Mullet MadJack is not a game, it is an experience of the most insane parts of your soul. Set in a dystopian setting that will make you say “wow this hits a little too close to home,” this shooter will pit you up against the most terrifying villain of all: capitalism.
The game was created by Brazilian game developer Hammer95. I can only assume their point in developing Mullet MadJack was to emulsify the brains of anyone over the age of 30. There is much to go over, so as they say in Peace Corp, “It’s Mullet Time!”
Premise
As the ‘Moderator’, you’re a human living in a cyberpunk nightmare in which humans are slaves to dopamine and the powerful ‘Robillionaires’. Believe it or not, Mullet MadJack actually takes place in the future, not present day! Set in the year 2090, you play as the mullet-wearing protagonist with the goal of destroying your robot overlords… and also obtaining a new pair of sneakers.
You’ve been hired by Peace Corp to destroy those damn robots and to rescue the ‘Influencer’ princess. She’s been kidnapped by an evil robot (Did you think it wouldn’t be evil?), who is escaping with her up a skyscraper. It’s your job to chase up the many dozens of floors to rescue the princess in return for those sneakers Peace Corp promised as payment. As you keep pushing forth, you’ll find that your enemy keeps slipping away with the princess just in time. Yes, I suppose it’s very similar to the Mario Bros. formula, but Mario was never wearing Jordans, so I don’t wanna hear it.
Gameplay
The most important part of Mullet MadJack’s gameplay loop is your impending death. While tearing through robots, the Moderator’s antics are being streamed to an audience. In a less than subtle nod to how social media is cannibalizing our attention spans, you have 10 seconds to complete a level because that’s how long the audience of the stream is willing to focus. If you don’t kill a robot in those 10 seconds, you die from lack of dopamine. Actually, that’s not entirely true, you can also punch vending machines for soda, which will refill your countdown. There is some joke here about the sugar industry but it seems too obvious to be clever.
The main story of Mullet MadJack doesn’t take too long to complete. Depending on the player, it takes about 3-4 hours to run through. However, there are a number of additional difficulty levels and gamemodes to flesh out the gaming experience. The difficulties range anywhere from accessibility settings to sado-masochistic insanity. Of the two ‘normal’ modes listed, I chose the more forgiving one, but it still was a bit challenging. There’s a mode for almost every type of player, so don’t be discouraged. If you are looking to be frustrated and ruin fun for yourself, try one of the harder difficulties, or even the rogue-like mode that erases ALL progress upon death.
Each level, or floor, only takes about 40-60 seconds to complete. But this game is fast—like ridiculously fast, so it’s the only game I’ve ever played where I’ve overestimated how long I’ve been playing. It was like time slowed; I felt like Quicksilver in that one movie where they actually did his character justice. There’s so much going on the screen that you can barely process what’s happening. At some point, your reaction time is hijacked and the only thing that matters is obliterating whatever stands in front of you. Mullet MadJack requires constant momentum forward, and I absolutely adore it. I’ve got a bad habit of going super slow through games because I’m worried I’ll miss something. I never had that problem with Mullet MadJack, because the habit was practically beaten out of me.
Mullet MadJack is not a rogue-like but does employ some elements from the genre. Progress saves every ten floors, but if you die at any point in those ten floors, you reset to that last checkpoint. I’m not afraid to admit it—and maybe the ‘git gud’ crowd will come for my neck—but I hate rogue-likes. I am the reason the quick-save button exists; I’m paranoid about making mistakes and get discouraged about having to restart. Mullet MadJack’s system, which the kids seem to call ‘rogue-lite’, works rather well for me. It’s a nice happy medium between being too punishing and not having high enough stakes.
At your disposal in your conquest are a whole arsenal of weapons. The sheer diversity is astonishing for a game like this: anything from pistols, rifles, katanas, even the bottom of your boot. You can also pick up melee weapons (crowbars, axes, even books) around the map which work as one-time finishers. Completing a floor also allows you to select power ups until you hit the next checkpoint—and these are SO fun. The best power up is the one that slows time in the last three seconds of life, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Your primary weapons can change the style of play drastically. There are three stats for each weapon: speed, power, and range. Weapons like the railgun are very powerful but really slow and in my opinion, defeat the purpose of such a fast-paced game like this. My personal favorite gun is the SMG because it is blisteringly fast and turns everything in front of you into a fine red mist.
