80s/early 90s anime is one of my favorite things, so a game trying to capture that look, combined with old-school shooter action, immediately caught my interest. Unfortunate, then, that it only half-commits to that aesthetic, while also being yet another Procedurally Generated Roguelike Slop-fest.

In Mullet Mad Jack, you run through floor after floor of the same rooms over and over, occasionally punctuated by a boss fight, while listening to some of the worst humor since High on Life. Do you like references? We've got Demolition Man, we've got Bane-posting, we've got RE4 Merchant lines that I forgot to screencap and I don't want to re-install the game!

The core concept is that you have 10 seconds to live, and killing enemies adds to your timer. This is because you're on a livestream and dopamine etc etc yadda yadda The Horrors of Capitalism because it's 2024 and everyone thinks they're fuckin Paul Verhoeven now by stomping this already well-trod ground into De Planet Corrrrre.

The time limit, however, means you have to always be moving forward. This also means the level "design", such as it is, can't be too complex. It's really just a series of hallways, some bigger than others, and they didn't even bother to make very many of them. You'll see the same very distinct rooms countless times, often several floors in a row. This, combined with how easy the game is on Normal (the Easy difficulty is named "I want a boomer shooter," as some weird dig at boomer shooters... But this game was easier than any boomer shooter I think I've ever played) mean you're just mindlessly blasting and holding Forward. Lasers are the most intimidating obstacle in the game, because they do a ton of damage, but you can also get an upgrade that halves that.

About the upgrades: You can pick from 3 every floor, and after 10 floors they reset except for your weapon (the weapons also appear in the upgrade screen). Just always make sure you get the shotgun, +max time, and increased chances for ricochets and enemies exploding. Those are really all you need, and you can cruise through. I never used any of the other weapons.

After yawning my way through 80 floors, I was surprised when the game just... Ended. I had assumed it would be 100, but I can't say I was sad that I wouldn't have to trudge through 20 more floors of rooms that I had already seen approximately 65 times so far. Then, to end things on a really great note, you have a final boss fight where your health is represented by a "badass-o-meter" and the last line is the same joke as the end of the Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks Dragnet movie.

2/10 - One grace point because sometimes there's stuff in here that looks pretty neat, even though other times it looks like art from a spinoff Meet N Fuck game.

PS: If you want something similar to this (as in, the game Mullet Mad Jack ripped off wholesale), I recommend checking out Post Void, which is 3 dollars at full price and also looks way cooler.

Именно в таком жанре и ТАКОМ исполнении видеоигры сияют ярче всего как способ развлечения, интерактивный опыт. Когда я сам, без подсказок, отгадал как проникнуть к ядру некой влажной планеты, глуповатая самодовольная ухмылка не сходила с моего лица еще минут тридцать… в этой игре ты - главный герой, исследователь, космонавт.

Мне нравится что в игре нет прогресса персонажа как такового, вернее он есть, но он происходит в голове у игрока: это я, а не тот, за кого я играю, узнает новые вещи о квантовых частицах, о механиках, о разных вещах! Это также дает полную свободу - если я знаю, как работают правила этого мира, я могу пройти игру за один цикл!

местами эта игра вызывала у меня настоящий экзистенциальный ужас! местами веселила, а местами, особенно в конце, была такой.. трогательной?

шедевр
10/10