MDK

After so many years, i finally completed this game and not just played half of the first level. This game is still a lot of fun, controls and graphcis are still acceptable. All in all a very well made, diverse and funny game.

Overall I definitely recommend the first two Earthworm Jim games over this, which feels hit and miss in comparison. Since I already did review those here I will focus on what this does instead. The zany humor doesn't fit as well here because it coexists very awkwardly with this H.R. Giger stuff which by itself is incredibly cool. I really wish they had picked one of these two. This is first and foremost a shooter and I would rather play Doom or Quake in part because of the arsenals of those and the tone not being confused. This is more third person shooter than first person shooter and there definitely are some very fun guns. Each level was designed by a different person and it really shows for better and worse. On the plus side there's a ton of creativity and most of them really stand out. Though some don’t last long enough to leave much of an impression. Unfortunately they also don't all really feel like they belong together or lead into each other. I do appreciate hiding loading in simple mini games instead of having to sit and wait through a still screen. It is a genuinely fascinating world and I appreciate what this contributed to the nuclear arms race to deliver the most intense and ridiculous gore that was taking place in the 90s. Certain parts of this, it's really down to you having to figure out the solution rather than it being that challenging to carry out. I don't quite know why anyone's claiming that you can't save in this it's right there in the manual. Same thing for changing difficulty settings and such, adjusting controls etc. I played this through once in about five hours and I don't really see myself playing it again. At most there may be certain levels and in lieu of a level selector which I acknowledge was not something we expected back then… yeah. I appreciate that you get to do some things in this that you normally don't do in shooters. There's some vehicles stuff and bombing runs and such.

Mac version of this game is utterly DOA.

I had fun playing this and the short length of it was a good thing. It became repetitive after the 2nd level, but since there are only 6 levels the repetition can be seen as a form of assistance with getting through the other levels. Speed is important in the game, so beating it doesn't take too long. I would say I got about 4 hours of play out of it, once I got everything set up, which brings me to another negative. The game was apparently created prior to standardized WASD controls, so using a mouse and keyboard takes some significant getting used to as well as fidgeting with the settings so that they don't conflict with each other. I spent as much time setting up the game as I did playing it. It's not a bad purchase, but it's not a 5-star game in my opinion.

Nothing made ever since (excluding the sequel) has ever come close to emulating the insane action and amount of skill required in this game. The sequel does mix things up a bit and make the experience a bit more interesting, but the origonal still stands firmly by itself.