Mullet Madjack's world paints a bleak, consumerist future—but the one the game itself paints for retro shooters is that much brighter.

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Picture this, if you will: somewhere, on the Internet, New Blood CEO Dave Oshry makes a funny joke, YouTuber Civvie11 finally uploads his latest video, and voice actor Gianni Matragrano has found more work. That’s right—a new boomer shooter has been released.

There was definitely a chill down my spine as I was getting into Mullet Madjack, the debut title from developer Hammer95, as its marketing, at least on a surface level, made the game seem like “just another” boomshoot described above, minus a soundtrack from Andrew Hulshult. The retro-cyberpunk paint job that’s been splattered across its every surface, the word “Mullet” not just making up half of the title but it being in all caps, the sweet, sexy eurobeat that plays as soon as you hit the main menu—I was convinced I was walking into yet another “Doom clone” with its own overreliance on some kind of aesthetic gimmick.

Then I hit play and watched the intro cutscene. By the end of my first session, I realised I couldn’t have been more wrong. Six hours later, I cleared a few secondary modes and finished my second playthrough of the story. I sat there and lamented that there wasn’t more I could sink my teeth into.

If you’re like me and late to the party, you’re in luck, because Mullet Madjack’s soda-fueled premise is easy to relate to: the year’s 2095, Robillionaires have taken over the world, and humans have become addicted to dopamine. They fuel this addiction by a) mass consumerism, b) killing said Robillionaires, and c) watching people kill said Robillionaires. Haven’t you ever?

You get to experience this messed-up future as “moderator” Jack Banhammer, the kind of guy who gets his fix through option b), downing one can of soda after another in the process, especially now that a group of ‘em has kidnapped the unfathomably popular Influencer Princess. Jack himself isn’t a stranger to content creation, as how you’ll be getting a lil’ lick of that succulent dopamine is through a camera in his sunglasses, presented as a livestream by PEACECORP, the benevolent conglomerate running the show.

For some expanded thoughts on Mullet Madjack and how it compares to your average boomshoot, feel free to check out the uncut version of this article on the Summit Reviews Website[summitreviews.biz].

See, like a boomer shooter Mullet Madjack does look, but like one it does not play. Of course, a certain “feel” can’t be escaped, but you won’t find yourself blasting around arenas or steadily revealing a maze-like map trying to find the next coloured key. No, the dominant way you’ll be experiencing these levels—and the word ‘level’ is used quite literally—is by moving forward, if you want to live, that is.

When the game tells you humans are addicted to dopamine, it means it. On the left side of your screen is a handy-dandy device that’ll count down from ten to zero, adding precious seconds every time Jack kills an enemy. This timer also represents the health bar, and letting it empty out, either through receiving damage or going long enough without kills, means that the mullet is no more.

The levels in question are, well, levels of a high-rise that the Influencer Princess has been taken to by one especially smugly-unhinged prick, Mr. Bullet (hello, Gianni!). Reaching the elevator that takes you further up is an exhilarating bloodbath that lasts about a minute as you race forward, popping groin shots, sliding on walls, and kicking enemies out of your way and into the various hazards dotted about. In these circumstances, there’s no room for elaborate level design or time for prolonged fights. A “prolonged fight” in Mullet Madjack is clearing a room of baddies and scrounging up anything useful you might find in about five seconds tops. There’s also a bit of a roguelite in there, so in-between floors, the handler of your stream—a commanding anime gal—will offer you a few upgrades to choose from, all the while a colourful chat scrolls by in the background. And should you die, down you go ten levels, or wherever you ended up after your last boss fight.

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Having all of that laid out, the cynic in me still wants to scoff at the notion of a first-person roguelite with an ironic retro aesthetic being anything to write home about. And if we stopped right here, he’d have a point. As solid as Mullet Madjack is, it’s hardly the first game to mix and match these things. For one, the mechanical foundation itself—blazingly-fast yet flashy movement, a glass cannon avatar that heals from killing enemies, short levels that encourage perfection rather than a mere clear, all wrapped up in a retro package—is building off of Ultrakill, and stumbling onto 2020’s Post Void reveals similarities that make me wonder if I can call Mullet Madjack a remake and get away with it.

So, why? Why am I so impressed by it, regardless? Why did it not only stick to my mind so tightly that thinking of it still gives me a rush, but also made me dig into retro shooters like never before to see if anyone else is trying something equally fresh?

Think back to that ridiculous premise, its neon lights, and eurobeat soundtrack. It’d come across as vapid parody, were it not so well thought out. The premise itself is how Jack’s health bar comes about in the first place; without it, and the need to wrap things up as soon as possible, there’d be no gameplay. Without the world of 2095 being the way it is, there’d be no livestream to watch, nothing to participate in. That sort of cohesion ties all of Mullet Madjack together. It feels like its own genesis, and not a different game someone wanted to redo.

Gameplay is no exception—the boomer shooter that doesn’t play like a boomer shooter; so much so, that its highly requested boomer shooter mode (which gets rid of the time limit in favour of a traditional health bar) ends up as an undeniably inferior way of playing the game. It even tries to tell a story, tweak and throw curveballs to its core loop when that story requires it, ending in a bossfight so bombastic it somehow stands out in a game that’s pure adrenaline.

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The idiosyncrasies in Mullet Madjack, imperfect as you may find them, come together to deliver a game that’s excellent front to back, and bring the kind of originality I’d like to see from the genre more broadly applied, rather than settling for reiterating on the same old same old. I guess we haven’t fully brought back Duke Nukem yet, so we’ve still a ways to go!

As for the Mullet, it’s over the top just enough in its presentation to come across as sincere, rather than trying too hard. Its retro elements and FPS fundamentals are tasteful, supporting the rest of the game rather than the game itself serving as mere window dressing for another bout of interactive deja vu. At the very least, a hearty characterisation of its leading man (hello, Darryl[en.wikipedia.org]—wait, what?!) that’s just…well, perfect would be the world I’d use, makes it quite hard not to find cute. When Mullet Madjack tells me to “stay in school”, I listen. When he muses on how you should “make a new friend every day”, I aspire to heed that advice. When he riffs “all shell, no ghost”, I put on a movie I haven’t seen before. When he proclaims that it’s “mullet time”, I believe him.

After everything is said and done, I guess there’s one final question to ask: “How’d I do?”.

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A copy of Mullet Madjack was provided to Summit Reviews for the purpose of this coverage.

excente jogo, simplesmente pure arcade fun, a gameplay é absurdamente frenética, mas intuitiva, a dublagem é muito boa. em geral, facilmente um dos melhores FPS que já joguei, 10/10

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