Article 006: Mutant Mudds Review

If you are looking for a really cool and fun game for the 3DS, definitely consider Mutant Mudds if you haven't. This game delivers. It has a certain old-school charm to it, but also has some more modern graphical tweaks to make it very interesting.

Greetings, friends. Doctor X here. Let me just say that the JoystickRobot (JR) felt right at home playing this game Mutant Mudds for the 3DS. In the early days of building JR back in the early 90s when I was but a mad grad student, there were plenty of 2D side scrollers around to train JR on. Now I am a full-fledged mad scientist, and everything is 3D this and 3D that. It is kind of refreshing to see a game that really takes things back to its roots.


The game was pretty cheap, like 9 bucks at the eShop, but definitely felt as deep and as fun as a more expensive game.  Mutant Mudds is a 2D side-scroller shooter game with a lot of platformer-style action, in the vein of Mega Man or possibly like Commando or Contra. However much of the artwork makes some homages to Super Mario Bros. The style of the game is 8bit or 16bit-esque, however the character sprites seem more dynamic, and there are 3D elements, such your ability to jump in and out of the background and foreground. The music and sound effects definitely hearken back to the days of yore, like the 1980s.

You can only shoot forward in the direction you are facing, unlike something like Contra where you had a direction of shooting. You also have a jet-pack that allows you hover for a few seconds. The jet-pack is essential for getting over large gaps, or to hover at the right spot to shoot a floating enemy.

I would consider the game pretty difficult. The levels get pretty challenging, and require quite a bit of timed precision. After playing each level, you can get a sense that there is a "right" way to approach each enemy and each obstacle. That is, there is a precise pattern of when to jump, which enemies to kill right away, and where to jump and in what order etc. However, that could be said about most platformers. The tricky part is there are no mile-markers that you can return to if you die. When you die, it is straight back to the beginning. This can be a bit frustrating at times, but also part of what makes this game a rewarding challenge.

There are little gold diamonds that you collect throughout the game. There are 100 per level. In order to get to the final levels, you need to collect all 1600 of them dispersed throughout the first 16 levels. Once you have beaten a level, all the gold diamonds you have previously collected will be gone, so in the end it isn't too hard to go back for the left overs.

There are three powerups in the game. A new gun that shoots water balloons faster and farther (power shot), a jet-pack that stays in the air longer than the default one (extended hover), and another jet-pack that allows you to shoot straight up in the air (vertical boost) before coming straight down. The thing is, you can only use one power-up at a time when you enter a level. If you want to switch power-ups, you need to exit the level, and go back to the main screen, thus starting the level from scratch. This isn't too bad since when you die, you start a level from scratch anyway.

JR has gotten pretty far in the game, but not complete yet. I think his game-playing circuits will be running over time on this one. Overall, I give this game a 9 out of 10. It is fun, challenging, and keeps us coming back to play it.

Thanks for reading!
Doctor X and JR

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