I don’t often play platform games. Last time I played one was Abe’s Odyssey on PC about 2 years ago. I’ve played the demo of Blinx, and Whacked, and a couple of games on PS2 a while ago, but that’s about it. So I’ve got a very limited view of what I can compare this game to. Having said that, Dr Muto is an incredibly fun and humorous game that has enough variety in it to have you wanting to keep playing.

The game starts off with a cinematic that has Dr Muto dozing on the couch, dreaming of his crazy conquests. He dreams that he blows up the Planet Midway in an attempt to solve it’s growing energy problems. He wakes with a start and finds that it wasn’t a dream after all, and that the Planet Midway is destroyed. With the help of his computer Al, the good doctor has to go and steal parts for the Genitor 9000 from the 4 worlds he hasn’t blown up, as well as collect terra and isotopes to power the Genitor.

Starting in the Doc’s lab, you are given a brief introduction to the way the game plays. You have to run around the lab, collecting isotopes before the lab blows up. After this, you have to morph into a mouse and then crawl down a whole and retrieve Al’s guidance chip. This powers the telescope that allows you to travel to the four planets to retrieve the needed isotopes, terra and Genitor parts to repair the world of Midway. This is a neat way to introduce the basics of the game, and gets you used to the controls, which are fairly straight forward, and the camera, which is exceedingly annoying.

Each of the different worlds has 3 different areas, each divided into 3 again. There are a number of things you have to collect on each world, and pressing the back button can access the “master plan” which shows you which things you’ve completed and what you need to collect. Each world has it’s own dangers, mostly in the form of robot guards, various animals that you can get DNA for morphs from, and dangerous surfaces like goo and poisoned water. Using the X button sends out a blast from your Splizz Gun that stuns robots and gains DNA from animals, and using the B button blasts the robots and animals into oblivion. The A button is used to jump, and pressing this twice gives you a higher jump, used to jump over obstacles. As you travel around the world, there are boxes to blast open, which contain isotopes or “magic red bubbly”, or health potion. Robots also drop health when you kill them.

DNA is used for Morphs, which change the good Doctor into various animals, like fish, gorilla, mouse, bird, spider, etc. Each morph has different abilities, and these are needed in different sections of the game. For example, on the second world there is a lot of water, so you need the fish morph to swim. There are a lot of places that you are too big for, so the mouse morph is used to crawl through small holes. Sometimes Al will inform you of what you need to change into, sometimes it’s obvious, and other times it’s not quite so clear, and you really need to pay attention to your surroundings. If there is a grate with a hole in it, you generally need to change into a mouse. If there is a web, you need to change into a spider. Each morph has different attacks as well, some of which are quite humorous to watch.

Another part of the game involves catching a certain type of creature, called a Gomer, with your stun ray and flinging it across a room into crates and generators. These in turn open locks, secret areas or contain special items. They’re also effective against enemy robots. If you miss with your aim, or accidentally kill a Gomer, it will respawn, so there are no missing out on things because you’re a bad shot, or, more often, you can’t get the camera to do what it needs to do so you stuff up your shot.

The good thing about this game is that you can repeat a section of the levels if you think you’ve missed something. Generally the “master plan” is organised in order of what to find where, but as the game is kind of open ended, you can totally miss what you need. You can go back to previous areas once you are home, but sometimes it’s hard to remember where exactly in the world you need to go to obtain the missing Terra or Genitor piece. Going home is simply a matter of finding “transloaders”, located near the start of each area, that teleport you home and allow you to save your game. Also, when you die you go back to a certain part of the game, and not necessarily the start, so you don’t get too frustrated doing the whole level over and over again.

Graphic wise the game is fairly good. It’s a cartoon type game, so there’s nothing fantastic about it, but there’s nothing bad about it either. I can’t say if it looks like the PS2 version or not, although I would have to say it does look better than average. Sometimes the game can glitch, like a robot can get caught on the terrain and be hard to shoot or kill, but this has only happened twice for me. The sound is adequate too, but sometimes an annoying glitch occurs when you go into the transloaders and save your game where it continually plays the Splizz Gun’s capture sound until you save. The most annoying thing about the game, however, is the camera. It changes to the most annoying angles at the worst possible times. Sometimes it will move into a position where you miss out on seeing enemies, or miss gaps you must jump, and you’ll find yourself cursing at the screen on more than a few occasions.

The best part of this game is the humour. It’s aimed at a teen audience, but it is genuinely funny, with lots of puns and clever interaction with the different characters. For example, Al is obviously based on Hal from the movie “2001, A Space Odyssey”, and constantly gives you glib replies and attitude. The animations of the different morphs are sometimes hilarious, especially the mouse as he chomps the enemies and spits them out. The cute factor is also apparent, as the mouse hops around, and whenever the Doctor finds a piece of terra or Genitor he does a little dance. It’s a game that kids can play, although it’s aimed at an older audience that gets jokes about “white sticky stuff” and the like.

All in all Dr Muto is a very fun game. It’s challenging, especially the end of level bosses, and finding all the pieces you need to collect can be frustrating, but it’s not impossible. The most bothersome thing in the game is the camera, and although the black button resets the camera to “look forward”, the amount of times you end up using it makes you wonder why they didn’t lock the camera in that position in the first place. It detracts enough from the game to make me give the game a lower score, although it’s not nearly as bad as other games.

Pros:

Fun and genuinely humorous.
Big levels with lots to do that will keep you playing for a while.
Lots of variety in gameplay to keep you interested.

Cons:

That *^&!!#@! camera.
Some graphic and sound glitches that are really annoying.

Score 75 /100