Geometry was kept simple, half the geometry wasn't even textured to save resources and they still made it work visually (by 1997 software rendering standards). I initially played it with a MS Sidewinder 3D joystick, because I was so used to joysticks from the Atari. Took some practice, but strafing with the twist axis worked perfectly. Sniping was decent, especially if you were used to flight sims. Probably one of the weirdest control schemes, but they accounted for it regardless.
@@networknomad5600obviously your own glasses are scratched and broken. You need to put on the somewhat suffocating sniper helmet and re-focus: This was one of the greatest, most innovative, quirky, and downright bad-ass games of all time.
For anyone wondering about the cannon section on the 2nd level at 20:51, it looks like that's a bug for the Playstation version. What's happening here, is you're supposed to get stuck on the cannon, and when you shoot, the cannnon also shoots. I believe it's on the 3rd shot, the cannon malfunctions and goes flying down-range with you on board, smashing through the back wall and placing you into the next arena. I've beaten this game dozens of time on PC and never had that issue.
it was the first piece of absurdist media i experienced and i was very confused, not surprised it was the same dev as earthworm jim and armed & dangerous
For those who don't know, in the original PC version of MDK, there actually was a bizarre music video ending by the French artist "Billy Ze Kick" (Or BZK for short). The song that would play in the music video was called "Non Non Rien N'a Changé" and it was a cover of an older song by another French group called "Les Poppys". Here's some fun facts: 1) Billy Ze Kick's version of "Non Non Rien N'a Changé" can be found on their 1996 album "Paniac" and it's the same version that can be found on MDK. Also on that same album, the lead singer (Nathalie Cousin) did a duet with an unknown French artist at the time called "Matthieu Chedid" (Or -M- as he goes by in the music industry). Nowadays, Matthieu Chedid is regarded as one of the most legendary artists in all of France. 2) Billy Ze Kick is one of the more weirder and stranger bands to come out of France. In their home country, Billy Ze Kick is mostly known for their songs "Mangez-Moi" and "OCB" back when the band's full name was "Billy Ze Kick et Les Gamins en Folie". For anyone who enjoyed the song in the original MDK ending or likes to listen to weird and experimental music, I highly recommend listening to Billy Ze Kick's first 2 albums. Their like a mix between Army of Lovers in terms of the experimentation and GWAR in terms of the humour and lyrics.
@@eigengrau1 No problem! I love talking about music especially if it's from an obscure artist I like or from video games (And in this case, it's both)! I'm just wondering why the person in the video didn't at least mention the original ending to MDK since most fans like myself agree that the original music video ending was one of the most memorable and fun parts of MDK.
It was one of my first games, and i have to say, 1997-1999 was a glorious time for games. The technical possibilities where there to give live to some wonderful exotic and strange worlds. Is it coincidence that my other first games where basically as weird as MDK? "SubCulture", an underwater world in a miniature submarine where cigarette butts where as large as your sub and could be collected to barter with, "POD" a sci-fi racing game with the most obscure and awesome tracks till today, "Trespasser" a first person shooter/adventure game with (totally weird) physics, no HUD, a tattoo on the boob of your protagonist and dinosaurs, .... just to name a few. it was an awesome time with so crazy ideas and deep athmosphere in games.
I remember subculture! It was also featured in a educational expo in 1999, so I played a little bit as a kid, it played in a huge screen, and that was probably the greatest gaming rig I knew back in the day, lol.
Yep and on all consoles and PC massive bangers still loved and played today.Re2,ff7,Ocarina of time,mario64,then quake3,half-life,diablo,so many to name really
This game was so mind-blowing to 4-year-old me it gave me an epileptic seizure while I watched my dad played it lol. One of my earliest memories is watching him do the disguise section with the little robot you hop into. My dad kept the name of this game hidden from me for decades, thinking I'd die or something if I played/watched it again, but I've had little snippets of this game running through my mind ever since. I stumbled upon a different TH-cam video about this game only a few years ago, and that was how I rediscovered MDK. I recognised it instantly from the thumbnail alone-- that's how deeply ingrained it is in my noggin. Sounds like I'll have fun trying to get this to run on my current hardware, but I'll have to play through this game myself sometime. I've only ever watched my dad playing it in the late 90s, and a few videos on the subject!
Omg I didn't think others felt the same. I remember that I was scared of this game, though I can't pinpoint why exactly. I just felt uneasy. There was also some very old fighting game by THQ which I was scared of. Even the THQ intro was creepy for some reason lol.
@@menarian9550wasn't Thriller Killer by any chance was it? If so that was a fucked up but insanely good game haha! Was also banned over here not because it was THE most brutal fighter at the time, but coz a chic moans provocatively before the fight....
Murder Death Kill is such a 90s time stamp. Simple level design, but everything just worked. I'll never forget how the game gave you the Worlds Smallest Nuke within 5 minutes, and the gritty industrial feeling of the game and soundtrack. Thanks for the memories JSH
It was a moment of perfect balance; the 3D graphics of the era were *just* good enough for the game to be really artistically expressive, but not so advanced that 90% of the game's entire development budget is wasted just modelling and texturing the levels, leaving all other aspects of the design starved of resources.
I always thought that about DN3D... that it is everything 90s And that I'll never forget how it starts gun blazing and giving you the rocket launcher like 30 seconds into the game as the second weapon
am i the only person who always new it stood for murder death kill? like i just figured it was a known thing didn't realize there was any mystery behind it.
This is by far one of my all-time favorite games. Everything about the world, from your own arsenal to each individual level, is so incredibly unique, I still haven't seen another game that comes even close to the adventure this was!
It's from the era of games like Normality and Little Big Adventure and Myst. I loved that era so much. It had no "safest carbon copy way to design games" atmosphere. Everyone then made games for the love.
ปีที่แล้ว +24
The visuals on this game are impressive even today. The neons clashing with the black, polygon structures and organic textures, it's just amazing!
I remember his panic when he was slowly thinking that they are unreadable and in one video just decided to put them all there. I still love it, I wonder if someday we can achieve height of one pixel.
I think I pointed it out to him once, suggesting a second page and then a video released soon after explicitly said that he wouldn't do that. I feel like had I, or other people, not made any such suggestion, this would not have happened. But his contrarian streak is too strong to ignore the chance of doing something stupid because it's amusing.
I have had images of this game floating around in my head since i was an actual toddler. It wasnt until today that i realized this wasnt just a weird fever dream of mine, and it actually existed. This is insane, i never thought i’d figure out where it was from, and here i am watching a video on it mere DAYS after having another dream with these visuals. Im just… in awe Ever since my dad passed away, it has sort of eaten away at me that i couldnt just ask him about it (im pretty sure i played this game with him as a kid), i know that sounds dumb, but it really is the little things that make you remember how much you miss someone.
Haha, yo, SAME THO. Once the video showed the cover art my brain was like "OMG THAT THING!!". I remember seeing it on shelves at a computer store and discount game bins when I was a kid and always being incredibly curious about it but also not having a PC to play on.
Same. I played it in a PC shop, where they used to have display PCs with games like this. The golden days of box art and cardboard cutouts too. Mid-to-late 90s
I dunno if it was ahead of its time. There's not many modern games like this. I think Jet Force Gemini is kinda similar (but not nearly as fast). And then maybe the Ratchet & Clank series of games as well.
