Most retro-revival shooters I’ve played over the years have, in my opinion, been pretty terrible. Certainly there’s worth in exploring the roots of a genre but the unfortunate reality is that, for shooters/FPS at least, there’s been a lot of innovation over the past 30 years that as markedly improved the experience. So when a game markets itself primarily on that fact I’m now avoiding them unless they’re able to bring something new and interesting to the field. Mullet Madjack promises that and delivers in spades, even if some technical issues stopped me from playing much further.
Far in the future the world has become dominated by super rich AI robots called the Robillionaires. Humans have also evolved alongside them, merging themselves with the internet to create a new type of being that needs a rush of dopamine every 10 seconds just to live. These are the moderators, the crazed cybernetic human hybrids who hunt down the Robillionaires and kill them in a valiant effort to free humans from their grasp. You’re one of them, murdering your way through countless robots to climb the tower and rescue the princess whilst the internet watches on, filling your need for endless hits of dopamine.
Mullet Madjack’s artstyle is reminiscent of the boomer shooters of old although every aspect of it is dialled up to the nines. The resolution of the artwork, the smoothness of the animations, the ludicrously oversaturated colour palette are all things that developers of the late 80s and early 90s could only dream of. All the other trappings of the era are there too, your face in a screen that changes as your time runs out, the slight bobbing of arms as you walk, it all gives the feeling of what the art style of that time would look like if they were given modern tools to accomplish it. Performance is also incredible, the game never missing a beat even in the most intense action sequences it throws at you.
Mullet Madjack is a FPS Roguelite, with each level being at most a minute or so long but usually quite a lot shorter. The premise is simple: find your way through the procedurally generated maze whilst killing any and all robots in your way. Go more than 10 seconds without killing something and the run is over, putting you back to the start or to the last checkpoint you unlocked. At the completion of each level you’ll be able to choose from a random assortment of upgrades including weapons, skills and unlocks that can drastically change how you play. These are reset at the end of each floor, meaning that even the most broken of builds will only last you so far. The combination of all these mechanics is enough to turn what would otherwise be a boring boomer shooter into a fever pitched, hyperviolent FPS that you play in (thankfully) bite sized chunks.
Combat looks and feels amazing, the devs have done a great job of striking the right level of challenge and broken-ness when it comes to building out your character. If you’re like me you’ll likely get tunnel vision with just engaging with the regular combat, meaning it can be really easy to lose track of just how much time you actually have left when things slow down for longer than they should. As you progress through the levels though you’ll get into a rhythm knowing which rooms are a bit more sparse than others, allowing you to plan how you engage with each of the rooms.
Which brings up a good point: you don’t need to kill everything you see and indeed doing so could likely end you in some hot water when it comes to getting through the level. There were a couple times I spent far too long chasing down a particularly elusive enemy only to realise that the next one was going to be that many more seconds away because of it. Whilst that’ll affect your grade at the end of the level I haven’t seen any meaningful impact beyond that. Still later levels seem to ramp up the difficulty in the usual way so running out of enemies usually isn’t the problem.
Now I did have some major technical issues while playing the game which, after further testing, I believe might have been due to either my rig, some certain drivers or a combination of all. Long story short I was getting soft locks where the screen would go blank whilst the audio would continue to play. No amount of key mashing could bring the PC right again, so I’d have to reboot. This would kick me back to the last checkpoint I’d unlocked which, whilst not a major showstopper, happened often enough that it took the wind out of my sails. That being said I’m very tempted to go back now that I think I’ve solved the issue given I saw the same problem happen once in another game.
Mullet Madjack is what I want to see from all boomer shooter revivals: taking the cool nostalgia core that we all remember with rose tinted glasses and bringing into the modern age with a new twist. The art style is incredible, the combat slick and the Roguelite mechanics strike a good balance between challenge and providing you with that overpowered killing machine fantasy. I went in with low expectations but was happy to have them blown away, literally.
Rating: 8.5/10
Mullet Madjack is available on PC and Xbox Series X/S right now for $29.95. Game was played on the PC with a total of 2 hours playtime and 54% of the achievements unlocked.
