Ah, finally...I was hoping this game would be made eventually. I'm a huge Mega Man fan, albeit one who felt let down by the Mega Man Anniversay Collection. While that game sported flawless ports of all eight Mega Man games, it had practically no bonus features worthy of mention--and even worse, there was no way to change to default control setup! In my opinion that was an almost retarded decision. The MMAC had the potential to be so much more than it was--there WERE some bonus features like concept art and music remixes, but not enough for anyone to actually care about.

I'm hoping the Mega Man X Collection expands upon the formula presented by its predecessor, offers a customizable control scheme, and features TONS of bonus features and unlockables that we might actually care about to some degree. Mega Man X is a classic series and deserves nothing but the best.

Man, pretty quick here all the Internet will be set aflame with E3 coverage. I'll be hard-pressed to stay on top of it all. What I'm most looking forward to about E3 is the chance to finally learn more about Nintendo's upcoming next-generation console. Frankly, I'm getting a little sick of Nintendo's secrecy when it comes to their up-and-coming products. Haven't they realized by now that NO ONE is copying anything they do? If anything, it's Nintendo that could stand to learn a few lessons from Sony and Microsoft.

This is the newest game I'm currently excited about. The Prince of Persia series has always delivered an excellent helping of combat mixed with obstacle course environments--one of my favorite kinds of games. I only wish Super Mario 64 and its descendants were able to bring this level of intensity to 3-D gaming; compared to the Prince, Mario is weak and altogether uninspiring. Granted, the two series are vastly different in so many different ways, but at their cores both are 3-D platforming games. Another reason not to compare them is Mario hasn't had an actual, non-sport, non-party game made about him lately, except for the remake of SM64 for the DS. And that barely counts, since the DS kinda sucks.

Bear with me now: I can already imagine that any GTA fan who read the entry title above will automatically get ticked off and start "haterizing". But what I'm talking about is that I'd like to see the Grand Theft Auto series take a bold step in a new direction, just as it did with the creation of Grand Theft Auto III. Now, I'm not saying I actually want to see a GTA game that's exactly like Doom or Half-Life 2. What I mean is that I would like to see a GTA game that kept the vast majority of the gameplay intact--with just a switch from a third-person perspective to a first-person perspective.

The reason why I think this would be cool is that it would allow for more detailed, up-close encounters that could show off the more advanced graphics that will be available on the Playstation 3. I had this conversation with a coworker, and we both agreed that the sense of "realism" that comes from moving around GTA's free-roaming environs would be radically enhanced by a shift to a first-person perspective. Everything would seem larger and more impressive and immersive.

If there's one thing that definitely needs to be improved for the sequel to X-Men Legends, it's the X-Men's pathfinding skills. Don't get me wrong, I like X-Men Legends and while it doesn't have as much polish as I would like, it's still a solid RPG and one of the best games around featuring Marvel's Mighty Mutants. But sometimes I get frustrated when Jean Grey accidentally steps off the edge of a platform in the Astral Plane and falls to her death. Sometimes I get frustrated when Wolverine tries to push through a barrier of flames generated by Pyro and kills himself. It's annoying when Nightcrawler teleports himself through a wall and gets beaten to death by overwhelming odds before I can assume control of him and force him to jump back.

And granted, these problems don't happen constantly in the game. But they happen enough to annoy you when the occur, and to take safety steps in order to prevent them from happening. There are other things about X-Men Legends that could use some polish: the cel-shaded characters, the simplistic mission objectives--but one thing I really want to see done right is getting the X-Men some decent pathfinding skills. At the very least, fixing that up a bit more would go a long way towards making X-Men Legends II a whole lot better.

I went into the Gamecube forum today and was absolutely shocked to find people who apparently like the latest Star Fox game, Star Fox Assault. How anybody enjoys this game is completely beyond me. Now, I know we all have different gaming preferences and the previous Star Fox games had a lot of fans, but honestly, Nintendo just doesn't care about any of its franchise characters besides Link, Mario, and Samus Aran. Fox McCloud has gone the way of the Dodo and Duke Nukem. Star Fox Assaut is nothing new, and it's nothing fun either. Much like Mario Kart: Double Dash, Star Fox Assault is basically just a rehash of its Nintendo 64 predecessor, albeit with some awful, awful ground missions. Even the tank missions in Star Fox 64 were preferable to the foolishness presented in Star Fox Assault. This game is another nail in Nintendo's coffin as far as I'm concerned.

Greetings, everyone. Maximus is here. Look here for all sorts of nifty info and opinions about the modern world of video games. Also: beer.