Developed by BioWare/Published by Interplay Entertainment Group
Impressions by Spacecheetah on 9/28/00

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First Impressions:

My first impressions of MDK2 were poor. Since I never played the original, I was not familiar with the back-story or the characters. The name itself, an acronym rumoured to stand for "Murder Death Kill," also did not give me high expectations. The introduction was cute, but the delivery was minimal at best. A game that requires Open GL and 3d hardware acceleration for optimal gameplay should not have an introduction which consists of opening a 3d comic book and basically making the player read its 2d static pages with one of those generic narrative voices that basically says, "Ok, this game is supposed to be a cheesy comic book, so anything cheesy that happens is on purpose." The basic plot is this: Three kooky characters have to battle green aliens from outer space. The characters include Dr. Hawkins - your basic lab coat-wearing scientist, Max - his loyal six-legged canine who has the ability to fire six weapons at once, and Kurt Hectic - Dr. Hawkins' janitor, who is the "Inspector Gadget" of the trio, outfitted with a special sniper helmet and coil suit designed by the good doctor.

In the first level, you play Kurt Hectic who has a parachute suit which allows him to glide a short distance

The Story:

The game begins with Kurt Hectic dive-bombing onto the alien ship. While the sequence is short and does not require too much skill in mouse-pushing to dodge the incoming laser fire, it did give me the sense that the plot was not going to be poorly driven like Tomb Raider, and the game would not just consist of running through halls blasting enemies. The rest of the particular level requires Kurt to navigate through different parts of the ship with his parachute suit and his sniper gun (certain locks on doors have to be destroyed by sniping a blue electrified sphere hidden in the room), eventually battling a small frog-like alien sitting in a ship the size of a small planet. This I liked. Unfortunately, I later discovered, after running around for a long time killing aliens on the ground and randomly aiming at various blinking parts of the ship, the vulnerable spot turns out to be four small blue spheres (the same that, when destroyed, opens doors) at the front center of the ship. This would not have bothered me if the spheres, while visible when I ran close enough, were also visible when I switched into sniper mode. When I switched to sniper mode, the spheres would disappear. I had to strafe and fire at an approximate area only a few pixels wide and could only make aiming adjustments through the small corner viewport in snipe mode which showed the bullet's point of view. I am not sure if the design was on purpose.

One of the many level bosses that you must destroy. This one is some kind of angry alien disco ball

Through plot twists that give reasons for another character to rescue the current character, the game progresses with the player battling aliens using the various talents the current character possesses. With Kurt, you have gliding and sniping ability. With Max, durability and fire power. With Dr. Hawkins, you have to find objects lying around the level and attempt to combine them into weapons against the aliens or devices to help you get to your destination. The apparent reasons you have for fighting the big bad aliens are minimal at best, except for the obvious fact that they are aliens, and they are big, bad and crack jokes that are almost as cheesy as your characters'.

Overall Pros and Cons:

The levels with Dr. Hawkins require the player to complete the level with less fire power and more puzzle solving

Instead of creating a plot that would allow the player to select which character to use for a particular sequence, the storyline requires the different talents of the three characters at different times (mostly because, gee, the other two characters are out of commission at that moment). This is probably a good thing, since the player gets to snipe, punch holes in enemies, fly around, and even solve the navigation of a level through *almost* non-violent means. It also allowed the designers to create characters with more novel interactions and customize a particular level to that character (can you imagine picking Dr. Hawkins in the beginning and then having to play the game through armed with a toaster?). There are many surprise sequences as well where the transition to another scene could have been cinematic but was an interactive mini game to get to the next scene. The game also uses some clever camera angles during some parts, and the player interactions with the characters justifies the third-person over first-person viewpoint. The sound itself does contribute to the feel of the game and characters. It reinforces the visual effects and overall physics of the game, and does not contribute to any inconsistencies.

One of the mini sequences in the game, where you control a goldfish that has to find the security override to another part of the ship

I recommend this game to those who like games in the style of Tomb Raider -- a game played in third person with first person perspective and requires some precision in jumping and navigation. If you liked Tomb Raider for its gameplay (Lara Croft aside), you will most likely find MDK2 to be a better game for the particular genre. While the game seemed to lack an overall coherence in the environment, some of the random surprises and additions contributed to the entertainment value. This game is definitely for the kind of gamer who likes to blow up disgruntled earth-destroying aliens but also enjoys the occasional quirk or feature that is afforded by the cheesy comic book backplot.