GAME OFFLINE HOT

MEGAMAN X8
Earth is in such a turmoil due to the Reploid uprisings that humans have decided to colonize space instead. (Like that’s going to solve their problems.) They’ve completed a project called “Jakob” which includes an elevator to the moon (why is it people think that building rail lines into outer space to connect the moon with the earth is a feasible operation?). Things go awry when Vile shows up and kidnaps Lumine, the Reploid director of the project. Sigma is therefore suspected of being behind the capture of the Jakob project. “Suspected” being the key word, since all next-generation Reploids are now equipped with Axl’s DNA Copy ability, and yes, as X discovers very quickly, some of them even went so far as to copy Sigma...

Stupid Questions

Why does anyone think it’s smart to mass-produce Reploids with copy chips? Forget the Maverick issue; a copy-chip would allow a Reploid to circumvent with ease any sort of security. He could make himself look like an employee and steal stuff from a store. He could mimic a government official and stroll right into top-secret areas. He could turn himself into a manager and clean out a bank. I can’t fathom how mass identity theft could possibly help any society. It’s no wonder the X series world is in such a mess...

At first glance this game is basically a traditional side-scrolling variation of Mega Man X7, without the free-range modes and the lock-on targeting cursor. This I would consider a good thing; but it’s not quite the same, though: the character models are completely different here, the duck is gone, and of course they tweaked a few other things here and there.

The game play is much closer here to the classic 2-D games than was the previous title, but it does bear some features from Mega Man X7. The tag-team is here, though you are still limited to bringing only two of the three characters with you to each stage. But now Axl plays like Bass in Mega Man & Bass (except that he hovers instead of double-jumps; Zero’s still the one with the double-jump). Note that Axl gets completely different weapons than X this time around, and he doesn’t need weapon energy for any of them. (He uses weapon energy only on his transformations.)

• Characters: Your three characters are a bit more distinctive in this game than the previous one. X’s advantages are, as before, his suits of armor and the fact that he can charge his buster and his weapons. Overall, he still ranks the best at taking damage and dishing it out. Zero remains as the melee fighter with attacks that cover a lot of area at close range. He doesn’t rely much on weapon energy and is more fragile than X. Finally, Axl is now the rapid-fire character who can aim in multiple directions and whose main benefit, besides his DNA Copy ability, is the fact that none of his Master Weapons require weapon energy. Axl is also probably the best character for midair acrobatics. Not only can he hover on a double-jump, but he also floats for a good span of time if you shoot while in the air, plus he can hang onto a wall for nearly forever without sliding down it as long as he is firing.
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