This game is one of my best memories as a gamer. Just as good as playing the shareware version of Doom or Dune 2 for the first time. The sniper mode, the dummy, the mix between dark areas and psychedelic mirrors, the weird sense of humor... I never experienced something quite like it. Thank you Shiny Entertainment, thank you Nick Bruty and David Perry.
I'm pretty sure that I read in a PC games magazine in the 90s that MDK originally stood for "Murder Death Kill" until they changed it at release to the innitials of the main characters. I didn't think about the game for at least 20 years and this was the first thing that came to my mind.
I remember everyone referring to it as Murder, Death, Kill when speaking of MDK. Upon seeing this video in my feed, I said to myself, "Oh, Murder, death, kill...cool". Didn't know that it had been considered ambiguous.
Minor correction Josh, first of all great vid like always, but the timer on the loss of a city is actually on your HUD. It's the green/red ring around your health. That represents the population of the city you're trying to save on that level. I didn't learn of this for many years myself. Just thought I'd point it out. Hope you have a nice day.
The GOG version with nGlide is the most beautiful one. It allows you to use 512x512 textures without filtering and gives the game a detailed and gritty feel that raises the surrealism to 11. Digital Foundry featured it a few years ago.
I bought it yesterday on GoG but it looks quite bad. Can you please elaborate on the nGlide? Does it come with the game or do you have to install it from somewhere?
@@Celisar1 It's another glide wrapper .. basically a 3Dfx emulator for modern GPUs. Google, download, follow the instructions. I haven't tried nGlide in particular, but it should be relatively easy to set up.
@@Celisar1 He wrote total wrong shit. You need dgvoodoo 2 with MDKD3D exe not glide for 512x512 texture, but i suggest use MDK95 exe with dxwnd, software render is always superior and have all effects wich missed in glide and d3d
Is it worth buying it on GOG or Steam. because I love this game and I want a copy on my window but I also want a game file to play on emulator on my iPhone. but I don’t remember playing the sequel nor do I remember there was a sequel when I was a kid
I loved MDK. Favorite bits were the sniper cams and The World's Smallest Nuclear Explosion. Also the protagonist being named "Kurt" tickled my risibilities a bunch, for some reason. Thanks for your wonderful retrospective on this super-sweet bit of gaming strangeness.
I think the 'forest' room and the weird coloful 'childs bedroom' are the aliens recreating human environments to keep the improsoned, kinda like a zoo.
The artstyle of this game is pure inventive gritty late 90s goodness. Really reminds me of weird sci fi illustrations from anthology magazines of that era. Shiny entertainment for a brief moment made the best of it with creative, versatile artists; you can 100% see that reflected in games like Sacrifice, MDK1, Messiah. The fact that the games are more blocky so that textures act more like painted illustrations really helps it. Once you get to Enter the Matrix that is completely gone though, RIP Shiny.
@@sensaiko Being an artist and fascinated even as a kid with dark and mysterious art, I was hooked on Sacrifice; even if the gameplay was kinda iffy to me and pretty hard and annoying at parts, the style kept me going. Specially loved the little details on the different maps like the vegetation and peasant houses, that really added to the strange alien setting.
I’m not sure the meaning of MDK was ever a mystery. I clearly remember a staff member in PC World telling me it stood for “murder, death, kill” back in ‘99.
am i the only person who always new it stood for murder death kill? like i just figured it was a known thing didn't realize there was any mystery behind it.
PC Gamer magazine's article back in the day literally titled the game with its full title. It was never a mystery. The title always stuck with me as it was cool as hell.
I remember how popular the game was with gaming magazines. It was highly praised for its graphics and a lot more. I also remember not having a computer that could run it.
@@SENATORPAIN1 yes, you're the only person. it was always murder death kill by the way. have to cut the zoomers some slack though when they weren't even alive in the 90s
IIRC the dev or publisher ran competitions where they asked people to submit proposals for what MDK could stand for. Or maybe that was some magazine that did that...
I played this game A LOT and I still remember the sound design being a real standout part of the game. That apple crunching sound effect for some of the pickups especially.
oh my god you just unlocked one of my earliest memories of gaming. I remember playing MDK2 and knew it was real but never knew the name. Thank you Josh
I didn’t quite understood this game as a kid and i was unable to finish it because it felt too weird and uncomprehensible for me at the time. But man it was memorable, the cow part just blew my mind lol
The interesting bomb segment cracks me up, but it's also really impressive when developers put a feature in for one use only; keeps the novelty and makes it memorable and that's worth it.
I still play MDK on my phone from time to time with the ePSXe emulator (which can really boost graphics and performance over the original PS1/X and runs at 60fps) and a Bluetooth controller, it plays even better than the original. When I was 8yrs old I got a PS1 for Christmas, and along with Crash Bandicoot and Rayman I got two demo discs, one of which had MDK on it, I was hooked immediately and begged my parents to get the full game, which they eventually got for my birthday a few months later, and I've absolutely loved it ever since. Playing it nowadays is a huge nostalgia trip, a trip back to better times. Same with the Armored Core trilogy, I still play those too.
Holy crap... I completely forgot about this game until this moment. I very vaguely remember playing the game as a kid on the PC (with cheats I think) and only remembered it due to the parachute. Thanks for dusting this memory off for me.
MDK was a pack-in with my Force Feedback joystick back in the day, so I will forever associate it with the absolutely absurd level of violence that joystick threw itself around with - especially when you got hurt! Thanks for the retrospective :)
@@jomartin3850 that was the other pack-in game! I have to idea if any other games supported it as well as those two because they were the only ones I ever played with it due to them being the pack-ins haha. I bet a mechwarrior game or two did as well.
The Asylum level theme you were questioning is inspired by Mancini. The most well known themes Mancini wrote are "Baby Elephant Walk" and "Powerhouse", the second movement of which was used by Loonie Tunes during the sequences that involve machinery, factories, or automated conveyor belts. The snippet you played reminds me of Powerhouse, but the first and third movements.
@@TheDeviantGent Everybody talks about the Earthworm Jim soundtrack by Tommy Tallarico but i prefer MDK all the way and i think it's one of the best game soundtracks ever. The game might be insane but i think it also has a lot of captivating depth that transports you to this strange places with that strange alien race i always imagine there is WAY more than you see in the game. If you asked the composer to make "an epic soundtrack" i think he ABSOLUTELY nailed the "epic sound",
At the time it was first released on PC the most impressive thing was the sniper zoom. Even on pretty average systems you had fluent movement, while being able to zoom in on a scene virtually a kilometer away! Unseen without severe performance hits, before. The devs said they basically started with creating their own game engine, then the actual game. At that time it was simply mind blowing. 😂
Loved the snowboarding sections with the spy movie style music and the grunts dressing like police yelling at you. Also the coil suit is an amazing example of super clothing that is also different from the usual types.
I absolutely loved this game. Played it to death on the PC and PS1, the style of the game was like nothing else. It wasn’t perfect by a long shot but I remember it feeling so fast when you played it. The chain gun ruled supreme!
I used to play this game when I was young, man this makes me feel old. But also vindicated that this is real and not part of a fever dream. The beginning of missions was so interesting.
