MDK 2 Review

reviewed by Hasta

After reading all the MDK2 reviews out there, I don’t believe I’ve seen one that didn’t mention MDK. Let me get this out of the way, I never actually played MDK (for some reason or another), so no comparisons to the first one will be made. As great as the first one may have been, you will not be hearing about that here. You might, though, hear about how great MDK2 is….. might.

MDK2 isn’t a serious game by any means. It plays like a good old cheesy action flick, and the presentation of the game is great. The story revolves around 3 characters, Kurt Hectic - The Janitor, Max - The Six Legged Dog, and Hawkins - The Scientist. Swapping the 3 characters every now and then, you will fight your way through all sorts of bizarre creatures. The journey is definitely a fun one, but don’t be fooled as at (many) times it can get down right annoying.

Before going into anything else, let me say right off the bat the graphics in MDK2 are some of the best the PC has ever seen. The "Omen Engine" BioWare created will surely make some rub themselves all over with joy, and some rub themselves in the wrong places… for joy. Anyway, the graphics engine is fantastic. Though not up to par with Quake 3, it beats out anything I’ve seen on the Unreal engine visually (including UT). The textures are extremely detailed, the environments are incredibly large, and the game seems to almost always keep a consistent frame rate. Particle effects are glorious, and the enemy models are varied and each look good in their own way. There are a few clipping problems here and there, like Kurt’s ass might appear on his head… but don’t worry, they don’t last long.

Sound in the game is pretty good to say the least. The effects in the game are pretty varied and strong, though sometimes they can get repetitive (dog trying to jump over crates for 5 minutes). Music is nicely done as well, which was a nice surprise to me. Most impressive, though, was the voice acting. The voices were sharp, had good timing, and funny. The last game I played with voice acting was Daikatana, so if you have played that trash and heard the voice acting, you can imagine how I would have been in heaven with MDK2. The dog is hilarious, as is the scientist. Kurt isn’t very funny but you can’t win em all. At least he is the most fun to play…

Fun to play… well, is it? At times, yes! At times, I’ve almost broke my computer… and at times, I have almost pulled a gun to my head out of frustration. The game definitely starts out well, as the first few levels of Kurt and Max are a blast to play, seeing all the different enemies, environments, and weapons. The action is pretty swift and slick, running through spaceships and outdoor space stations with 2 uzis coupled with 2 shotguns (Max - The Six Legged Dog) blowing away big green aliens 4x your size, can’t go wrong with that. Kurt as well, flying your way through the levels blowing the enemies… I’m sorry, blowing them "away"… Gameplay isn’t perfect, though. In fact, it is far from it.

The levels with Hawkins, the scientist, are incredibly stupid. He is creative, sure… Creative is one thing, spending 15 freaking minutes trying to figure out if you can use the toaster with the rag or the ladder with the bread is beyond pathetic. I’m no moron, either… some of the combinations are downright retarded. One part you have to put the fishbowl on your head, while getting sucked into space, you pick up a magnet and equip it with glue (if I remember correctly). How did I do it, you ask? Am I some sort of genius? Well, maybe… but that’s not how. The only way I was getting through that part was a guide, pc.ign.com’s guide. That’s right, I didn’t finish the whole game by myself, I got help on one part (call me a cheater). Anyway as you probably get it by now, the scientist character isn’t very good, but even without him, the gameplay suffers a bit. There are just too many damn jumping puzzles, and they get old quick. While many of them are fun, some are quite annoying and get frustrating by your 36th try. All in all though, quite fun to play if you can get passed the bad parts.

One last thing I would like to mention are the cutscenes. They are used with the in-game engine, and look fantastic. Not so much how they look, though, but how they act. They are pretty damn funny. There is one where Max (The dog if you’ve forgotten damn you) crashes into a spaceship shooting the (farting) aliens with 2 magnums. Simply put, brilliant. I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed so hard at any aspect of a PC game. That isn’t considering how hard I laughed when I first saw Daikatana, though.

So, should you get this game? Depends what kind of gamer you are, but I’d guess most people will enjoy the title. It isn’t impossible to get through the puzzles, and you can probably get through the scientist levels without coming as close to death as I did. If you dig action, you’ll have fun with MDK2. If you dig jumping puzzles (?), jump off a cliff. If you are looking for a good console game on PC, check it out, because this is definitely a Dreamcast port gone very right. Though my review seemed quite mixed and I did focus on the negative sides quite a bit, I’d say I liked the game quite a bit, despite its annoyances. Recommended.

<< Rating: 83% >>