In Magmax you control a ship from left to right through two different kind of perspectives. The first one plays above the ground and is played from an insometric view. The other one is underground and played by from standard side-view perspective. You can switch between both types by entering holes that appear from time to time. You can upgrade your ship by collecting mechanical parts. Eventually you will become a huge robot with much firepower, but it will also be more difficult to evade enemies' shots. The game plays average as are the graphics and sound. In the NES/Famicom version I missed the cool ground scrolling effect of the overworld part from the arcade version.