.A.X.
A.H.
- easy logic -
This post has been edited
2
times. Last edit on Dec 13, 2015 10:56 pm by Sal.
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