PC Game Review: MDK

GAME: MDK
DEVELOPER: Shiny Entertainment
PUBLISHER: Interplay
RELEASED: 1997
AVAILABILITY: PS1, PC CD-ROM, GOG, Steam


Murder Death Kill. Mission: Deliver Kindness. Max, Doctor, Kurt. Mother's Day Kisses. It's never been clear what exactly MDK stands for, but what is clear is that MDK is probably one of the best shooters of the 90's, heck maybe even one of the best games of that decade. Coming out in the post-Doom and post-Quake era of gaming, MDK set out to do one thing; shake things up. So in today's review I'm taking a look at one of my all-time favourite games, Shiny Entertainment's 1997 masterpiece MDK.

Look out below!

Dr. Fluke Hawkins, the genious who many disregarded as a raving madman and exiled to a space station surrounding the Earth, was the first one to discover the energy beams coming towards our planet. Then one fateful day it happened. The stream riders, a species of aliens never before seen in our galaxy, invaded the planet with massive city-sized tanks that began leveling entire countries to the ground. A time of crisis indeed. But the doctor had an ace up his sleeve. His cybernetic dog assistant Max and his janitor Kurt Hectic, who he outfitted with a tight androgynous kevlar "coil" suit, complete with a built-in parachute and sniper helmet (with detachable machine gun). It is now Kurt's mission to deliver kindness to the invaders and destroy the minecrawlers before they reach the remaining cities on Earth.

MDK's story is directly tied to its gameplay, and doesn't have much of an impact on the overall game save for its core mechanics. Each stage begins with an airdiving sequence towards a minecrawler, in which you have to avoid a trackling laser and homing missiles, while gathering supplies that Dr. Fluke is dropping in after you. The trick here is just to take as little damage as possible before the stage begins.

GERONIMOOOOO!

After this initial airdiving sequence you find yourself at the minecrawler, where you will have to traverse multiple areas before reaching the minecrawler's commander, who serves as your boss fight for that minecrawler. There are 6 minecrawlers in total with a 7th level taking place at the Streamriders' home planet where you have to face down with the final boss, the Streamriders' feared leader, Günther Glut. While this means the game is somewhat short, each of the levels are divided into multiple arenas, each presenting a unique challenge and often connected via tunnels or roads that can provide fun minigames such as a snowboarding cruise. The game is probably one of the least repetitive I've played in terms of gameplay, given that the levels provide you with multiple types of challenges that not often can be solved by simply shooting everything (although this game IS a shooter so you will be doing a lot of it). One of the most groundbreaking aspects of the gameplay though is the sniper helmet you are equipped with. Taking your machine gun and attaching it to your helmet, the gun converts into a sniper rifle that can take several kinds of ammunition and can zoom in at extreme distances without losing clarity. MDK is probably the first shooter or 3D game of its kind that I know of that allows you to do this, and it's an incredibly impressive feat at the time. There is also an incredible attention to detail in the damage you can do to enemies. Shoot an enemy in the foot, and he will drag it around while bleeding, shoot an enemy in the chest and he will fall over and die, shoot an enemy in the head and it pops off, giving you an insta-kill. Sniping is a little clunky given it takes away a lot of mobility from you but it makes up for it in the sheer damage and accuracy you are given in return. One key element of the gameplay is that you're on a timer that counts down to when the minecrawler reaches the city you're saving, shown by the green area outside your health meter. When the timer reaches zero, the city is destroyed. This timer will go down quicker the higher your difficulty level is.

You didn't really need that leg, did you?

The amount of powerups on display is also impressive. And your suit must be implanted with a tracker of some sort because Dr. Fluke will constantly drop supplies for you wherever possible. The super chaingun will upgrade your machine gun with massively increased damage output, but has a limited ammo supply. Hand grenades can be used for a lot of purposes but are really useful for blowing up the numerous grunt factories you'll come across as well as tanks and tougher enemies. The world's smallest nuclear bomb is exactly what it is, except you'll use it for opening door locks. The world's most interesting bomb is also exactly what it is and will draw all enemies in an area towards it before exploding and killing all of them. The tornado is a more advanced bomb that functions similarly to a frag grenade, being a literal tornado that spreads exploding fragments upon detonation in a whirlwind like pattern. The thumper is a hammer-like contraption that causes a minor earthquake. The decoy is a crude puppet of Kurt that somehow fools the aliens who will gladly chase and fire at the decoy instead of you while it's active. There are other fun powerups as well like the Earthworm Jim powerup which launches cows at enemies, and there are also multiple types of sniper ammo to pick up such as sniper grenades which explode when hitting enemies, homing sniper bullets and homing sniper grenades, and mortar grenades, turning your sniper into a grenade launcher. You can also call in an air attack by Max, but this only works in open spaces. There is also numerous healing items to pick up, healing different amounts of health. A candy will heal 1% of health up to 100%, an apple will heal 10% up to 100%, a turkey will heal 50% up to 100% , the vial will bring your health to 100% if it is below it, and finally the monkey box (it will make sense when you see it) will boost you up to 150%. 