Mullet MadJack is cartoonishly violent. You may be thinking “well it’s just robots, they’re just metal circuits.” You could not be more wrong! In this game, the robots bleed… a lot. The violence inherent in my own species wouldn’t be nearly as prevalent in my mind if the robots didn’t explode like a red gusher. Are these actual robots or am I being lied to here? Not only do they have blood, but they also have nuts, which can be shot to add additional seconds on your timer (provided you’ve got a certain power up equipped).
Sometimes combat was a little hard to follow because everything was happening so quickly, but it never felt boring. Due to the random nature of power ups, there’s not many things you can do to create a full-on build, but there is definitely a lot of experimenting to do and playstyles to mess with. Each and every one of the power ups and weapons come together to create a down right bloody symphony. However, after a while, if you’ve been playing over and over again, combat can become monotonous. This isn’t the type of game where there’s constantly new things to discover, it’s very reminiscent of arcade games where you’re always trying to beat that high score. In this case, you might be trying to clear levels in record time.
Honestly, the only major weak-point of combat were the bosses. Each chapter has a Robillionaire to kill at the end. There is a joke to be made here about current events but I think it wiser that I don’t say anything. While these fights are fun, they do slow down combat a bit and change the gameplay a bit too much for my liking. In every floor you’re just zooming forward, and then the boss arenas confine you to a certain amount of space. It’s not a terrible experience, just a little restrictive.
Visuals
Everything about Mullet MadJack is stylish as hell. The outfit, the level details, the Terminator-esque faces of the robots, it’s all there to tap into a 80s/90s nostalgia that I wasn’t even born in time for. The developers claim that the game is inspired by classic anime, and the visual design really shows those influences. If you want to get even crazier with the retro vibes, there’s a setting to enable a VHS filter over the screen.
The colors are vibrant and distinct, which is incredibly important when you’re running at Mach Jesus down the hallway. Doors are distinctly outlined in yellow so you know where you’re heading, environmental hazards might be blue, orange, green, etc., depending on the type of hazard. It’s incredibly useful for players and often overlooked part of game design, so props to the developers for creating artistic yet functional visuals.
Mullet MadJack employs a cartoony art style and looks excellent while it does so. This bodes well for performance, since realistic-looking textures aren’t really necessary. I played on both my desktop computer and my laptop and never ran into any issues. I imagine Mullet MadJack will run smoothly on just about anything with a graphics card—and even then, it will probably run on integrated graphics.
Audio
The voice direction of Mullet MadJack is phenomenal. It’s everything it needs to be to capture the retro aesthetic it’s going for. The eponymous Jack speaks with this gruff cool guy voice that while a bit stereotypical, does really fit the character well. Peace Corp has a representative who will talk to you (rather harshly) in between levels, with amazing voice acting that really does make her seem crazy. The dialogue, the tone, the sort of evil giggle that she does, it’s all there. And on top of all of this, Gianni Matragrano plays the main villain. How incredibly fitting is that?
There can’t be a dope retro sci-fi shooter without a killer soundtrack, and Mullet MadJack is no exception. The high-energy synth soundtrack is absolutely perfect for the setting, blending in beautifully with the action.
One part of gameplay I think is massively underrated in any game is the sound design. Good sound design is only noticeable if you’re looking for it, and boy do I! Mullet MadJack employs such impactful and fitting sounds in each and every one of its interactions. With a game like this, it’s easy to overwhelm the audience with noises because of the sheer number of things happening. That doesn’t really happen here, everything fits together seamlessly. Shooting, stabbing, and even kicking just sounds badass. I absolutely love the sound made when your character smashes a door open, sending robots flying.
There are a few hiccups here and there, most noticeably how the soundscape becomes muted when you’re low on health. During a boss fight, you might find yourself low on health and just barely squeezing out a win. The low health sound effects don’t immediately clear after combat, making it a bit hard to hear until the next checkpoint. However, that’s a relatively minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things.
Conclusions
Overall, I had a blast and then some. This game is like if Cyberpunk 2077 and Doom (1994) had a baby and it was raised by Ultrakill. Mullet MadJack is an incredibly artistic spin on an already expansive boomer-shooter genre. The combat is lighting fast, the setting engaging, the visuals striking, and the violence plentiful. Mullet MadJack is exactly the type of game that your parents would worry about you getting your hands on as a kid. Or at least I assume so, I didn’t grow up in an era in which Congress was so bored it turned its sights on pixelated blood.