If I remember it correctly this was one of the games that fell in the sweetspot where 3D acceleration patches where delivered afterwards. Like, you would play and enjoy it and then suddenly with a patch it looked a thousand times better.
My very first PS1 game. It was a confusing and puzzling game since I had no video game experience. What a way to start video game hobby isn't it? However, it is was a great achivement to finish the game as I was playing together with my dad to solve puzzles and pass though tough levels. Now looking back to it, the game still holds up in terms of being fun and unique.
At this point I'm convinced Josh is sneaking into my room and writing down the names of all the games on the shelves. Seriously, I have every single one of the games reviewed on this channel sitting across from me as I type. It's eerie.
A note about the ending, as per tv tropes: "The original releases ended with...a music video of all things. You end with a music video of French musician Billy Ze Kick performing a cover of Non Non Rien N'a Changé, a French song written to protest the Vietnam War. Take that as you will. Later releases, such as the PlayStation version and even the Steam re-release, removed this, but left a sense that it was incomplete as a result." There's also apparently a patch for the steam version that implements the fixes applied to the GoG version AND adds the ending back in.
I actually laughed out loud when he said "Cue the credits ...which have NO music!" I figured that might be the case on the PS release. The same thing happened in Homeworld: Remastered. The credits of the original Homeworld had a song by the band Yes, which really suited the '70s psychedelic sci-fi vibe of the game (which was largely based on the Terran Trade Authority books of the 70's) I used to listed to the credits of MDK and Homeworld a lot as a kid... I also remember the US PS2 release of Disgaea having a song by Tsunami Bomb in it that wasn't in any version before or since. Music licencing is tricky that way.
I had the first level of this game as a demo. I’ve barely thought of it since the late nineties. I remember it being so different and weird (and fun). There was a brief period in the late nineties where this art style was kind of trending - the show “Lex” comes to mind. Thanks for the walk down memory lane!
In the PC version there was an ending music video, I played this game so many times just to watch it. Now you can find this video pretty easy on TH-cam. For me this was one of the most memorable games of that time, it really felt different from everything else and I loved it!
Damn I love this game. It is really weird hearing anyone else talk about it, as it feels like something only me and my siblings know. I have never met anyone that knew this game. The music in this game is absolutely great.
This is one of the first PC games I remember seeing my Dad play when I was a kid but I forgot the name of it. Can't ask him anymore so this was quite the nostalgia trip. Ill have to play this.
Perfect timing. The first level of this game is one of my earliest memories. Just a few weeks ago I used ChatGPT to find it again based on these super vague memories and promptly bought it to relive them and to finally end my curiosity of 'wth' it is I was remembering. Yesterday I finished it and it was quite fun. Not being able to aim while strafing in sniper mode was a bit hard to handle but overall I was surprised how it didn't take itself serious, even with the aesthetic and how well it still holds up. It's quite a good decent length, linear shooter with a few alright platforming and light puzzle pieces. Thanks for showcasing it. 😊
Sorry if it was mentioned but the blackness that happened with the Playstation in the 2nd level didnt happen on PC, the only verison I had. The cannon ur on, for some reasons, flies forward and shatters the glass then u fall to the next area. It's really cool! Also in the PS1 version your gliding sprite seems frozen, it does move on PC and is beautiful!
OMG This video was the trip down memory lane I wanted. I played this game a lot with my brothers when I was a kid, but I was so young I didn't remember the name or much of the story for that matter. I've wanted to search about it but was unsuccessful since I only remembered some visuals. I clicked on the video because the thumbnail made me think of it, without realizing that that was it. It's crazy sometimes how much difference there is between memories and actual graphics of games this old. Those sniper puzzles and the drop into the level as well as the speed the of the character were still so vivid in my memories.
I just wanted you to know that you make some of the best videos on TH-cam. You have an amazing style that blends the art of storytelling and information delivery together. Keep up the amazing work!
Miss the times when a developer was allowed to be this experimental. Ofcourse we have indies, so it's not a big deal, but it's a sad state of affairs that we keep seeing the same games polished with a bit more polygons and a bit fewer features, and then they call it an upgrade worthy of spending 60/70 dollars on.
Indies don't even experiment anymore, everyone tryna chase that Hollow Knight success so everything has to be a roguelike metroidvania inspired by Souls.
@@dgayle2348 I don't think that's the case, i kind of slipped into the indieverse on Twitter and a lot of people do a lot of cool things. Problem why you don't hear about them is a sort of indie oversaturation so most of these will never reach your attention, there's hundreds of projects which are off kilter in one way or another, maybe thousands. A game a scale of MDK can now be completed by a very small team. Many are single developer projects, with timelines reaching between 2 and 6 years.
I do remember "Murder Death Kill?" being one of the options being used in the advertisements for this game and I believed that's what it stood for ever since. Nice to see that confirmed so many years later. This game was so ahead of its time, I got a demo off a magazine CD and it ran so quickly and smoothly on even average hardware. It was unlike anything I had seen up until then and it still holds a warm place in my heart.
I don't know if it was specifically aimed at France, but when you finished the PC version, you had a music video for Billy Ze Kick's "Rien n'a changé" wich featured a live action rendition of the main character and sequences of the game. I fondly remember these pre-internet times when as a kid I killed the boss over and over again to watch the MV.
One of my favorite childhood games, such a wild ride. The art/design of this game and others by the same people, like Messiah, Sacrifice and Giants: Citizen Kabuto really influenced me when I was young.
Thanks for making this video, MDK is truly one of the most memorable games of my childhood. However, it's not the kind of game that is made for everyone.
My colleague told me about MDK one time. I was actually blown away with how cool this game must’ve been for the time. He still thinks about it to this day.
21:00 As I recall, there was a little setpiece there where you fired the big ol' cannon and it burst free from its moorings and threw you backwards through a huge window into the next arena. I wonder if the console version simplified the scene to spare the processor - it was quite visually impressive for its day.
Yeah, I had the same memory as you and just confirmed it watching a PC version gameplay. The recoil makes the cannon burst through the window to the next area. Probably a hardware limitation on the PS forced developers to proceed this way. The Win version is much better, even in the soundtrack.
Interesting to see an older game with skydiving and some sort of "paraglider" or hovering mechanic! Someone should document every game that "invented" or introduced them into the gaming world
You want weird gaming introductions? Mine was Streaker on the ZX Spectrum. You play as an overweight nekkid bald bloke who needs to run around finding his clothes before he gets arrested. Because aliens I think, but I never got far enough to get him fully dressed because the console usually started to overheat so I had to turn it off before the carpet melted. As well as my 8yr old brain.
Shiny Entertainment also made Sacrifice, where there's also an Earthworm Jim cow doing flips before diving on your target, reducing it to nothingness. You can also dismember/cripple some ennemis in MDK, like shooting their legs or removing their arms. Don't remove the weapon of the big ones tho, their behavior is quite scary. At 17:00 you can also use the action button while wearing the officer armor in front of the big guys and they will salute you. At 21:00 in the original version the canon is yeeted with you in the window behind due to the huge recoil, you can actually fly from there and reach the 3/4 on the long way out completey safe. Now i'm waiting for a Sacrifice review, this game is honestly very good **throw carving* and weird looking.
