Under-rated genius, but VERY tough (MDK 2 (PC))

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Product:	MDK 2 (PC)
Date:	04/05/01 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: beautiful alien environments, wicked AI/ enemy design, superb level design

Disadvantages: VERY Tough, can be overwhelming, may cause you to break your PC!

The first thing I heard about this game is that it was very tough. Even for experienced, seasoned players (those like myself with bad eyesight and "mouse" elbow from too many hours in front of a screen)MDK2 was supposed to be one of the toughest games ever made.

The reviewers were not wrong. This game is very tough, very frustrating at times yet one of the most beautiful, original and addictive games I've ever played, and I've played hundreds of games since finding "Pong" in my local pub in the 1970's!

The artwork has to be seen to be believed. Bioware must be employing aliens because the environments are completely alien. Not like those crappy spaceships and labotatories you see in movies and X-file type shows, but really Alien. A bit like H.R. Giger's bioorganic work but with more of an industrial overtone. Huge, twisted landscapes of machinery and activity.

The music is incredible, really driving techno, drum and bass and sparkling sound effects.

Controls are not as good on the PC as on the Dreamcast (which I played first). The DC's analogue pad is better suited to 3rd person gaming than keyboard/ mouse combo you use on the PC. This is not to say that the PC controls are deficient, they are solid but not as fine tuned as the Dreamcast version.

The enemies are brilliantly drawn and animated, and have very bizzarre behaviour. Firmly on the darker side of comedy, spindly aliens that look like overgrown carrotts "fart" and run about like they've been fed some amphetamine. Huge jeering boss creatures and flying "globes" which are very hard to dispatch. A really wide of enemies and probably the best boss fights I've ever seen. Massive, immensely strong bosses that can take hours of attempts to kill.

One of the biggest pulls for me is the sense of scale in the game. Quite far into the game you enter an arena which is a huge cooling tower. Looking u
p, you can see literally miles into the distance, and watch floating globes heading towards you.

In MDK 2 you play 3 different characters, the janitor, the professor Hawkins and his bio-engineered dog max. The chapters are introduced with lovingly recreated 50's style animated comics. Short cut scenes keep everything flowing well, and bizzarre toilet humour made me laugh.

Out of the three characters I really enjoyed the janitor (who can fly using a chute first seen in the original MDK) and the dog. The dog has many limbs and can carry stacks of weapons. Which is great because you get really overwhelmed.

As an experienced gamer I expect a challenge but this was off the scale! I spent hours trying to clear some sections, especially the platform elements which work well but have been designed by the Demon himself. Make sure you aren't of a violent disposition or you will break several keyboards/mouse/monitor in fits of rage when you fall from the last platform after the 100th attempt. Another benefit from playing the console version (DC) is that you can turn it off real quick and play something else to calm you down!

I made it all the way through to the final boss, which is a huge creature that is very hard to kill. You end up getting sucked inside him and have to shoot out his internal organs, whilst getting attacked by flying worms. I must have tried 200-250 times and finally admitted defeat. I couldn't quite shoot his eyeballs before those pesky worms got me. With 10% more energy it could be done. oh well!!

I've seen MDK2 second-hand for £8 so I'm going to try again, because whilst this game is super tough, it is completely immersive and addictive, and a real experience. Bioware have excelled themselves this time!

Negative points would be the ridiculous difficulty level, and some of the 2D sub-games between the levels, which have really shitty controls and make you mad with rage!

If
you want a challenge you won't regret this game.

Summary: