MDK
MDK is a 1997 third-person shooter video game developed by Shiny Entertainment for Windows and subsequently ported to Mac OS by Shokwave, and to the PlayStation by Neversoft. The game was published on all systems by Playmates Interactive Entertainment in North America, while Shiny handled the European release.
The game tells the story of Kurt Hectic, a janitor who reluctantly attempts to save Earth from an alien invasion of gigantic strip mining city-sized vehicles named "Minecrawlers". The Minecrawlers are ruthlessly harvesting Earth's natural resources and crushing any people and cities that get in their way. Assisted by his somewhat eccentric boss, Dr. Fluke Hawkins, an inventive scientist, and an unusual robotic companion named Bones, Kurt embarks on a quest to infiltrate each Minecrawler and eliminate its pilot. After accomplishing this dangerous task, he must return to Dr. Hawkins' in-orbit space station, the Jim Dandy.
Conceived and co-designed by Nick Bruty, MDK was Shiny's first PC game, and was notable for using software rendering, requiring a Pentium or equivalent microprocessor, rather than necessitating any GPU enhancements, despite its large 3D levels and complex polygonal enemies. As the developers were attempting very ambitious things, they wrote their own programming language. Additionally, when in sniper mode, the player has the ability to zoom up to 100x, but the developers chose not to employ any of the standard solutions to pop-up, such as clipping or fogging. They also worked to ensure the game ran at a minimum of 30 fps at all times on all machines. The game's original system requirements were a 60 MHz Pentium, 16MB of RAM, 17MB of hard drive storage, an SVGA-compatible video card, and a Sound Blaster or equivalent sound card.
MDK received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the gameplay, the level design, the sardonic sense of humor, the game's technical accomplishments, and the use of sniper mode. The most often repeated criticisms included that the game was too short, and the story was weak. The game was a commercial success, and Interplay approached Bruty to work on a sequel immediately. However, he was already developing Giants: Citizen Kabuto, so BioWare was hired to develop the game. MDK2 was published for Windows and the Dreamcast in 2000, and for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. In 2007, Interplay announced a third game was planned, but it was never made.
Gameplay
For the most part, MDK is a run-and-gun third-person shooter. It also features several minigames, and allows the player to enter first-person mode at any time they wish to use their sniper weapon. The basic design of the game involves distinct levels in which the player character, Kurt Hectic, must infiltrate a "Minecrawler", fight his way through an array of enemies, tackle some rudimentary puzzles, and reach the control center, where he must then eliminate the pilot in a boss fight. Every level is completely different; enemies, level design, aesthetic, and control center layout, with a different strategy required to eliminate each pilot.During the run-and-gun gameplay, the player must frequently use Kurt's "ribbon chute", a parachute contained within his outfit that can be used indefinitely. The chute allows Kurt to make long jumps, survive long falls, and utilize updrafts. It deploys immediately and retracts automatically when not being used. Kurt also has access to a smart bomb feature, where he can call Max to fly a bomber over the battle area and drop bombs on the enemies. To call Max, Kurt must have collected an airstrike pickup within the game. He must enter sniper mode to select the area he wants Max to target. Additionally, the airstrike can only be used in exterior locations on the Minecrawler. Other weaponry in the game includes grenades, "The World's Most Interesting Bomb", "The Very Large Hamster Hammer", and "The World's Smallest Nuclear Explosion".
In addition to the run-and-gun/sniper modes, there are several additional gameplay modes in MDK. All levels start out with an "atmospheric entry" in which Kurt jumps from his base ship, the Jim Dandy space station, which is in orbit around Earth, to the Minecrawler on the planet's surface. As he descends, the Minecrawler activates its radar, which, if touched, triggers the launch of anti-air missiles, which must be dodged. Some levels feature Kurt taking over an enemy bombing ship and performing bombing runs, some feature a glider which Kurt must ride to a specific location. One level features several snowboarding sequences, where Kurt must navigate obstacles while destroying enemies. Additionally, once a level has been completed, the Minecrawler disintegrates, and is sucked back into the energy stream from which it emerged, taking Kurt with it. Kurt then has a set period of time in the energy stream, during which he pursues a health power-up, which, if collected, grants 150% health for the start of the next level. If he touches the walls of the stream, he loses health and decelerates. At the end of the set period, Max will enter the stream on a tether and pull Kurt back to the Jim Dandy.
Kurt's main defense against his enemies is his "Coil Suit", a skin-tight armor made of a Kevlar-like material, and created on a "nuclear-blast proof sewing machine". This suit serves as a bulletproof vest during the combat sections of the game, and also protects Kurt from friction and heat during the atmospheric entry sections. Kurt's weapon is a chain gun, which is attached to his arm, and carries unlimited ammo. The other major weapon in the game is a sniper gun. This is created when Kurt detaches his chain gun from his arm and mounts it onto his helmet. The sniper weapon can zoom up to 100x, and has the capability of supporting five different types of ammunition, including homing missiles and mortar shells. Kurt does not actually see out of the helmet, rather, he sees out of a HUD, which he uses to aim. There are also three "Bullet Cams" that track each projectile and linger briefly after impact, showing any damage done. However, when Kurt is in sniper mode, he is unable to move, and can thus be easily targeted by enemies.
