iMega Man

Mega Man 2 is probably the franchise's most well known and beloved entry. Not to say that the first Mega Man sucked, like the first Street Fighter, but with Mega Man II the franchise really took off. It had more baddies, better stages and was pretty friggin difficult to beat. Twenty years later its been ported to the most powerful machine ever and is available for the low low sale price of only one payment of $2.99.

The game has been perfectly taken from the NES to the iPhone, everything remains the same except for the replacement of the password system with continues. The levels, the villains, the music, the power-ups and the difficulty all remain unchanged, the only difference is that instead of playing on a grainy tv with square controllers you're playing on a minuscule screen inside another minuscule screen using fake screen buttons.

To be perfectly honest, the buttons are a pain in the ass, they're responsive enough but when you're used to getting feedback when you press physical buttons and then that feedback disappears then you really dont know if the blue bomber really is going to jump or just fall to his untimely death.

Then there's the problem with the screen: it's not like they revamped the game to fit the phone's widescreen, nope, instead they basically put the game in a 1.3sq in. square in the middle of the screen and used the rest for the buttons. I suppose you had to put the buttons somewhere but this makes it too small and the characters even smaller. The game can be played in either horizontal or vertical modes, horizontal is better but neither is perfect.

But on to the good news. Its fucking Mega Man! on your iPhone! its the exact same game, if you're sitting on the bus, bored, and you get a hankering for some Mega Man then you can just pull out your phone and get to it. This means that the blue bomber and all his most iconic villain buddies are now in your pocket, from Bubble Man: a frogman who looks like a maniacal surgeon to Crash Man who simply has a windshield helmet to my personal favorite: Heat Man, who looks like a stoned lighter.

I have yet to play through the whole thing as I tend to simply play pick up games every once in a while. I've beaten a number of bosses but cant remember the order in which to do it to maximize Mega Man's efficiency. I do remember that Woodman can be eliminated with just one Saw blade but Woodsman was the first boss I defeated. I cant complain about the gameplay because its the same as the original: sure at times it can get hairy with all the baddies ganging up on Mega Man but since they also kept the short invisibility after a hit thing then its all good.

The limited $2.99 sale makes this game a steal, (though its too bad you dont get a picture of the original cover) its the best piece of retro Mega Man goodness there is right now (well second best) and a great way to show off how cool and ironic you are. Yep, nothing is more ironic than Mega Man.