M.A.X. + M.A.X. 2

M.A.X. is a game I find myself coming back to every few years. Its concept is so simple that I'm amazed that no-one has really attempted something comparable. It's not a perfect game, but here's what keeps me coming back to it: Resource Scarcity - One of the best ever at this. You're set on a planet with very little information or resources, you need to explore the surrounding area to find critical supplies of minerals, fuel, and gold in order to build the facilities you need to get a competitive advantage over your enemies. You also need to create a series of connectors and vehicles to transport these critical materials to different parts of your complex. You need to pool your resources and decide where you focus your development: defensive fixed structures and land mines? a fast-deploying air transport fleet? large numbers of lightly-armored scouts in an attempt to quickly beat an opponent? research facilities to broadly improve your entire complex? You can't do it all, so plan ahead. Initial Balance - The interplay between ground troops, air units, naval units, and fixed structures is terrific. There is no obvious path or unit to victory allowing you time to compensate for setbacks. Upgrade - Every unit has its initial benefits and drawbacks, but with the gold upgrade system you can create anything you want. Super-robust missile launchers? Speedy tanks? Devastatingly powerful gunships? All doable--for a price. There are drawbacks beyond the normal audio-visual quirks of a game this age: the game isn't 100% stable, the AI can be lacking at all but the most powerful levels, and the UI could be streamlined more, but I do recommend this for a few hours to solid gameplay. In conclusion: this is a good strategy game, and I hope folks to design strategy games give this a try. It's enlightening. M.A.X.2 is a massive disappointment--I wouldn't even bother firing it up. You may be concerned about paying for just one recommended game, but I believe it is worth it.

I remember buying this game a long time ago, when I was just a wee little kid. I still have the disc and the original manual. It has always been an awesomely fun game, but only now have I begun to truly appreciate the depth of strategy you can achieve in it. Unfortunately, the AI is a bit weak and the game is virtually guaranteed to crash as you get closer to turn 200. I've never played anyone in multiplayer, so I don't know if that works. A fantastic game and a must buy for any gamer.

i got this in hopes that i would get a working max 2 but no, it is not working because of incompatible dlls. i am seriously losing faith in gog for releasing one bad game after another.

This is a message to all like me, who know this game from the 90ies, but were denied lasting fun beyond turn 125 by the game consistently crashing at that turn. The GOG version is playable beyond that point. I just finished a map on turn 188. They seem to have switched the DOSbox exectuable from DOS4GW to DOS32A like mentioned in so many forum posts and comments. So a lot of the reviews, saying that it still crashes at turn 125, seem to be out of date. The memory leak seems still to be there though. In my playthrough it crashd to desktop without any error message once at turn 140 after a 10 hour play session (~70 turns made, if I recall correctly). But after restarting and reloading the save from last turn, I was able to continue and finish the game. So saving at the end of the turn and/or restarting the game every few hours is still advisable.

First time I played this game in 90ies, not remember exactly. Loved this game at school. Downloaded it from GOG week ago, started to play and met permanent bugs during saving game, units movements, etc. Not aloows to save game sometimes. units just freezes sometimes, and most dificult bug is when Engineer builds path and other unit cross it - unit holds permanent, and engeneer not continiue path after it, also holds on place, and can't be chosen and canceled. Game - 4 Realization - 2+ Summary - 3 Patch needed.