How Do You Spell Flop?
A Review of Mutant Penguins
by Edmond Meinfelder
Mutant Penguins begs us to relive the thrills of arcade action. Arcade games were simple, easy to learn and most important, fun! Unfortunately, Mutant Penguins has none of these qualities. Instead, Penguins is just another weak attempt to wrestle money out of your wallet with no good reason.
In Mutant Penguins, the player walks about the 2-dimensional world, often looking for gremlins. With gremlins, players can open chests to get acquire a weapon, fix broken machines, throw switches, and turn signposts, among other things. Getting gremlins is needlessly tedious as the “hotspot” position for players relative to gremlins is small and difficult to position. This hotspot problem is consistent throughout the game, making simple actions tiring.
On each level is a Doom Scale. On one side of the scale are the good penguins while other is reserved for bad penguins. If more bad penguins than good sit upon the scale, you lose. Your job is to help the good penguins get to the Doom Scale by destroying menacing mutant penguins, changing road signs, and fixing broken machines using the gremlins.
Mutant Penguins, disappointingly, gets more complex. Along the way, you must kill penguins dressed as cowboys, indians and musketeers for these are alien penguins. To kill all the alien penguins, you must first collect gremlins to open chests. When each chest is opened, a letter appears. Spell BAT or PAN and you receive a weapon, enabling you to kill bad penguins. Just getting around is tricky. Each round has a maze, some having two height levels. Most map areas connect via a series of pathways. Special paths exist for players only, though. When killing alien penguins, little globules spin off from the body. Collect 5 globs and your weapon receives an upgrade.
Mutant Penguins has many more annoying details and rules. Unfortunately, these rules get in the way. Successful arcade games have simple interfaces and simple goals. Mutant Penguins does not. With two fire buttons, a drop button, directions keys, a special key and a host of rules, this game qualifies as complex. So complex, in fact, the game ships with a series of tutorials.
With so many details, Mutant Penguins becomes tedious. This game is not elegant; Tempest, Pac Man and Donkey Kong were elegant. The numerous details needlessly complicate the game, turning it from a fun romp to a dull effort. The most similar game to Mutant Penguins is Lemmings and, though the puzzles in Lemmings were dazzlingly hard, the game itself was simple.
The sound effects are, as usual, average. The effects do not aid in the game, giving clues to the player nor do they excite. The sound effects are simply present. The music, streaming digital from the CD, is pleasant, but a touch melodramatic for a game featuring penguins in cowboy hats.
The graphics though passable, do nothing new. There is no unique look or intriguing style here, merely the usual cartoon-like graphics and animations seen in dozens of side-scrollers. To compound the disappointment, the game runs in a 320x240 graphic resolution. Why? The only justification I can find for this, is to have a speedy game while in a window. However, using a window drops the main advantage of the Direct X libraries Mutant Penguins relies upon. The game could have been done in 640x480, but then, who needs another graphically stunning title with bad gameplay?
Fun arcade games are simple. Players learn the rules quickly, make progress, building their skills and reflexes. The levels on Mutant Penguins are complex, with much to do and puzzle over. Each level is so complex, players are doomed to repeat levels many times. In the repetition, players learn the lesson the designers of Mutant Penguins never did: repetition is boring. With average graphics and tedious gameplay, GameTek gives us turkey disguised as a penguin.
Gamer's Zone Scorecard
| Product: |
Mutant Penguins |
| Company: |
GameTek
|
| Cost: |
$29.99 |
System Requirements:
486 DX2 66 Mhz (Pentium recommended),
DOS Version 5 (minimum) or Windows-95,
8 Mb RAM, 20 megabytes free hard disk space,
Double Speed CD-ROM (4x speed recommended).
Breakdown:
Fun Factor 1
Graphics 3
Sound 3
Interface 3
Replayability 1
Overall Score:
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