Mullet MadJack Review

Mullet MadJack is set in the year 2095 where Robillionaires have taken over the world while humans fell prey to a dopamine addiction. Jack Banhammer was hired by Peace Corp to rescue a young influencer kidnapped by the leader of the Robillionaires who’s hiding at the to of a skyscraper filled with targets for Jack to shoot.

Mullet MadJack is a fast paced first person shooter where players need to go through each level as fast as possible by killing every robot in his path to survive (more on that below) and dashing to move on to the next floor. Jack can shoot, kick and melee enemies standing in his way, but not in the typical FPS method.

The first big difference from most FPS is how Jack’s health is handled. You need to kill to survive. You have 10 seconds to kill enemies otherwise it’s game over. You can kill enemies by shooting and kicking them into hazard such as acid, electrical wires; among others. You’ll also come across soda machines that you can kick that will refill your timer to 10 seconds.

There’s also the melee weapons. Melee weapons can be picked up (one at a time) throughout each area and will kill an enemy in one single hit and also refill your health/timer meter. Due to the speedy nature of the game because of your survival dependent on killing enemies, each level of a floor can take about 1 minute each as you need to go fast.

Once you’ve completed a level, you’ll be able to select a power-up to carry moving forward until you die. It can either be a different weapon (shotgun, machine gun, lasergun or a katana), health refill, extra ammo, X% less health for the boss; among other perks. Thankfully when you die, you just go back to the first area of the current floor and not beginning of the game.

If you’re like me and enjoy a good old shooter the old fashioned way, you can disable the timer and play it like a normal FPS. All mechanics remain the same, except your max health is 99HP. Boss battles are a blast to play; some are pretty straight forward while others offer a genuine unique challenge. Once you’re done with the campaign, you can blast your way through endless mode.

The game looks great as whole; it’s clearly inspired by classic 90s anime; the game is colorfully loud and bright. Due to the speedy nature of the game, levels are pretty straight forward and limited in terms of available paths. Also as you progress through the game, you’ll notice the same levels/level patterns repeat from one floor to another. Enemy design is fair, albeit repetitive. There’s new enemies introduced on each floor, but most of them remain the common cronies you meet at the start.

So the main problem with this new take on the FPS genre is having to rely on kills to survive will cause players to make errors easier, miss kills; leading to unnecessary game overs. Some areas lack enemies and while you can dash, it’s not unlimited. You can also take shortcuts through vents by sliding into them, but again: no enemies. No enemies to kill, means no health. This game was clearly designed for PC in mind because it’s easier to target headshots with a mouse. The other issue I continuously encountered was with Quick Resume. It basically never worked. When I loaded up the game, it would work for about 5 seconds and then the game would crash.

Mullet MadJack is an absolute blast to play. It’s high intense action, fast paced and adrenaline pumping. The health vs timer system does take a bit of time to adapt to, but once you get a grasp of it, you’ll have a blast. But again, it’s not for everyone because at the same time, the timer can feel like a strict method of playing. Thankfully, if you just want to enjoy a balls to the walls shooter, disable the timer and just go nuts. If you’re looking for a unique FPS experience, Mullet MadJack is highly recommended. And it’s on Gamepass! (as of this writing).