I feel they are underrated. Everyone remembers them from Earthworm Jim but they made so many weird and interesting games. Even the 2D games they made were great, like they essentially made Aladdin on the Genesis (As Virgin games).
Ahhh this takes me back! I have fond memories of playing this for hours on my grandparents Mac back in the very early 2000s. I was never able to get further than the first few levels but I still loved it! These days people seem to only talk about its sequel, but the original will always hold a special place in my heart.
I remember following the development and release of this one in video game magazines back when video game magazines were a thing. Absolutely everyone knew that MDK stood for Murder Death Kill even before the game was released, and it was a abundantly clear that any time anyone involved in its development claimed it stood for something like Max, Dr Fluke Hawkings and Kurt, they were being coy for PR purposes. It was exactly like people from iD Software being coy about what BFG stood for. EDIT: I also remember an interview where someone from the development team were discussing the sniper scope, and they claimed the impetus was that at the time every shooter game was trying to have the biggest, most powerful gun ever, and they realized they couldn't chase that without making a game that felt like every other shooter game, so they instead decided to pursue making a shooter game with the most accurate gun ever. Ironically I never actually played it. We were poor, and video game magazines were a lot cheaper than video game consoles.
Great vid. I really loved the nostalgia wave this hit me with. Small point: Demolition Man didn't see the characters frozen for hundreds of years; it was only for 36 or so years (there were still people alive in the future who were around during the time before the main character was frozen). Not relevant to your overall essay, but it was something that popped out at me nonetheless.
This game arrived free in a pile of shareware games when I bought my IMac 1 back in 99. I had no clue what it was but it was so bananas that I loved it. It’s a real time capsule for what the 90s were like. Great video!
Did you know you can snipe the first boss by shooting three sniper grenades at his head? You even get the headshot animation. One of the best games I played as a child. Still playing through once a year through Good Old Games.
All these games were stunning at the time. Played MDK, MDK2, Messiah, Armed and Dangerous. I was already an adult when I played them and was mesmerized. Seeing them 20+ years later I'm shocked to see how primitive the graphics are. It was amazing how much joy they could pack into such a low poly count back then.
MDK's full name, or the meaning, was mentioned in the Czech PC Gaming magazine Score as undertitle by the review, Murder - Death - Kill (can be find for free in they online archive, 1997- Score 39, page 34)
thanks for the lore, now i see why i love MDK 2 a lot as a kid, Earthworm jim was a big part of my childhood, they know how to make a fun game, i really wish they could remaster 1 and 2 with NightDive studios, it would be a bless!
The thing about this game wierdness is because they took everything they learned from Earthworm Jim and keep the spirit. The Cow drop level and the cow jokes PROBLABY are in the same level of logic from the joke "I'll have that for a dollar" on Robocop, which is something so simple and somehow takes someone off guard and makes it funny
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
The developers were very creative with how they used so few polygons to build a world that memorable. I even found the controls to still be enjoyable.
V true
Sad how rare this is now.
Geometry was kept simple, half the geometry wasn't even textured to save resources and they still made it work visually (by 1997 software rendering standards).
I initially played it with a MS Sidewinder 3D joystick, because I was so used to joysticks from the Atari. Took some practice, but strafing with the twist axis worked perfectly. Sniping was decent, especially if you were used to flight sims. Probably one of the weirdest control schemes, but they accounted for it regardless.
This played amazingly with a joystick
on cocaine likely.
Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.
I think my uncle knows him, he said he was dead
I haven't had to bake for a girl in a long time.
A long time...
I don't know why but mdk just keeps popping in my head from time to time. I just played a demo when I was a child 😂
Indeed. I played this back in the day on my Amiga.
I know right!? I had the shareware and LOVED it. I remember something about tactical nukes
As someone who played it back in the day, let me answer that question in a way that leaves no room for doubt: no, it wasn't good. It was BRILLIANT!
I loved this game. Used to go to my uncles just to play it. Fantastic game
It was objectively garbage. Take off the rose-tinted glasses.
@@networknomad5600I don’t think you know what objectively means.
@@networknomad5600obviously your own glasses are scratched and broken. You need to put on the somewhat suffocating sniper helmet and re-focus: This was one of the greatest, most innovative, quirky, and downright bad-ass games of all time.
@@amishrobotsit was so cool !!
the sniper the thank the robot camouflage :)
the parachut ....
I thought this game was some fevered dream from my childhood. Thank you for unlocking the surreal reality it actually existed!
For anyone wondering about the cannon section on the 2nd level at 20:51, it looks like that's a bug for the Playstation version. What's happening here, is you're supposed to get stuck on the cannon, and when you shoot, the cannnon also shoots. I believe it's on the 3rd shot, the cannon malfunctions and goes flying down-range with you on board, smashing through the back wall and placing you into the next arena. I've beaten this game dozens of time on PC and never had that issue.
Exactly
This shit blew my mind as a kid. Was one of the first times I truly felt immersed in 3rd person. Dreamcast was lit.
it was the first piece of absurdist media i experienced and i was very confused, not surprised it was the same dev as earthworm jim and armed & dangerous
It was a great game was it not released for Playstation only and the graphics were freaking amazing for Playstation
@@digitalmouse3314it was on PC as well
Op, You are think of mdk2
I swear to god people who did not had strict parents are completly aids
I thought this game was a fever dream of mine. I remember my brothers playing it on their old CRT monitor.
It is a fever dream
For those who don't know, in the original PC version of MDK, there actually was a bizarre music video ending by the French artist "Billy Ze Kick" (Or BZK for short). The song that would play in the music video was called "Non Non Rien N'a Changé" and it was a cover of an older song by another French group called "Les Poppys". Here's some fun facts:
1) Billy Ze Kick's version of "Non Non Rien N'a Changé" can be found on their 1996 album "Paniac" and it's the same version that can be found on MDK. Also on that same album, the lead singer (Nathalie Cousin) did a duet with an unknown French artist at the time called "Matthieu Chedid" (Or -M- as he goes by in the music industry). Nowadays, Matthieu Chedid is regarded as one of the most legendary artists in all of France.
2) Billy Ze Kick is one of the more weirder and stranger bands to come out of France. In their home country, Billy Ze Kick is mostly known for their songs "Mangez-Moi" and "OCB" back when the band's full name was "Billy Ze Kick et Les Gamins en Folie". For anyone who enjoyed the song in the original MDK ending or likes to listen to weird and experimental music, I highly recommend listening to Billy Ze Kick's first 2 albums. Their like a mix between Army of Lovers in terms of the experimentation and GWAR in terms of the humour and lyrics.
Very cool sidefact thx! And the music is pretty neat.
@@eigengrau1 No problem! I love talking about music especially if it's from an obscure artist I like or from video games (And in this case, it's both)! I'm just wondering why the person in the video didn't at least mention the original ending to MDK since most fans like myself agree that the original music video ending was one of the most memorable and fun parts of MDK.
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That's so random, thanks for sharing!
Speaking of weird French songs: Sloy - Pop. 😂
It was one of my first games, and i have to say, 1997-1999 was a glorious time for games. The technical possibilities where there to give live to some wonderful exotic and strange worlds. Is it coincidence that my other first games where basically as weird as MDK? "SubCulture", an underwater world in a miniature submarine where cigarette butts where as large as your sub and could be collected to barter with, "POD" a sci-fi racing game with the most obscure and awesome tracks till today, "Trespasser" a first person shooter/adventure game with (totally weird) physics, no HUD, a tattoo on the boob of your protagonist and dinosaurs, .... just to name a few. it was an awesome time with so crazy ideas and deep athmosphere in games.