The enemies in MDK are a collective of aliens called "Streamriders" under the command of Gunter Glut. Each Minecrawler is manned primarily by various types of soldiers named "Grunts." Some areas contain "Grunt generators" which create an infinite number of enemies until destroyed. Apart from Grunts, and each Minecrawler's unique pilot, Kurt also encounters various types of robots, tanks, automated and manned turrets, animals, small attack ships, troop transport ships, and sentry drones.
Plot
The story of the game begins in 1996 when inventor/scientist Dr. Fluke Hawkins believes he has made a revolutionary discovery; an outer space phenomenon he calls "Flange Orbits". However, when he approaches the scientific community with his discovery, he is ridiculed. Determined to prove his colleagues wrong, Hawkins builds a space station, the Jim Dandy, and bribes aboard his laboratory janitor, Kurt Hectic, by means of Hungarian goulash. He then launches the station into orbit, projecting that the mission will last five days. However, after a week, Hawkins realizes Flange Orbits do not actually exist, but rather than return to Earth in shame, he decides to remain on the Dandy to try to discover something, anticipating another week in space. Kurt is extremely unhappy with this development, but once Hawkins shows him how to program the VCR, he calms down.A year later, having made no discoveries, Hawkins begins work building a genetically engineered robotic dog, which he plans to call "Bones". After a year, Bones is fully operational, although both Bones and Kurt prefer the name Max. Despite having four arms and two legs, and being full of energy, Max proves more than a little reluctant to help Hawkins with the chores on the Dandy, proving more interested in tending to his vegetable garden.
Another year passes without Hawkins making a breakthrough until he notices streams of energy moving through the Solar System towards Earth. He sends a warning down to Earth, but it is ignored. Upon reaching Earth, the streams disgorge gigantic "Minecrawlers", city-sized vehicles designed to strip mine the natural resources from a planet, crushing anything and everything in their path. The aliens, known as "Streamriders", and under the command of Gunter Glut, easily demolish all of Earth's military forces, and so Hawkins decides to take action to save the planet. Hawkins reasons the only way to fight the aliens is with his newly invented "Coil Suit", but due to his advancing years and Max's extra pair of legs, Kurt is the only one who can wear it, and, thus, becomes the very reluctant hero.
As such, Kurt is dispatched on "Mission: Deliver Kindness". This involves Kurt entering the Minecrawlers from above, and destroying them from the inside-out, shooting his way through to the pilot, whom he then kills, before being extracted back to the Jim Dandy. Kurt fights his way through a number of Minecrawlers, destroying them one by one, until he reaches the Crawler piloted by Gunter Glut himself. Kurt destroys the final Minecrawler, but Glut captures Max, and escapes into an energy stream leading to his base ship. Kurt gives chase and frees Max, who tricks Glut into eating him. Max then kills Glut by exploding him from within. The two then escape and destroy Glut's ship. The ending sequence is a monochrome mix of a French music video and clips from the MDK promotional video.
Development
Origins
MDKs writer, co-designer and co-artist Nick Bruty has said the initial impetus for the game was his desire to move away from the type of game on which he had previously been working; family-friendly games such as Aladdin, The Jungle Book, Earthworm Jim and Earthworm Jim 2, all of which Bruty had worked on for the Sega Genesis. According to Bruty,Bruty's first image for the game was a doodle of an armor suit with a self-contained machine gun, and a helmet that could be used as a sniper rifle. Once he had this concept in place, he wrote a rough draft of the story, and brought together a small team of people with whom he had worked before; programmer Andy Astor, designer Tim Williams, artist and designer Bob Stevenson, animator Shawn Nelson and, later, programmer Martin Brownlow. One of the first decisions the team made was not to develop the game for the system with which they had the most experience, the Sega Genesis, but instead to develop it for the PC, making it Shiny's first PC game.
Developing for the PC brought a number of advantages, not the least of which was it allowed the team to make the game using 3D computer graphics. As Bruty explains, "I wanted to work on PC because the game was 3D, which wasn't an option on consoles at that point." Tim Williams explains another advantage of working on PC was "it meant I wouldn't have to tone the game down to deal with the Sega and Nintendo's ratings boards. I loved . I could see the game immediately would have a unique look and plenty of design opportunities. We were all big fans of the Alien movies and H. R. Giger, so that probably had some influence." As Shiny intended the game to be gory, even going so far as to study tapes of people dying in gruesome manners to see the effects of violent deaths on the human body, this lack of censorship was ideal. Once the decision was made to develop for the PC, the team quickly decided they wanted to make a game that would push the boundaries of PC gaming beyond anything seen up to that point.
The naming of Kurt Hectic was inspired by two disparate sources. In the early stages of development, some of the team saw the 1993 Mike Leigh film, Naked, in which David Thewlis' character says to a junkie, "What is it like in your head? Hectic?" Bruty and Williams loved the line, and decided Hectic should be the character's surname. When trying to think of his first name, they wanted to name him after someone who lived a notoriously hectic life, and settled on Kurt Cobain.