MDK2 Review

[Note: This review was written way back in 2011 before this blog even existed, though a few minor grammar mistakes have been changed.  Thought it might be neat to share one of the oldies.]

One thing I have always wanted out of Wiiware and the Virtual console is more games from the late 90s, the N64 era.  Being a kid raised on the system, I’ve never been bothered by their now-primitive technical capabilities, and having a game in 3D allows for better immersion and emulation of modern day games.  Unfortunately, most of the N64 games on the virtual console I either already have or didn’t really interest me, so it was a breath of fresh air to finally get the kind of game I was looking for with the Wiiware release of the 1998 PC game MDK2, and while the game certainly shows its age, it’s still a fairly enjoyable experience.

MDK2 (nobody knows for sure what the acronym stands for) takes place mere moments after the first game, but knowledge of the first game is entirely unneeded.  MDK2 not only has near nothing to do with the last game, but previous events are explained in the prologue.  In MDK2, a spaceship run by a mad scientist, a humanoid dog, and a janitor with a powered suit, is taken over by Protoss-looking alien Schwang Schwing, whose forces the trio must battle in order to stop him from taking over the world.  From there, the story progresses with cutscenes at the beginning and end of each level as well as before a boss fight.  Each of the cutscenes are more or less like a series of sketches.  There’s little plot or character development, and everyone in it is a goofball in their own way; the doctor is a mad scientist who cares more about results than the process toward getting them (which may explain his rather science-defying creations), the dog is a stereotypical gun-wielding tough guy, and the main hero Kurt Hectic is a normal man who just happens to have a super suit.  It’s not a great story, but it knows what it wants to be and frames the game well enough whilst making me chuckle.  I like it.

Gameplay is divided up into the 3 main characters, each of whom has their own style of play.  Kurt is more about platforming, running, gunning, gliding, and sniping.  The dog Max is similar, with levels consisting mainly of running, lighter platforming, and shooting with his four arms, which can each be equipped with a selected gun.

The doctor, on the other hand, is a different story, and while his parts can be annoying at times, they can also be a nice change of pace.  The doctor has significantly lighter action moments and is more about problem solving than anything else.  Like the point-and-click adventure games of old, he can use items and combine them to solve problems, like using duct tape to seal a hole and combining toaster and bread to make toast.  It’s interesting at first, but as the game goes on, the doctor’s missions gradually detract to normal action platforming missions with a few puzzles thrown in as he goes from room to room like the other two, killing enemies with his atomic toaster.  I feel the doctor could have been implemented better if he stuck with problem solving.

He can also mess around with some things.

Controls for each character work well enough, but have a few weak points.  Once again the Wii pointer controls prove how accurate aiming can be, but MDK2 feels slightly less precise than other games that have utilized it.  The crosshair is a very large white circle, and it appears as though when Max and Kurt both shoot their guns, any enemies within the circle get hit by every bullet, which somewhat detracts from the sense of true accuracy and precision other games like Conduit 2 and even Zombie Panic in Wonderland are able to deliver.  Also, this large crosshair problem may makes it easier for Max and Kurt, but it makes it hard to launch the doctor’s slow-moving, slow-firing projectiles with proper accuracy.  MDK2’s item system doesn’t feel as natural as it should either; Items and weapons are equipped and selected entirely with the D-pad, and while it worked most of the time, I found myself having difficulty equipping the items I wanted while in the middle of an intense moment.  Having to fumble around with my thumb lifted up off the A button does not flow into gameplay well, but I suppose that’s how it has to be since the Wii doesn’t have a second analog stick.

The slightly questionable control aspects are more forgiven when distracted by the presentation, as the graphics are really quite good.  This is undoubtedly the best-looking game on the Wii shop channel.  Textures are sharp and detailed with nary a sight of pixelation or any kind of framerate drop, and the visual aesthetics are right on the mark.  A lot of the large, open environments are beautiful to look at, and they get even nicer as the game goes on.  One level toward the end is Schwang Schwing’s beautiful home planet, where little aliens run around in hats and there are a bunch of neon signs on the empty streets.  It was a wide-open and pretty place to look at as I stormed through the streets, gunning down robots.  Character models are jagged and animations sometimes make it look like the characters have Tourette’s syndrome in their limitations, but I found it appealing in that delightful, nostalgic, N64 era kind of way and the awkwardness of it somewhat supports the already goofy story.  MDK2 is even able to utilize Metroid-style streaming technology and reduce the number of loading screens by having the game load while the player runs down hallways so that it doesn’t break the flow of the game, which is very much appreciated.

I wish I could say equally positive things about the sound, but the audio in this Wiiware port is just poor.  The entire thing is muffled and sounds like it’s coming out of the speakers of an aging radio.  This causes some of the dialogue to become difficult to understand without the subtitles and the sound effects to feel less impactful than they already are.  All the weapons make the same repeating sound effect every time they’re fired and lack any sort of satisfying impact; this is especially noticeable with Kurt’s chain gun, which sounds more like somebody shaking a tambourine on a loop.  Some other sound effects help to offset that, though.  Looney Toons-esque silly sound effects are thrown in for good measure and help set the mood, and there are some more sound effects thrown in later in the game to mix things up.  The music never impresses though.  Even if the game sounded clear, the it isn’t anything to write home about.  It’s all generic, and although it never got on my nerves, it didn’t really leave any kind of impact or atmosphere.

That leaves the level design, and unfortunately it’s not that great either, as it primarily ranges from average to poor by today’s standards.  All the platforming and shooting has been done better by many different games in this generation, and while the puzzles and navigation can be pretty fun sometimes, it can be really annoying at other times.  There were way too many points in which I had to fuddle around for 20 minutes before giving in and going to youtube to watch someone’s walkthrough only to find that the answer wasn’t well-designed or possible to figure out, but completely arbitrary and impossible to figure out without the infuriating punishment of trial and error.  Other times it’s not the puzzles that are the game-halting problem, but rather the layout of the level; fighting endlessly respawning enemies for 10 minutes while trying to look for some little grate that’s nearly impossible to see in the similarly-colored wall just isn’t fun.  And for some of the longer levels I couldn’t shake the niggling feeling of repetition because of the lack of enemy variety.  It has a fair number of genuinely good sections scattered about and the gameplay is consistently fun, but the levels feel like padding between the real stars of the game, the bosses.

The bosses in MDK2 are absolutely excellent; if I had only one single reason to recommend this game, it would be for them alone.  All of them are very diverse, creative, and well-designed.  Each one requires the player to observe the bosses’ attack patterns, the objects in the boss stage, and everything else around them in addition to using their raw skill to win, and none of them are played the same way twice.  A great example early on is Max’s battle with a giant floating electric ball.  As Max pounds away at its exterior, it shoots damaging light out of its open spaces, which Max needs to weave around with his jetpack while continuing to fire away and kill the inside of it.  The game even seems to be aware of how good its bosses are, as it shows them off on finely drawn comic book covers that are displayed on the loading screens, as if it’s meant to be an incentive to keep playing, which in that regard, it works.  I kept playing the game just to see the awesome boss I would face next, and they never disappointed me.

As a whole, MDK2 has certainly aged, but its bosses, humor, and at least passable level designs and smooth run and gun gameplay still hold up to this day to make a decent action game, and I highly commend Beamdog and Interplay for making such an relatively intact port.  I would very much like to see more games like this, and there are other old games from the 90s that would go great on the Wii’s download service.  As for this one, however, it’s good, but not great.  I give MDK2 a 7 out of 10.