I remember subculture! It was also featured in a educational expo in 1999, so I played a little bit as a kid, it played in a huge screen, and that was probably the greatest gaming rig I knew back in the day, lol.
Yep and on all consoles and PC massive bangers still loved and played today.Re2,ff7,Ocarina of time,mario64,then quake3,half-life,diablo,so many to name really
This game was so mind-blowing to 4-year-old me it gave me an epileptic seizure while I watched my dad played it lol. One of my earliest memories is watching him do the disguise section with the little robot you hop into. My dad kept the name of this game hidden from me for decades, thinking I'd die or something if I played/watched it again, but I've had little snippets of this game running through my mind ever since. I stumbled upon a different TH-cam video about this game only a few years ago, and that was how I rediscovered MDK. I recognised it instantly from the thumbnail alone-- that's how deeply ingrained it is in my noggin. Sounds like I'll have fun trying to get this to run on my current hardware, but I'll have to play through this game myself sometime. I've only ever watched my dad playing it in the late 90s, and a few videos on the subject!
This game freaked me out as a kid. Despite the humorous plot the game itself has such a bizarre and nightmare aesthetic that it repelled me
Same. Usually just watched my cousin play it cause the art style felt uncanny to me.
I got extremely vivid nightmares from this game... Not even entirely sure why.
The scream when they chase you was nightmare fuel.
Omg I didn't think others felt the same. I remember that I was scared of this game, though I can't pinpoint why exactly. I just felt uneasy. There was also some very old fighting game by THQ which I was scared of. Even the THQ intro was creepy for some reason lol.
@@menarian9550wasn't Thriller Killer by any chance was it? If so that was a fucked up but insanely good game haha! Was also banned over here not because it was THE most brutal fighter at the time, but coz a chic moans provocatively before the fight....
Murder Death Kill is such a 90s time stamp. Simple level design, but everything just worked. I'll never forget how the game gave you the Worlds Smallest Nuke within 5 minutes, and the gritty industrial feeling of the game and soundtrack. Thanks for the memories JSH
I like how you spelled out MDK but abbreviated Josh's full name
It was a moment of perfect balance; the 3D graphics of the era were *just* good enough for the game to be really artistically expressive, but not so advanced that 90% of the game's entire development budget is wasted just modelling and texturing the levels, leaving all other aspects of the design starved of resources.
I always thought that about DN3D... that it is everything 90s
And that I'll never forget how it starts gun blazing and giving you the rocket launcher like 30 seconds into the game as the second weapon
am i the only person who always new it stood for murder death kill? like i just figured it was a known thing didn't realize there was any mystery behind it.
@@SENATORPAIN1 A lot of people called it Maim Death Kill, don't worry, their all dead now.
So many great memories playing this game. What a true, unadulterated gem.
This is by far one of my all-time favorite games. Everything about the world, from your own arsenal to each individual level, is so incredibly unique, I still haven't seen another game that comes even close to the adventure this was!
It's from the era of games like Normality and Little Big Adventure and Myst. I loved that era so much. It had no "safest carbon copy way to design games" atmosphere. Everyone then made games for the love.
The visuals on this game are impressive even today. The neons clashing with the black, polygon structures and organic textures, it's just amazing!
It looked massively better on PC.
I love how you are STILL commiting to making the Patreons text small so it all fits on 1 page . Love my Strife Hayes continuity !
If he starts to encode videos in 4K, it's possible to cram even more names and make them be readable.
I remember his panic when he was slowly thinking that they are unreadable and in one video just decided to put them all there. I still love it, I wonder if someday we can achieve height of one pixel.
I think I pointed it out to him once, suggesting a second page and then a video released soon after explicitly said that he wouldn't do that. I feel like had I, or other people, not made any such suggestion, this would not have happened. But his contrarian streak is too strong to ignore the chance of doing something stupid because it's amusing.
I have had images of this game floating around in my head since i was an actual toddler. It wasnt until today that i realized this wasnt just a weird fever dream of mine, and it actually existed. This is insane, i never thought i’d figure out where it was from, and here i am watching a video on it mere DAYS after having another dream with these visuals. Im just… in awe
Ever since my dad passed away, it has sort of eaten away at me that i couldnt just ask him about it (im pretty sure i played this game with him as a kid), i know that sounds dumb, but it really is the little things that make you remember how much you miss someone.
Haha, yo, SAME THO. Once the video showed the cover art my brain was like "OMG THAT THING!!". I remember seeing it on shelves at a computer store and discount game bins when I was a kid and always being incredibly curious about it but also not having a PC to play on.
Nice you were finally able to find out the source. Had something similar, but it was with Ralph Bakshi's "Wizards".
That's the magic of internet :D May your dad rest in peace :)
Same. I played it in a PC shop, where they used to have display PCs with games like this. The golden days of box art and cardboard cutouts too. Mid-to-late 90s
I had the same. I remembered throwing some kind of grenade through glass high up to progress.
It may be an oldie but wow it was ahead of its time when it was released, thanks for the nostalgia trip down memory lane
I dunno if it was ahead of its time. There's not many modern games like this. I think Jet Force Gemini is kinda similar (but not nearly as fast). And then maybe the Ratchet & Clank series of games as well.
This game is one of my best memories as a gamer. Just as good as playing the shareware version of Doom or Dune 2 for the first time. The sniper mode, the dummy, the mix between dark areas and psychedelic mirrors, the weird sense of humor... I never experienced something quite like it. Thank you Shiny Entertainment, thank you Nick Bruty and David Perry.
I loved MDK. So creative, such varied gameplay, and so many laughs. One of my all-time favourites.
I'm pretty sure that I read in a PC games magazine in the 90s that MDK originally stood for "Murder Death Kill" until they changed it at release to the innitials of the main characters.
I didn't think about the game for at least 20 years and this was the first thing that came to my mind.
You're right I remember that add but I believe there was a question mark after it to appear ambiguous.
As someone that was into PC gaming when this released it was very clear that MDK was Murder Death Kill.
I remember everyone referring to it as Murder, Death, Kill when speaking of MDK. Upon seeing this video in my feed, I said to myself, "Oh, Murder, death, kill...cool". Didn't know that it had been considered ambiguous.
Yup, it was 100% Murder Death Kill. That's how I and all my friends knew and referred to this game back in the day.
Nick Bruty, the creator of MDK has confirmed that on the GOG store page for MDK btw.
Minor correction Josh, first of all great vid like always, but the timer on the loss of a city is actually on your HUD. It's the green/red ring around your health. That represents the population of the city you're trying to save on that level. I didn't learn of this for many years myself. Just thought I'd point it out. Hope you have a nice day.
The GOG version with nGlide is the most beautiful one. It allows you to use 512x512 textures without filtering and gives the game a detailed and gritty feel that raises the surrealism to 11. Digital Foundry featured it a few years ago.
I bought it yesterday on GoG but it looks quite bad. Can you please elaborate on the nGlide? Does it come with the game or do you have to install it from somewhere?
