Excerpt from my video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrEeYPPjgno How is Alien Rampage not more well-known? It’s excellent! The art style, the action, the violence, the puzzle solving, tons of unique enemies, gameplay that keeps changing up the routine, and on and on. If it only had some kickass music to go along with it, and maybe a more fine-tuned camera with a higher frame rate, this would be in my all-time best list of DOS platformers. And that is also considering this is tough as nails. Make no mistake: Alien Rampage is brutally difficult and sometimes tremendously unforgiving. But it’s done in such a way that I loved playing through it, so it’s unfortunate that so few people care about it. Even if you ignore its fascinating Duke Nukem-related origins, Alien Rampage is DOS gaming done right.
Using an updated version of the game engine used in UbiSoft's previous racer, POD, Speed Busters (known as Speed Devils on the Sega Dreamcast) shares very little in relationship to its futuristic cyberpunk predecessor. But what it lacks in Blade Runner-esque visuals it makes up for in vibrant, creative tracks and setpieces. And they change every lap! This is one of the first racers I can remember where the track literally changes as you race, which has only been done a few times since (think Split/Second most recently). You aren't in control of it, but sometimes you'll have giant crocodiles lurch forward, Jurassic Park's T-rex on a rampage, UFOs abducting you and your opponents, and avalanches obscuring the road and your view! It's also one of the first racers I remember that had a pretty decent upgrade system, where you could apply vinyl, body kits, and NOS upgrades in the shop between races in the career. Yes, this was WAY before NFS:Underground and it was totally awesome back then. Plus, the soundtrack is phenomenal and just as fun as the tracks and cars themselves! Sadly, the racing itself was never really that good. It's too basic, too barren, and the controls are wonky at best. A lot of fun still, but only if you don't "think about it" too much. Just don't take things seriously, and Speed Busters is a freaking blast.
This was one of my favorites racing games as a kid, and one of my favorites games from the 90's period. It's just got an exceptional atmosphere, awesome music, weird tracks, fun cars, and simple racing goodness. It's a pretty bare-bones game as far as racers go, but it more than makes up for it in aesthetics and "feel". I've been hoping to play this game on a newer PC for years, but it's almost impossible due to how the game looks for certain graphics drivers, DirectX versions and all sorts of crap. GOG to the rescue, this one works perfectly on every new Windows machine I've tried! Too bad the online doesn't work anymore, but that's to be expected since the GS went down long ago. There may be ways to get around it with extra software, but I've not tried it. Thankfully, the DLC works for this release, so you've got tons of new cars and tracks to install if you want! Also a good thing, since even though GOG claims this comes with the Back to Hell expansion, it does not. The three tracks and extra cars from BTH are not included in the current version available on GOG. You can install them from the website POD Phreak, if you want to (even though the tracks and cars/bikes admittedly suck). Whatever the case, this is just rad beyond rad. I love you, GOG and Ubisoft! Great game, buy it now because it's one-of-a-kind.
I love weird games. Weird games are weird. Why aren't there more weird games anyways? You can do anything imaginable in a game in theory, so why don't more developers run with it instead of making yet another realistic first-person shooter with a brown color palette? Money probably has something to do with it. But in the 80's and 90's, there was a bit more leeway to make a strange game since the games were less advanced and dev teams were smaller. Shiny is one of the exemplary groups that made quirky games. They were the ones who made Earthworm Jim, Wild 9, Messiah and Sacrifice, in case you were wondering. All of their games have unique humor and an unearthly charm, and honestly, I think MDK takes the cake in this regard. I recently played this for the first time and was completely blown away with how great it is. This is one of the most absurdly weird games I have ever played. And it is awesome all the way. MDK has a story, but don't expect it to make sense or be extremely important. It's completely ridiculous anyways, but I'll try to make it digestible. You play as Kurt Hectic, the janitor for a brilliant scientist, Dr Fluke Hawkins. After being exiled to a ship orbiting earth, Dr Hawkins starts work on his strange experiments. Suddenly, the planet is attacked by aliens with giant mining ships as big as cities and you and the Dr, along with his robot 6-armed dog, Max/Bones, are left to save the planet. You quickly slip on the tight-fitting Coil suit and make the leap to the first of the floating city-ships. You start each level with a skydive directly toward the ship you're about to enter, collecting power-ups and dodging bullets along the way, and you exit each level in a similar manner. The game starts off in a sort of tutorial level where you learn your suit's various abilities. Other than making Kurt look a bit androgynous, the Coil suit has several key abilities. The first is the arm-mounted machine gun, which can be loaded with varying types of ammo. You also have a parachute of sorts which springs out of your back and helps you reach new areas and glide from high falls. Extremely revolutionary is the sniper mode which is what your suit's Pyramid head is for. This is the first real sniper rifle I can think of in a game where you can actually zoom way in on anything from across a map and still see things with full detail and no clipping. At first MDK looks and plays like a third-person Doom game, and in a way that's pretty much what it is most of the time. You strafe left and right, there's no real need to aim up or down, and you're constantly blowing away lots of enemies on various plains - just point and shoot. But what sets this apart as far as gameplay is how simply awesome it all feels. It's simply solid and balanced all around and you never feel like you're getting killed by cheap shots or level bugs. The levels themselves are wonderful as well, and man, there is no shortage of strange on display. I can't help but love it all, the atmosphere is just dark, cyberpunk sweetness. There are quite a few platforming sections as well, and since it's a well-handling third-person game, this goes quite smoothly and really adds a new dimension to an already great shooter. I never got annoyed at these sections and actually quite welcomed them. The graphics actually look quite good for 1997, especially when played in Direct3D or 3DFX mode. The sound effects are good enough, nothing really spectacular, but the music and ambiance in different level sections are completely top-notch and perfectly suited to the game's nonsensical theme. There are only 6 levels, but each of them are quite large and usually take about 45 minutes to complete. They really are huge and there is no loading in between sections, thanks to the innovative areas in between. Many times these are just winding hallways but often you'll have a minigame of sorts, like surfing or sliding down a very steep pipeline. And all of these levels are chock full of awkward and often hilarious moments and objects. You really just have to play the game to see all of what I mean, but if you know anything about Shiny you know their humor is just classic and trippy. I especially love the World's Most Interesting Bomb and mirror world. There are so many, many more amazing locations and events but I won't spoil them for you. Each floating city has a boss at the end, of which are some of the most unique I have ever seen in a game. The only real complaint I have about the game is that the controls can be a little awkward, since I prefer the WASD setup for moving and strafing and the flight sections use other keys to move back and forth, but it's nothing horrible. And the game is incredibly short, I played through in one sitting my first time, at about 5 hours. It's just so fun and different though that I can't help but wholeheartedly recommend it. As quick as the game is, it is very, very worth getting and playing through. I first got it on GOG for a great price and it works wonderfully even on Windows 7. Any way you can get it, it is worth it I say. MDK is easily one of coolest and most refreshingly different games I have played in years and if you like completely absurd action shooters, you really can't get to playing it fast enough.
