MDK

This game kicks ass: I can't think of any drawback, except the lack of save points during the six long, long, long levels... Anyway, it defined what a 3D shooter had to be.

I came to this game fresh, buying the GOG release after reading a positive review in a 22 year old issue of PC Zone magazine by Charlie Brooker. The graphics are great, very surreal although I found myself wondering if there were missing textures - there are lots of flat polygons used with no texture mapping, I think its an artistic choice by the designers and once you get used to it, it works well as part of the game's unique character. The game's atmosphere is odd, the characters are odder, and the end reward for completing the game is some kind of French punk video. Conventional it ain't. The gameplay is fantastically easy to get into, ONCE you change the controls. My advice: use the mouse for turning - but disable the y-axis and use WASD for up down strafe left and right. Or some similar setup you're more used to for modern games. You have to use W,A for up and down and the cursor keys for left and right in the flying sections though, but that is easy enough. The game's plot I can't begin to explain, and it doesn't really matter. The game's structure is simple - move from area to area defeating the evil robots and with various other bits thrown in - platforming, snowboarding, sniping, simple puzzle solving of a sort. It keeps changing pace on you. The game is also quite short, finished in two evening sessions (on easy difficulty, admittedly), so this won't eat up a large amount of time. I certainly intend to play again though - it's great fun! Strongly recommended, particularly if you fancy something just a little bit different. Note: the default seems to be software mode, but there is a 3dfx mode - run the game with (or change the shortcut target to) MDK3DFX.exe in the game's installation directory. I had no problems on my Windows 10 machine running in this mode.

For a great challenge and good fun (who doesn't love a chaingun attached to their hand?) MDK delivers. It has excellent graphics for it's time period, and superb gameplay.

Love this game, the design, the art, the gameplay, the incredible movie-like soundtrack (amazing!). It's really a gem! Hope to see something similar in the future...

I played this game when it first came out, when I was still young, likely more than 10 years ago. To this day I remember it for its musical score, surreal environments and the theme of desolation that underlies it all. There is a story to it, told in the instruction booklet, as it was custom back then. It is detailed as a journal, up to the point where the game begins. Dr. Hawkins was a cientist that left earth on his space vessel, along with his janitor, Kurt, and would not come back until he had some great discovery to show the cientific community back on Earth. Eventually he discovers magnetic streams that are getting bigger and bigger. Only he realises that they're not getting bigger, they're getting closer! It's the aliens that came with their streaming technology to our system: they pretty much can turn matter into stream and travel, materializing at the arrival. So what happens is that great minecrawler cities materialize to rob earth of its resources, killing millions in the process. That's when Kurt is sent with the experimental coil suit to save the day. Take too long to finish the level, and a city may be wiped out... That's the green bar - how many people are dying! This explains why the itens fall from the sky - the doc launches them for Kurt as he makes them. Kurt falls to each minecrawler and seeks the pilot. Once he kills the pilot, the whole place is streamed back to the alien homeland! That's why Kurt is in a magnetic tube in space, and is pulled by Bones back to the ship. Bones is a robot dog that the doc created to make them company - The VHS tapes were running out, Kurt's morale was lowering... I hope that makes some sense for the plot. Thinking of the characters, there is a depth to them if you infer by the journal entries and their choices. An underlying tone, but it's there. In all this, the graphics are really great for the time it was launched, and there is a great variety of scenarios within each minecrawler. Some areas really show that it is a sort of alien city, with some features that make are "civil", so as to indicate they live there. You even crash a party and make everyone run in despair! And all of the presentation is utterly surreal (Shiny made Sacrifice too!), because of the shapes and colors, but at the same time, it can be understood what they represent somewhat, like the aforementioned party. The soundtrack goes along greatly with the experience; I for one get a sense of majesty and gloominess just from the menu theme: The characters make a huge difference, though lives are lost regardless of their best efforts. There is humor into the game, but it's from the alien's perspectives, mocking the humans! Gameplay wise, it can be repetitive once you learn to effectively deal with the enemies. But the landscapes change constantly, so the experience is refreshing from the beggining of the game until the end. That is possible since the game is somewhat short: A sad thing considering it can be such nice experience for so many players. On the other hand, perhaps it was what allowed for the originality to be kept, as a tight and well done package. Quality over quantity, to be sure. As far as I can remember, you can choose dificulty levels, and save at anytime pressing F2 (as other reviews said), so it should not be impossible to get through. The controls are not the best suited for those acostumed to modern controls. They can be reconfigured, with the use of the mouse for looking as well. All in all, if you liked old action oriented games (like doom, duke nukem 3d etc), this one has all that packed action and several other artistic details to go along creating a quite unique experience; if you are inclined to pay attention to such details. And if not, you get a chain gun for a hand and a sniper rifle for a helmet. Bullets and running all around non-stop! Thus, this was one of the first games (if not the first, it's hard to tell) where you could headshot and make it count...