By Zach Walton

The blue bomber explodes onto the scene with more 8-bit antics and ridiculous bosses in Mega Man 10, the latest entry in the venerable series from Capcom.

Capcom went back to Mega Man’s roots with the ninth entry in the series two years ago and it was a massive success. Capcom saw the sales as proof gamers wanted more Mega Man and Mega Man 10 delivers.

New to the series is the much talked about “easy mode.” This mode is largely the same as the normal difficulty. The only change is there are platforms over the trickier spike pits, Mega Man takes less damage and there are less enemies on screen. It’s great practice for newcomers and builds up confidence for normal and hard modes.

The 10th entry in the series delivers more of the same gameplay inspired by the earlier Mega Man titles, but you do

n’t need to fork over $50 for an expensive disc.

The game centers around a breakout of “roboenza”, a flu-like virus that only effects robots and causes them to cause chaos around the world. Dr. Wily offers his services under the pretense that he was not involved in the breakout.

Mega Man has to defeat the usual eight robot masters with his trusty Mega Buster and the weapons he gains from fallen enemies. It’s the same pattern over again. The only difference this time around is new robot masters are rip-offs of previous robot masters but new players to the series won’t notice the similarities so easily.

The level and enemy design is largely uninspired but still offers little variety. The robot masters’ designs are also mostly lame with the exception of Nitro Man who transforms into a motorcycle.

Another new addition is the challenge mode that further adds replay value to the game with additional challenges to complete.

As an overall package, Mega Man 10 isn’t as good as the previous game but with the additions, it’s well worth the $10. Mega Man fans will enjoy the game and newcomers, I can’t recommend a better game to start the series with.

Zach Walton is a junior journalism major. E-mail [email protected].