Humpday Gaming: MDK (pc)
Around 1998 or so, my Dad decided it was finally time to get on this whole pc bandwagon fad that was sweeping the country. We had never had a computer, and the only time I was ever able to use one was when I could get on the shitty 1986 IBMs at school. A computer never seemed necessary at the time, so all those crazy people (according to Dad) buying those “computer boxes” were just throwing their money away. However, something must have tipped the scales in favor of those computer boxes, as one day he brought home a Compaq the size of a small car. What changed his mind about it all, I’ll never know. But finding a non-stop string of porn sites in Internet Explorer’s history for months after the purchase probably had something to do with it.
At any rate, the computer was nothing too amazing besides its sheer size. It was one of those monstrosities that actually had the monitor sitting on top of the case. The monitor itself being approximately a hundred pounds heavier than anything sporting a 14 inch screen size should ever be. It also made that frightening “pyooooOOOOOOOOOH” sound when you pressed its power button. I was always afraid molten lava was about to pour out of the disc drive from the sheer heat it produced as well. I believe it was also a 500 mghz Pentium computer. No, not pentium 2 or 3. Just a Pentium. I barely believe it now myself. So yes, it was a shitty computer, and it had Windows 95 installed on it in all its buggy, crashy glory. I didn’t care though, because all it meant to me was one simple thing:
I could play pc games now.
You see, for years when I would stroll up and down Wal Mart’s pc game aisle, I would burn with seething jealousy. All of those amazing games in their giant, ornate boxes that could easily house a small family of ferrets was on display like some sort of candy I could never eat. I’d look at these games and be struck with despair that I could never know the majesty as such games as Links LS…. and… Redneck Rampage. Okay, so Wal Mart’s pc game selection was pretty terrible. But it was still the idea that I could never play these games, no matter how much allowance I saved up. Things suddenly changed with the arrival of that giant honking pc Dad got though. Suddenly I TOO could play horrible shareware games. The first though, was one I had my eyes on for a few months. A game that mocked me more than any other. Something the box called MDK.
A dark, highly stylized world awaits.
What the fuck was MDK? Who fucking cared. The box had a guy dressed in black with a giant gun strapped to his face. HIS FACE. Did you need any more of a reason to want to play a game in 1998? How about the fact that when you had that gun strapped to your face, it suddenly became the most hardcore sniper rifle of all time. You could literally magnify up to an enemy’s eyeball from across an entire map. Keep in mind that this was in a time when sniping in games was still considered novel. Let alone letting you do it while it it was attached to your head. I’m sorry, even in present day, it’s still hard for me to believe he had a sniper rifle attached to his face. Just awesome.
You shoot dudes like this when you go into sniper mode. Each little oval at the top was a "bullet cam" that followed the bullet all the way to the target. Totally not needed but still completely awesome.
Okay, so there was more of a game here than just sniping out of your head. The story loosely followed a space janitor (not making this up) trying to save Earth from a bunch of aliens intent on terraforming the entire planet with huge bulldozing machine things. None of that really mattered though, and the game fully realized the ridiculousness of its story. All of the stages had these strange, HR Geiger-like denizens to them. But only if HR Geiger did a ton of ice. They were twisted in endearing ways I guess. Including one where you wander into an entire room painted like it came straight out of a Nick Jr. cartoon, complete with horrible circus-clown music. There is no rhyme or reason why that stage exists, as it doesn’t even figure into the game at all. It’s probably just something a developer thought would be cool to make, and by God they did. The aliens themselves were clumsy oaf-like guys that existed only to be killed in gruesome ways. Heads exploding, bodies blowing apart, screaming like women whenever they knew they were about to suffer the same fate. These guys knew their roles as video game enemies, and they played it to perfection. The game had an amazingly dark sense of humor and style that ran throughout it, and it still remains fresh to this day 13 years later.
This is fucking nuts right here. Did I mention this game was made in 1998? Even better, that it was designed specifically to be ran without a 3D card. Crazy.
MDK didn’t stop with the craziness after you beat it, either. Below here you’ll find MDK’s “ending.” It’s essentially a music video. That’s as close as I can get to describing it to you without taking mind-altering drugs. It appears to be a French female Pee-Wee Herman singing a VERY lively pop song that has nothing to do with anything, while you watch a live action version of your character run around and look brooding. Also occasionally the game’s bosses come on screen to play in a band. Like I said, it’s weird. It was even weirder seeing it in 1998. Check it out for yourself. (Bonus Trivia: The guy beneath the gun mask in the video is actually an uncredited David Perry. Founder of Shiny Entertainment, and creator of Earthworm Jim, MDK, and other amazing games of the time).
Yeah…
I loved MDK. Not simply because it was my first pc game, but because it’s an amazingly original game. I’d say it was way ahead of its time, but I’m not sure a time ever came where MDK wouldn’t be looked at in a cocked-head, confused dog sort of way. It’s still just weird as hell. A sequel was actually made a few years later by famed developer Bioware, and while I believe MDK 2 is a better overall “game” than MDK, it lost a lot of its identity when Bioware took it over. Not so much that they did a bad job, it’s just that all the humor and weirdness seems forced in weird late 90′s stereotypes. For instance, the main villain alien is basically a giant pimp, spouting tired lines like “Who’s yo Daddy?” and “OOOH yeah, baby” over and over. Remember when that was funny for like an entire month in 1999? Also the professor’s catch phrase was jinkies. Believe it or not, jinkies was a pretty obscure thing in 1999 before Scooby Doo made a comeback and played itself out over the course of a decade. So yeah, it all just seems weird and dated now, though the game itself is fine. It’s damn hard, but it’s totally fine.
MDK will probably forever be my favorite single player pc game of all time. Not only is it a great game, but it instantly reminds me of sitting up late at night, in a dark living room, trying to get a Microsoft Sidewinder gamepad to work right with the game. It’s Dad yelling at me to turn the sound down on those shitty attached speakers. It’s about suddenly being a part of something I felt left out of for years.
Plus, gun on his fucking HEAD.