@@Celisar1 It's another glide wrapper .. basically a 3Dfx emulator for modern GPUs.
Google, download, follow the instructions. I haven't tried nGlide in particular, but it should be relatively easy to set up.
@@Celisar1 He wrote total wrong shit. You need dgvoodoo 2 with MDKD3D exe not glide for 512x512 texture, but i suggest use MDK95 exe with dxwnd, software render is always superior and have all effects wich missed in glide and d3d
Is it worth buying it on GOG or Steam. because I love this game and I want a copy on my window but I also want a game file to play on emulator on my iPhone. but I don’t remember playing the sequel nor do I remember there was a sequel when I was a kid
I loved MDK. Favorite bits were the sniper cams and The World's Smallest Nuclear Explosion. Also the protagonist being named "Kurt" tickled my risibilities a bunch, for some reason. Thanks for your wonderful retrospective on this super-sweet bit of gaming strangeness.
MDK was a GOAT of it's time. Played countless hours on my AMD K6-2 64MB SDRAM..
I think the 'forest' room and the weird coloful 'childs bedroom' are the aliens recreating human environments to keep the improsoned, kinda like a zoo.
Exactly. The joke is that thats how those goofy aliens saw us, hence the human figures at the shooting range. This game was hilarious.
interesting idea, but I would bet that was their advanced psychological strategy to soften your defenses, make you feel calm and vulnerable.
The artstyle of this game is pure inventive gritty late 90s goodness. Really reminds me of weird sci fi illustrations from anthology magazines of that era. Shiny entertainment for a brief moment made the best of it with creative, versatile artists; you can 100% see that reflected in games like Sacrifice, MDK1, Messiah. The fact that the games are more blocky so that textures act more like painted illustrations really helps it. Once you get to Enter the Matrix that is completely gone though, RIP Shiny.
Holy shit, they made Sacrifice!?
@@jessegauthier6985 yep. There is sort of a thread with the whole mix of gritty weird alien designs with 90s humor.
Sacrifice was really good, i remember really enjoying the game, but it was so confusing and WEIRD that always made me have mixed feelings haha
@@sensaiko Being an artist and fascinated even as a kid with dark and mysterious art, I was hooked on Sacrifice; even if the gameplay was kinda iffy to me and pretty hard and annoying at parts, the style kept me going. Specially loved the little details on the different maps like the vegetation and peasant houses, that really added to the strange alien setting.
Oh hell yeah, finally revisiting this hidden gem, hope it isn't long before MDK2 get reviewed too
It was the best. The humor was outstanding.
I’m looking forward to the MDK2 retrospective. It is one of my favourite games.
I’m not sure the meaning of MDK was ever a mystery. I clearly remember a staff member in PC World telling me it stood for “murder, death, kill” back in ‘99.
Same. I played the demo back in the day, and I knew it then as Murder, Death, Kill.
am i the only person who always new it stood for murder death kill? like i just figured it was a known thing didn't realize there was any mystery behind it.
PC Gamer magazine's article back in the day literally titled the game with its full title. It was never a mystery. The title always stuck with me as it was cool as hell.
I remember how popular the game was with gaming magazines. It was highly praised for its graphics and a lot more. I also remember not having a computer that could run it.
@@SENATORPAIN1 yes, you're the only person.
it was always murder death kill by the way. have to cut the zoomers some slack though when they weren't even alive in the 90s
This game still holds up imo because of how abstract and surreal it is
Thank you for covering so much of my childhood in your JSP videos. Truly a kindred spirit from across the ocean.
IIRC the dev or publisher ran competitions where they asked people to submit proposals for what MDK could stand for. Or maybe that was some magazine that did that...
I played this game A LOT and I still remember the sound design being a real standout part of the game. That apple crunching sound effect for some of the pickups especially.
oh my god you just unlocked one of my earliest memories of gaming. I remember playing MDK2 and knew it was real but never knew the name. Thank you Josh
I didn’t quite understood this game as a kid and i was unable to finish it because it felt too weird and uncomprehensible for me at the time. But man it was memorable, the cow part just blew my mind lol
The interesting bomb segment cracks me up, but it's also really impressive when developers put a feature in for one use only; keeps the novelty and makes it memorable and that's worth it.
I still play MDK on my phone from time to time with the ePSXe emulator (which can really boost graphics and performance over the original PS1/X and runs at 60fps) and a Bluetooth controller, it plays even better than the original. When I was 8yrs old I got a PS1 for Christmas, and along with Crash Bandicoot and Rayman I got two demo discs, one of which had MDK on it, I was hooked immediately and begged my parents to get the full game, which they eventually got for my birthday a few months later, and I've absolutely loved it ever since. Playing it nowadays is a huge nostalgia trip, a trip back to better times. Same with the Armored Core trilogy, I still play those too.
Holy crap... I completely forgot about this game until this moment. I very vaguely remember playing the game as a kid on the PC (with cheats I think) and only remembered it due to the parachute. Thanks for dusting this memory off for me.
Just got MDK2 to play on my PS2, what a coincidence ❤
Wish you a lot of fun on it! When i put the disc in to try and play, my PS2 whirrs loudly than any other game.
MDK was a pack-in with my Force Feedback joystick back in the day, so I will forever associate it with the absolutely absurd level of violence that joystick threw itself around with - especially when you got hurt! Thanks for the retrospective :)
That was an amazing joystick
We are old, so old. 😅 interstate 76 was another great one for the MS FFB stick.
@@jomartin3850 that was the other pack-in game! I have to idea if any other games supported it as well as those two because they were the only ones I ever played with it due to them being the pack-ins haha. I bet a mechwarrior game or two did as well.
The Asylum level theme you were questioning is inspired by Mancini. The most well known themes Mancini wrote are "Baby Elephant Walk" and "Powerhouse", the second movement of which was used by Loonie Tunes during the sequences that involve machinery, factories, or automated conveyor belts. The snippet you played reminds me of Powerhouse, but the first and third movements.
Also sounds like Danny Elfman's "Breakfast Machine" from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.
I think "powerhouse" isn't by Mancini, it looks like it was released by Raymond Scott in 1937 when Mancini was just a tween... :)
@@TheDeviantGent wow i'm partially obsessed with the music of MDK and i didn't know that it sounds so extremely similar
@@TheDeviantGent Everybody talks about the Earthworm Jim soundtrack by Tommy Tallarico but i prefer MDK all the way and i think it's one of the best game soundtracks ever. The game might be insane but i think it also has a lot of captivating depth that transports you to this strange places with that strange alien race i always imagine there is WAY more than you see in the game. If you asked the composer to make "an epic soundtrack" i think he ABSOLUTELY nailed the "epic sound",
@@TheDeviantGent THANK YOU! I thought the same thing as soon as I heard it.
I loved MDK and MDKII. It changed how I went down water slides for the rest of my life.
Great video. Thanks for covering all the extras.
At the time it was first released on PC the most impressive thing was the sniper zoom. Even on pretty average systems you had fluent movement, while being able to zoom in on a scene virtually a kilometer away! Unseen without severe performance hits, before.
The devs said they basically started with creating their own game engine, then the actual game.
At that time it was simply mind blowing. 😂
Loved the snowboarding sections with the spy movie style music and the grunts dressing like police yelling at you. Also the coil suit is an amazing example of super clothing that is also different from the usual types.
