Game #936: MDK

  Most Definitely Kool.

 While I played the sequel to MDK I had never played the original, and after seeing Digital Foundry shilling it very hard a few years ago it piqued my interest, so here I am.

 Where MDK really shines is in its simplicity, you are a guy who runs and guns with his arm chaingun and sometimes stops to snipe down enemies with his sniper helmet/gun/thing. That's it. That's the game. It's a collection of arenas in which you must defeat tons of enemies, sometimes stopping to clear very simple puzzles. And you can tell this game began its life on PC because strafing and shooting is the name of the game here. There are small hints of humor here and there, but nothing as in your face as the sequel. Heck, in order to open many barriers you need the 'world smallest nuke', and that's exactly what it is, a miniature nuclear bomb.

 What I liked about the game is how fast paced it is, you zip around the environments while strafing and even gliding around. That said, I felt the first stages were really boring, because the game pits you against many enemy generators at the same time, so it feels like an eternity before you take them down while also dealing with the respawning enemies. Thankfully, the game eases up on these as it goes on, and you get more means to deal with them, such as bombs or other sub weapons.

 The visual style is very unique too. As previously mentioned, the game is made up of variously interconnected areas, and they are very simple in design... and sometimes very trippy. The entire second stage looks like a bad LSD trip. Adding to this, the main character, unlike every thing else in the game, is a 2-D sprite, which only adds to the overall uniqueness... plus, I love when games mix 2-D sprites with 3-D elements, so to me, it's also quite endearing. All that said, this PS1 version suffers rom a LOT of slowdown, it can get pretty bad to be honest... but, for a game of this kind... it doesn't necessarily detract from it. It's not like you need pinpoint accuracy when Kurt, the main character, auto aims, or like dodging projectiles is a matter of keen reflexes, so it's not as bad as it sounds, trust me.

 Overall, it was a fun experience, but not an overly memorable one. I'd hesitate to call it a classic, but I'm happy it's part of my collection now.

 7.0