Developer
Midway

Released: November 11, 2002
Genre: Platform
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

8
9
10
8
9.3

Supported Features:

Games like Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, and Blinx: The Time Sweeper are finally breathing some fresh air into an aging and stale genre. Midway is known for taking traditional genres such as sports and putting a creative spin on the concept to create a truly unique product, so when I learned they were developing a platform title I was more than moderately interested.

The fruition of more than a years work on their part and waiting on our part has rewarded console owners with one of the most original and fun platform titles to grace a next-gen system in many years. Of course I am speaking of Dr. Muto, that wacky shape shifting, DNA-splicing, white lab coat wearing, mumbling, mustached scientist that looks like some genetic cross between Einstein, Dr. Hawkins (MDK), and Doc Brown (Back to the Future).

Dr. Muto relies on just enough platform genre staples to make the experience gamer feel right at home while offering up one of the most charming and offbeat main characters in videogame history. While many platform games are falling back on the old “buddy system” of gameplay, Dr. Muto relies on a new hook, shape shifting; no, not in a werewolf kind of way but in a DNA-Jeff Goldblum-stuck-in-a-pod-with-a-fly kind of way. This fiendishly clever plot device is not only gracefully intertwined into the story, but it also becomes a major focus of the gameplay.

These supporting characters give the entire game an extra dimension and quite a bit of extra humor (can I super-size those fries?). But when it comes time to play the game and restore the planet it’s all about the Doc and your skills and reflexes. Armed with only a small weapon that stuns or blasts enemies you will quickly learn to rely on methods other than combat to survive. Muto has the standard bank of moves at his disposal such as running, jumping, double-jumping, climbing, swimming, and even a bit of flying; more like hovering, with his rocket boots. Some of these moves are specific to certain mutated forms, so learning which forms do what is critical to the gameplay.

Mutations include a spider, mouse, fish, fly, gorilla, and others. These are insanely creative and you will laugh constantly as you control the mutated Doc around the various levels. Each variation is twisted to exaggerated proportions but you will always see at least one or two traits of the Doc present in each creature like his necktie, brown hair, or green glasses. Each form offers powerful new moves that allow you to explore new locations and defeat some of the harder enemies and bosses, but you are going to have to collect plenty of DNA strands if you want to do any shape shifting.

And collection is the name of the game in Dr. Muto. This is a collector’s dream and a gamer’s nightmare, at least if you don’t like finding every last hidden item in these types of games. If more than 4,000 isotopes doesn’t have you shaking in the corner in a nervous sweat how about adding countless hearts to increase your health, or 200 DNA strands to use with the formulas to morph into all those exciting mutations. Add to that 17 pieces of the Genitor 9000 and 28 pieces of scrap and you have all the makings of the world’s largest garage sale.

Dr. Muto is player-friendly in that you have unlimited lives and frequently checkpoints and save points, but be warned; when you die you lose all those hard-earned hearts, which can make some of the boss battles quite frustrating. It may take you 20-30 minutes to collect enough hearts to engage the boss only to die in 20-30 seconds and have to start all over from the checkpoint. Of course the biggest boss strategy comes in learning which mutations work best against which boss. Once you know this the game become considerably easier, but I’m not giving anything away.

Game control is flawless and the Xbox gamepad gives you flexible and precise control of the Doctor and all his various forms. The 3D world of Muto offers a free camera control, which is useful because the default camera doesn’t always work as well as it should. Dr. Muto offers one of the most solid platform gaming experiences currently available.

The levels are huge in scale and complexity and offer as much of a challenge as the creatures you will encounter in them. Both indoor and outdoor locales are exquisitely detailed and rendered to near perfection. There were no clipping or tearing problems and not a jaggy in sight. The camera worked about 95% of the time for me and I only died twice due to a bad angle on the action. There are only a few other platform games that can claim to beat Muto in the graphics department.

The animation is by far some of the best I’ve seen. All of the Doc’s movements are amazing as well as the various mutations he slips in and out of throughout the game. In addition to the standard library of normal animation there are all sorts of subtleties you can only see when you actually take the time to study the screen. Muto has all these nervous twitches; he is constantly looking around in some sort of irrational paranoia, often turning to the screen to look at you and inquire, “Who’s there?” in a suspicious, almost frightened tone.

Special effects are excellent with wonderful lighting, water effects, and excellent fire and smoke thanks to a great particle system that creates some of the best explosions in platform history. There is always plenty of activity going on in the levels and the game manages to maintain a superb framerate with little pop-up. The few instances of minor pop-up that do occur are cleverly concealed with a gradual fading that makes them less obtrusive and barely noticeable.

Dr. Muto is available on all three major platforms and while I have only played the PS2 and Xbox version I can say with reasonable conviction that the Xbox surpasses the PS2 in overall visual quality. I don’t believe Muto was reprogrammed to use any of the nVidia goodies in the Xbox, but the extra power of Microsoft’s system really makes this game shine.

The voice work is total perfection and Dr. Muto has some of the best lines in videogame history. He is always muttering to himself and will occasionally burst out with some random line of dialog or explicative when he picks up an item, or a painfully long scream when he heads off to that great lab in the sky. The voice of AI is also excellent and does a great job of spoofing the HAL computer. It is constantly poking fun at the Doctor and there is even a bit of PG13 humor and innuendo in the various exchanges.

For as great as the music and voice work is the sound effects really steal the show, not only with their quality but also with their originality. After you have played a few hundred video games and watched a few thousand movies you start to recognize samples sounds. Frankly, I couldn’t identify a single sound in this game, which means that the Midway sound guys either went to the ends of the Earth to uncover rare sound bytes or every sound in this game is an original creation. Every action, weapon sound, and any other effect whether it be ambient level noise or something created by your actions is a work of pure genius.

There is no multiplayer, mini-games, or any other reason to replay this game once you have finished it other than it’s a great game and you will probably “want” to play it again at some later date just to relive the laughs or show it off to your friends.

The DVD does offer some interesting behind-the-scenes info about the making of this game and some artwork galleries along with the traditional collection of trailers for upcoming games. It a nice offering, and something I have come to expect from Midway.

Muto offers up an amazing mix of just about every 2D and 3D platform gaming convention you can imagine and wraps it up with some original gameplay ideas and a quality audio and visual presentation that will have people talking for years to come. I can only hope we see more of the Doc in an upcoming sequel.