Hey man I just wanted you to know that these videos are some of my absolute favorites on the platform. Informative, nostalgic, good tempo. Thanks man.
I absolutely loved this game. Played it to death on the PC and PS1, the style of the game was like nothing else. It wasn’t perfect by a long shot but I remember it feeling so fast when you played it. The chain gun ruled supreme!
I used to play this game when I was young, man this makes me feel old. But also vindicated that this is real and not part of a fever dream. The beginning of missions was so interesting.
If I remember it correctly this was one of the games that fell in the sweetspot where 3D acceleration patches where delivered afterwards. Like, you would play and enjoy it and then suddenly with a patch it looked a thousand times better.
My very first PS1 game. It was a confusing and puzzling game since I had no video game experience. What a way to start video game hobby isn't it? However, it is was a great achivement to finish the game as I was playing together with my dad to solve puzzles and pass though tough levels. Now looking back to it, the game still holds up in terms of being fun and unique.
At this point I'm convinced Josh is sneaking into my room and writing down the names of all the games on the shelves.
Seriously, I have every single one of the games reviewed on this channel sitting across from me as I type.
It's eerie.
You wouldn't happen to have any personalized coffee mugs, would you?
A note about the ending, as per tv tropes: "The original releases ended with...a music video of all things. You end with a music video of French musician Billy Ze Kick performing a cover of Non Non Rien N'a Changé, a French song written to protest the Vietnam War. Take that as you will. Later releases, such as the PlayStation version and even the Steam re-release, removed this, but left a sense that it was incomplete as a result."
There's also apparently a patch for the steam version that implements the fixes applied to the GoG version AND adds the ending back in.
I remember replaying the last mission again and again just for the music video.
Yeeeeees crap thanks for reminding that bit! And so it was actually an original French song, not a dubbed one!
I actually laughed out loud when he said "Cue the credits ...which have NO music!" I figured that might be the case on the PS release.
The same thing happened in Homeworld: Remastered. The credits of the original Homeworld had a song by the band Yes, which really suited the '70s psychedelic sci-fi vibe of the game (which was largely based on the Terran Trade Authority books of the 70's) I used to listed to the credits of MDK and Homeworld a lot as a kid... I also remember the US PS2 release of Disgaea having a song by Tsunami Bomb in it that wasn't in any version before or since. Music licencing is tricky that way.
@@chriszinori9518 Note: the actual original tune "rien n'a changé" was by The Poppys, group of French children in the seventies.
Fun fact, but in the clip of this song, the guy in the MDK's suit is David Perry, the Founder of Shiny Entertainement.
I had the first level of this game as a demo. I’ve barely thought of it since the late nineties. I remember it being so different and weird (and fun). There was a brief period in the late nineties where this art style was kind of trending - the show “Lex” comes to mind. Thanks for the walk down memory lane!
I worship his shadow!
@@whosapickle deep dig
In the PC version there was an ending music video, I played this game so many times just to watch it. Now you can find this video pretty easy on TH-cam.
For me this was one of the most memorable games of that time, it really felt different from everything else and I loved it!
Damn I love this game. It is really weird hearing anyone else talk about it, as it feels like something only me and my siblings know. I have never met anyone that knew this game.
The music in this game is absolutely great.
Ohh man absolutely. I can still hear whatever the enemy’s said. What was it something like “bunka bunka bar”
This is one of the first PC games I remember seeing my Dad play when I was a kid but I forgot the name of it. Can't ask him anymore so this was quite the nostalgia trip. Ill have to play this.
Same for me this and doom. First games my dad introduced to me and my brother
My man is PUMPING out reviews and still holds the quality. Absolutely admirable.
Perfect timing. The first level of this game is one of my earliest memories. Just a few weeks ago I used ChatGPT to find it again based on these super vague memories and promptly bought it to relive them and to finally end my curiosity of 'wth' it is I was remembering.
Yesterday I finished it and it was quite fun. Not being able to aim while strafing in sniper mode was a bit hard to handle but overall I was surprised how it didn't take itself serious, even with the aesthetic and how well it still holds up.
It's quite a good decent length, linear shooter with a few alright platforming and light puzzle pieces.
Thanks for showcasing it. 😊
Sorry if it was mentioned but the blackness that happened with the Playstation in the 2nd level didnt happen on PC, the only verison I had. The cannon ur on, for some reasons, flies forward and shatters the glass then u fall to the next area. It's really cool! Also in the PS1 version your gliding sprite seems frozen, it does move on PC and is beautiful!
OMG This video was the trip down memory lane I wanted.
I played this game a lot with my brothers when I was a kid, but I was so young I didn't remember the name or much of the story for that matter. I've wanted to search about it but was unsuccessful since I only remembered some visuals. I clicked on the video because the thumbnail made me think of it, without realizing that that was it. It's crazy sometimes how much difference there is between memories and actual graphics of games this old.
Those sniper puzzles and the drop into the level as well as the speed the of the character were still so vivid in my memories.
Wonder if Parasite Eve or Legend of Dragoon will make it into the series one day
I have requested legend of dragoon as well!
Were they good?
Parasite eve would be very interesting, the game was so mechanically unique
There's a lot of games on the playstation that would make this list. Tomba, Einhander, Legend of Legaia, Alundra.
Both AMAZING games!
Been waiting for a review of this game. The timing is perfect.
I just wanted you to know that you make some of the best videos on TH-cam. You have an amazing style that blends the art of storytelling and information delivery together. Keep up the amazing work!
Miss the times when a developer was allowed to be this experimental. Ofcourse we have indies, so it's not a big deal, but it's a sad state of affairs that we keep seeing the same games polished with a bit more polygons and a bit fewer features, and then they call it an upgrade worthy of spending 60/70 dollars on.
Indies don't even experiment anymore, everyone tryna chase that Hollow Knight success so everything has to be a roguelike metroidvania inspired by Souls.
@@dgayle2348 I don't think that's the case, i kind of slipped into the indieverse on Twitter and a lot of people do a lot of cool things. Problem why you don't hear about them is a sort of indie oversaturation so most of these will never reach your attention, there's hundreds of projects which are off kilter in one way or another, maybe thousands. A game a scale of MDK can now be completed by a very small team. Many are single developer projects, with timelines reaching between 2 and 6 years.
26:54 I think the inspiration for both tracks might be the Breakfast Machine (From "Pee Wee's Big Adventure") or something similar.
Loved this game, beat it so many times. The sniping was addicting.
I loved this game. I had a sweet joystick that I played with.
I do remember "Murder Death Kill?" being one of the options being used in the advertisements for this game and I believed that's what it stood for ever since. Nice to see that confirmed so many years later.
This game was so ahead of its time, I got a demo off a magazine CD and it ran so quickly and smoothly on even average hardware. It was unlike anything I had seen up until then and it still holds a warm place in my heart.
Damn this takes me back. I remember playing the demo and i would randomy think about this game for like the past 25 years randomly.
I don't know if it was specifically aimed at France, but when you finished the PC version, you had a music video for Billy Ze Kick's "Rien n'a changé" wich featured a live action rendition of the main character and sequences of the game.
I fondly remember these pre-internet times when as a kid I killed the boss over and over again to watch the MV.
