I was a big fan of M.A.X when it first came out. I felt like I was the only one who played it that i knew of. When I read about M.A.X 2 coming out, I called a bunch of game retailers but could not find anyone who had it in stock. I was psyched when I saw it on GOG let alone in a bundle. I still own my M.A.X disc and manual though because i planned on returning to it one day. I look forward to playing some M.A.X 2 once I refresh my memory.

me too)
actually, it was the first game with which i experienced full scale hot-seat multiplayer fun like spying on your friends movements from behind a wall with sthetoscope and stuff))
hot-seat is fun, too bad people now prefer other ways of multiplayer gaming...

I have to say, that I now played it the first time since.... years. I don't know exactly. I have to say, that I am a bit crushed by the controls, but the rest seems to be fine. :)
It is a great game and I love the graphics from M.A.X. 1.

I loved this game too. MAX 2 is not as good as the first one though.

Yeah MAX 2 was a big let down, they made it much prettier but much of the charm of MAX is lost amongst the bug and gameplay issues.
MAX itself is a very enjoyable game, just keep in mind that the AI is very weak and playing against anything but a team of AIs ganged up against you will bore you to tears fast.
In general, the game is rather slow paced as a whole - but despite all the issues MAX has, there has not been a game quite like it since release. The unit upgrade system from MAX is by far the best thing about it.

Actually on the contrary, the AI in MAX is very good and one of the selling points. It can be absolutely ruthless in skipping right where you have a gap in your radar coverage or staying just out of your missile crawler's firing range. However it is a bit passive and especially in custom games it tends to prefer to stay back and let you come to it. That's the only major flaw in the game I can think of - the custom games being pretty much 'the' singleplayer component of the game, as the individual scenarios are really boring and the campaign is just insane and extremely difficult.
I was kind of wishing that GOG would offer the M.A.X. soundtrack as one of the after-sale goodies since I've been trying to get my hands on it for ages, but it seems they had as much luck in getting or extracting it from the game as I did. Bummer :(

I agree with vordhosbn. i thought the various levels of AI were just about perfect. At Expert the Ai did not cheat and was a hard enemy to beat as it was clever enough to keep you thinking!
When you add in the 15 training missions that cover each step and the step time, real time or somewhere in the middle, I would say the package available on GOG is a really good strategy game for gamers who are just starting out with retro strategy games and at the same time a really good challenge for modern RTS gamers who have played against pretty dumb AI and have not really had to bother with base building and the sophistication of options like mine-laying and fighting in the air on land and under the water!

double post

I joined GOG just for this game, and now me, my bro and my father are going to have hours of fun again.
My singleplayer games always start with 12 very deadly scout racing in from one side and 4 highly upgrades assault cannons from the opposing side. Game over in 4 turns...if i live that long.

Wow, didn't know others played M.A.X. let alone heard of the game. :)
I first played MAX about 13 years ago on my Windows 95 machine. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and loved each and every unit.
After a few years I had gone in search of MAX 2 and found it once in a "bargain bin" in a hardware store, but didn't purchase it at the time since it was just the game box (no CD inside).
Shortly afterwards I ended crushing my original MAX CD while moving stuff from one room to another in the house.
I was just as surprised as everyone else here to see MAX and MAX 2 in the game lineup of GOG.
I also used about 12 Scouts or so on some of the bigger games. I usually ended up replacing the Scouts with Assault Cannons and adding in upgraded armor, speed, and shot Tanks into mix. My proudest unit was a fully upgraded Fighter. I could fly that thing from one end of the map to the other and halfway back. I also had it upgraded to it could fire three shots instead of just one or two.

I am like a lot here. I read about an old game I still have that I haven't played for a long time and it gets my juices going and I look for it, install it and then give it ago again! This is why i am currently on the 10th training mission in M.A.X. and reaching the end of the 1st level of Stonekeep and heading down south to check out what's going on in Fallout! Nary a modern game on my hard drive has been played for the last week! :)

Has anyone noticed how really sensitive the scrolling via keyboard or mouse is in MAX 2?
I'm having a really hard time selecting units and issuing orders because of the high sensitivity. I can't find any way to throttle it down it in the game. My Logitech G7 has adjustable on-the-fly DPI settings, but that isn't helping. The screen would literally flash halfway across the map even if I just scroll a little bit to select more units.

Acreo_Aeneas - get a program called 'SpeedSwitch XP' (link below), install it, and choose 'Max Battery' You should find you now have a 1ghz 1 core CPU! Now try the game and see if it's better! :) Also if you ever have any type of problem with any old Win98 game, try running this. It seems to fix problems outside of 'speed'. For example, it got my Outcast working by letting me ride a Twon-Ha and allowed me to run through the reece fields! Without it, the game speed was the same, but I couldn't do either of the above things! :)
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3344-speedswitchxp.html

I about crapped myself when I saw MAX and MAX 2 on here. I love the paced nature of the game and it will let me build my base and turtle to my heart's content. For the time, it was one of the most diverse games with a great variet of Air, Land and Sea units, I think no game came close until Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. I remember picking up the original when I played a demo and was very depressed when I couldn't play it any more when we upgraded. Truly a great game and underrated and underappreciated.

OH yeah, totally love M.A.X. and M.A.X. 2, some of my favorite strategy games ever. Glad to know I'm not the only one who played 'em. ;)