Snowboarding leather-clad heroes are the best heroes.

If I were to have any criticisms of the gameplay, then it would be that the game feels a bit too short. After the 7 levels the game offers, you're presented with a music video by French pop rock artist Billy Ze Kick, who does a cover version of "Non Non Rien N'a Changé" by Poppys set to probably one of the coolest music videos ever. I think a lot of the game concepts in MDK are presented but never fully explored further. Powerups such as the world's most interesting bomb only showing up probably 2 times over the course of the entire game, making it feel very underutilized and not fully realized, and the thumper powerup never really feels like it does anything specific for the game and feels kind of pointless. The game itself is very dense though and the amount of variety does make up for its length, I just wish that some parts of the game were further realized and that there was more to it. But of course if you finish a game and wish there was more of it, then that's definitely a good thing. The controls can also feel a bit clunky to use as even though you can map the buttons to a WASD layout, the left and right keys are still used to move you around during airdiving sequences, which can be a little awkward. Otherwise, the game controls really well and plays pretty much like a third person Doom most of the time, with your chaingun automatically aiming at any enemies in front of you.

How post modern. Who knew the aliens were such great architects?

Graphically MDK looks amazing for its time. It's sort of drenched in this really cool dark gothic Giger-esque cyberpunk style that is still extremely unique to this game. Few games of this era look as downright cool as MDK and it pulls off a lot of things that for the time were rather unique such as large open areas, reflective surfaces, a ton of unique textures and shaded polygons, and it has a style that is very much born of mid 90's 3D limitations with its sharp and pointy polygonal geometry. Most impressively it's used actual motion capture for Kurt himself, giving him very natural movement and animation. Kurt is actually a sprite during most of the gameplay save for the airdiving sequences and post-level tunnel sequences. The game was actually made mostly for software rendering, which makes it even more impressive as even in software mode the game looks absolutely stunning at times. It did require a FPU at the time though and was pretty much made for the then recent MMX processors. Using 3DFX Voodoo hardware acceleration doesn't really do much other than allowing the game to run smoother, and doesn't really give that much of a graphical improvement. Same with the Direct3D mode which actually is kind of broken on modern PC's due to lack of legacy support for older DirectX API's. I had to make a fan patch for Steam based on the GOG release which uses nGlide emulation, since the Steam release ships with the broken D3D executable of the game, which I find strange as using the software rendering exe would be more stable. The game has gorgeous backgrounds as well, giving each level a unique theme and feel to it. It's very easy to remember distinct areas and each minecrawler.

These reflective surfaces look much more impressive in actual gameplay. But even in screenshots it looks insanely cool, especially with that background.

Sound-wise the game isn't lacking either. Tommy Tallarico is providing a soundtrack worthy of a Tim Burton movie which does fit the strange, alien and gothic looking landscapes of the game perfectly. Another impressive feat is that instead of relying on CD redbook audio which would've meant the game required the game CD inserted at all times, it streams the music off the hard drive which is very unique for the time. Interestingly the PS1 version of the game does stream the music from redbook audio which gives it slightly higher quality than the PC version though the PS1 version is not as graphically impressive, using a lot of lower resolution textures.
I also love the sound design in the game, with aliens taunting you, whimpering as they quiver in fear when you're bombing them, and shouting at you when they attack. All in all, MDK sounds as good and unique as it looks.

Level design done right.

In conclusion, MDK is arguably one of the most solid 3D games of the 90's, with a distinct visual style that hasn't aged as badly as it may look at first. Despite its short playtime, it's an incredibly rich and diverse experience and if you have never played it, I highly recommend you give MDK a try.

SCORE
STORY: 8/10
GAMEPLAY: 8/10
GRAPHICS: 10/10
SOUND: 10/10

TOTAL SCORE: 9/10