Some units like fighters can expend all of their movement points and fire all of their 'shots' in a given turn, while some types of units can only move or shoot. Every unit is rated very differently in a number of categories that include firepower, armor, attack range, speed, number of shots, and scan range. I have heard more than one person describe turn-based play in the MAXВ universe as being like 'chess with tanks', and that's essentially what it is. The original MAXВ included two modes, 'turn-based' and 'simultaneous turn-based'. What makes the MAXВ games different, however, is that with each battle you have a choice of 'time modes'. You can fight as the Sheevat in multiplayer mode and they do have some intriguing differences, but many of the Sheevat units are also analogous to what you'll be fighting with on the human side of the conflict. With the exception of the new Sheevat units, all of the weapons of war in MAX 2В are holdovers from the original game. Your arsenal in prosecuting a war against the Sheevat will include a large variety of tanks, planes, ships, and infantry. In the first game mankind is struggling to become a fully-fledged member of the Concord, and in the sequel the human race, as part of the Concord, is turning to meet a new alien threat called the Sheevat. There is a background story that involves humanity's involvement with the Concord, an intergalactic association of powerful alien races. On the surface, both MAXВ games appear to have a lot in common with conventional real-time strategy. Though I lost less sleep with it than I did with the original X-Com, I found it to be an extremely pleasant surprise both in terms of game design and strategic depth (see Tim Chown's original GDR Gold medal review.) MAXВ was the sort of game that made me want to write game reviews, and since the first rumours of a sequel I've been plotting and scheming in hopes I could be in the position to give that sequel the glowing review and Gold medal I hoped it would deserve. The original MAXВ was just such a game for me. If that golden game is under-hyped and under-anticipated, so much the better. Every game reviewer is like a prospector that wants to sift through the clones and the bug-ridden releases and find the proverbial nugget of gold.

Every reviewer wants to have his or her expectations wildly exceeded, and to gush on endlessly about feverish all-night gaming sessions or revolutionary gameplay. It's my theory that every game reviewer wants to write glowing game reviews.

M.a.x. mechanized assault & exploration