One of my favorite childhood games, such a wild ride. The art/design of this game and others by the same people, like Messiah, Sacrifice and Giants: Citizen Kabuto really influenced me when I was young.
Omg, thanks a lot for reminding me about Kabuto! It's one of the many many games I forgot about. Excellent one
MDK had phenomenal gameplay, atmosphere, graphic, sound and absolutely awesome MUSIC! Thank you very much Shiny!!
OMFG thank you soooooo much guys. I was trying to remeber a game I plyed only ONCE in a Dagestani internet cafe back in 2001 !!!
Thanks for making this video, MDK is truly one of the most memorable games of my childhood. However, it's not the kind of game that is made for everyone.
My colleague told me about MDK one time. I was actually blown away with how cool this game must’ve been for the time. He still thinks about it to this day.
do i know you? haha!
Freaking loved MDK. Fantastic soundtrack, the visuals (especially the 'mirror' level), world's tiniest nuke!
The textures and what you wanna call lighting made for amazing memories..
It was one of the greatest game I ever played. Wish the same team could've worked on series. Citizen Kabuto was also creative and good.
Thanks! Not only is it the best material about MDK on TH-cam, but now I have to play it again. And again. Yes, it's a good game.
21:00 As I recall, there was a little setpiece there where you fired the big ol' cannon and it burst free from its moorings and threw you backwards through a huge window into the next arena. I wonder if the console version simplified the scene to spare the processor - it was quite visually impressive for its day.
Yeah, I had the same memory as you and just confirmed it watching a PC version gameplay. The recoil makes the cannon burst through the window to the next area. Probably a hardware limitation on the PS forced developers to proceed this way. The Win version is much better, even in the soundtrack.
Interesting to see an older game with skydiving and some sort of "paraglider" or hovering mechanic!
Someone should document every game that "invented" or introduced them into the gaming world
You want to know the first game with a "paragliding" mechanic I can think of ? Bubsy. Lol.
You want weird gaming introductions? Mine was Streaker on the ZX Spectrum.
You play as an overweight nekkid bald bloke who needs to run around finding his clothes before he gets arrested.
Because aliens I think, but I never got far enough to get him fully dressed because the console usually started to overheat so I had to turn it off before the carpet melted. As well as my 8yr old brain.
Shiny Entertainment also made Sacrifice, where there's also an Earthworm Jim cow doing flips before diving on your target, reducing it to nothingness.
You can also dismember/cripple some ennemis in MDK, like shooting their legs or removing their arms. Don't remove the weapon of the big ones tho, their behavior is quite scary. At 17:00 you can also use the action button while wearing the officer armor in front of the big guys and they will salute you. At 21:00 in the original version the canon is yeeted with you in the window behind due to the huge recoil, you can actually fly from there and reach the 3/4 on the long way out completey safe.
Now i'm waiting for a Sacrifice review, this game is honestly very good **throw carving* and weird looking.
I feel they are underrated. Everyone remembers them from Earthworm Jim but they made so many weird and interesting games. Even the 2D games they made were great, like they essentially made Aladdin on the Genesis (As Virgin games).
@@Gatorade69 I only played a couple of games from Shiny Entertainment but they always left a strong impact.
nice. my laptop still runs Messiah, which i probably only liked cause i really wanted to... i dunno it's pretty cool. MESSIAH OWNS!!
@@danhectic5629 Messiah is weird in a good way. It was also the creator of the "oof" sound meme that roblox stole. The more you know.
@@MrFirecamoh i recognized the 'oof'. i also watched hbomberguy's entire video on the subject. (great vid)
Ahhh this takes me back! I have fond memories of playing this for hours on my grandparents Mac back in the very early 2000s. I was never able to get further than the first few levels but I still loved it! These days people seem to only talk about its sequel, but the original will always hold a special place in my heart.
I remember this game fondly. I played it a lot as a kid and am happy to see you review it!
Both the song in mdk and the Kevin McLeod song mentioned at 27:15 are based on the song "breakfast machine" from the pee wee's big adventure movie
Which was inspired by Nino Rota and circus music. Could also swear I heard similar styles in older cartoons.
Gotta do mdk 2 after this... That was a fun one
I remember following the development and release of this one in video game magazines back when video game magazines were a thing.
Absolutely everyone knew that MDK stood for Murder Death Kill even before the game was released, and it was a abundantly clear that any time anyone involved in its development claimed it stood for something like Max, Dr Fluke Hawkings and Kurt, they were being coy for PR purposes. It was exactly like people from iD Software being coy about what BFG stood for.
EDIT: I also remember an interview where someone from the development team were discussing the sniper scope, and they claimed the impetus was that at the time every shooter game was trying to have the biggest, most powerful gun ever, and they realized they couldn't chase that without making a game that felt like every other shooter game, so they instead decided to pursue making a shooter game with the most accurate gun ever.
Ironically I never actually played it. We were poor, and video game magazines were a lot cheaper than video game consoles.
Great vid. I really loved the nostalgia wave this hit me with.
Small point: Demolition Man didn't see the characters frozen for hundreds of years; it was only for 36 or so years (there were still people alive in the future who were around during the time before the main character was frozen).
Not relevant to your overall essay, but it was something that popped out at me nonetheless.
This game arrived free in a pile of shareware games when I bought my IMac 1 back in 99. I had no clue what it was but it was so bananas that I loved it. It’s a real time capsule for what the 90s were like. Great video!
Man sometimes i think this game was just something i imagined as a child lol.
What a good game
I had the demo for MDK 2. It was fun. Never knew my favorite gaming company BioWare also made this too.
MDK was made by Shiny Entertainment.
@@Thompson51 I think he means MDK2. The second was made by Bioware and not Shiny.
@@Thompson51 thanks for the correction. Should had waited longer into the video before I commented.
Did you know you can snipe the first boss by shooting three sniper grenades at his head? You even get the headshot animation.
One of the best games I played as a child. Still playing through once a year through Good Old Games.
All these games were stunning at the time. Played MDK, MDK2, Messiah, Armed and Dangerous. I was already an adult when I played them and was mesmerized. Seeing them 20+ years later I'm shocked to see how primitive the graphics are. It was amazing how much joy they could pack into such a low poly count back then.
MDK was my first real favourite game. I had such good times playing it. Loved the video!
the only problem i have with josh's content is that there isnt enough of it. keep uploading my good man
MDK's full name, or the meaning, was mentioned in the Czech PC Gaming magazine Score as undertitle by the review, Murder - Death - Kill (can be find for free in they online archive, 1997- Score 39, page 34)
Hearing Josh describe these levels feels like I just asked ChatGPT to describe me a surreal game level
MDK2 !? Would love to hear a follow up. Thanks for this awesome review, I can't believe you dove in for 40 minutes. Amazing job!
thanks for the lore, now i see why i love MDK 2 a lot as a kid, Earthworm jim was a big part of my childhood, they know how to make a fun game, i really wish they could remaster 1 and 2 with NightDive studios, it would be a bless!
The thing about this game wierdness is because they took everything they learned from Earthworm Jim and keep the spirit.
The Cow drop level and the cow jokes PROBLABY are in the same level of logic from the joke "I'll have that for a dollar" on Robocop, which is something so simple and somehow takes someone off guard and makes it funny