Game - Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (PSP)
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Mega Man Maverick Hunter X
System: Playstation Portable
Designed By: Capcom
Released: February 2, 2006 (US)

All right, I admit being a bit biased towards Mega Man games. For one, I’ve been playing them for pretty much my entire life – from near infancy, all the way to now. However I’m not one to let my love of a series cloud my judgment, Mega Man X5-X7 were mediocre at best, and X8 was still a far cry from the awesome originals on the SNES. If MMMHX sucked I would clearly tell you so. However, it doesn’t suck – in fact, it’s one of the PSP’s finest titles.

For those of you not in the know, MMMHX is an action title staring a robot named X, this robot hunts down and destroys the evil robots (called ‘Mavericks’). The game mostly involves X running and gunning through various levels, obliterating all the enemies in his path, including the boss at the end of each level. Like other Mega Man games, you choose the order of levels you go through. Strategy is key here, since each Boss yields a weapon when defeated and is also vulnerable to another bosses weapon – i.e., the Ice Stage boss is weak against the Fire Stage Boss’s weapon. In this regard, the order you decide to tackle the eight bosses affects the difficulty (especially since taking out certain bosses affects other levels, usually making them easier to navigate).

MMMHX is a remake of the very first Mega Man X title, it features all new 3-D graphics, a couple of new animated scenes and a general re-tooling of the story line. Most of the original layout and level design remains unchanged, this may or may not please fans of the original, but those who have never even played the original shouldn’t be affected either way. The biggest addition is a new playable character after finishing the game as X. For the purpose of not spoiling the secret I’m not going to tell you who this person is, but it is an all-new playable character that has never been playable in any other MMX game. Die-hard fans will get a kick out of playing as this new character, even if its portion of the game is twice as hard as X’s part of the game.

The controls are perfect; unlike certain other 3-D games MMMHX is pure side-scroller. That means no crazy camera controls, no complex combinations of buttons just to reach the pause menu, just plain old run and gun gameplay. Honestly, controls just don’t get better than this.

While not “jaw-dropping”, the graphics in MMMHX can certainly hold their own. Every level is crisp and vibrant and the animations are fluid. The biggest problem would have to be the slowdown that occurs in certain levels, it’s very rare, however it’s very distracting when it hits. MMMHX might not be the best-looking PSP game, but it’s far from the worst.

Final Word: MMMHX isn’t a completely perfect game, for one thing it’s a bit on the short side and it’s still an upgraded port of an SNES, no matter how improved it became. However, it’s still a kick ass action game.

Final Score: 4/5 cans

Added:  Monday, May 08, 2006

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