Techtite's PC Game Reviews!

"While ransacking town after town may sound like fun in a Warner Brothers cartoon, demolition sort of way; there just isn't enough diversity in how you ransack a town, or the towns themselves."

---from the review

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With just a little spit and polish, I Was an Atomic Mutant! could have been this year's Serious Sam; a discount game with more than enough bang for your buck. With just a bit additional polish, it could've been an underdog classic, doing for the Godzilla genre what last year's Freedom Force did for comic book heroes. Unfortunately, this game is just a small shadow of what it could have been, with several levels of the exact same type of game and no real story to link them. It's almost like a totally cool film trailer, viewed a few dozen times, yet without the film to support it.

The premise is simple: four monsters led normal lives until hit with atomic radiation...and now, it's payback time! This includes a 50 foot woman, a giant floating brain with eyeballs, an alien cyborg, and the obligatory Godzilla wannabe. You choose one of these characters to ransack various desert towns near the atomic testing area which spawned you. You get to stomp, set fire to, demolish, and throw into the air, everything in sight. Aside from the (optional) video clip introducing each character, you go from city to city, until you run out of lives. Then, in typical arcade game fashion, it's GAME OVER.

The truth is, with all the bells and whistles turned on, this is a pretty snazzy game, visually speaking. Smoke, fire, and "death rays" all look strikingly real. As seen in the small photo above, even the little civilians beneath you are well detailed, even if 99% of the time they are as tiny as ants on-screen. The 50-foot woman's pink loin cloth outfit blows in the wind; the floating giant brain pulsates with every "thought." Even the occasional building is well detailed, with gas stations, donut shops, and nuclear power plants all clearly distinguishable, and all waiting to be ransacked. It may not have the graphical awe of most award-caliber games lately, though for a $20 game these visuals are pretty impressive. Graphically speaking, there are very few complaints.

Each monster has separate animation styles, so it is more than worth it to play each character at least once. While each has a "punch" or "stomp" of some sort, each has unique traits as well. The Godzilla wannabe, "Reptomicus," can pick up humans and eat them, to boost health. The brain can use telekinetic powers to make soldiers think they're bunny rabbits for a short while (watching these soldiers visually turn into fuzzy pink bunnies is a riot). The woman has a sonic screech that sends planes spiraling out of control. The cyborg has a cool death-beam attack ray. I'd say the list goes on, though actually, that's about it.

Of course, this is a homage to 1950's horror films, so the atmosphere created is very "old fashioned"...which, I gather, is the whole point. Switching to 3rd-person view in- game allows you to see the action from within a 1950's style movie theater or drive-in, as if you were part of a classic B-grade thriller. You can even choose a black & white option, for the full effect. Add to this the old-movie style blurbs that pop up whenever a larger building is destroyed --"Shocking!" "Unspeakable!"-- and you have an intriguing "interactive 1950's thriller."

Now for the gripes. For one: there is no real storyline here. You can play the game with either unlimited power and one life, or in "arcade mode," with power-ups keeping you alive as you progress from level to level. However, either way, there is no end of the game in sight, until "Game Over." I would have preferred video clips which slowly told an ongoing "movie" for each monster, with a definitive finale. Instead, you are simply ransacking towns until defeated, in classic arcade-game fashion.

While ransacking town after town may sound like fun in a Warner Brothers cartoon, demolition sort of way; there just isn't enough diversity in how you ransack a town, or the towns themselves. It's this lack of diversity that finally gets to you, by around town #11 or so. By then, it is quite clear you're supposed to just keep doing the exact same thing you've been doing 10 times by now, over and over, until you run out of lives. While this sounds fun by classic arcade gaming standards, it isn't as fun as it could have been. It's also terribly repetitive. In the first 5 or so levels, monotony is waylaid by the exclamations made by the townsfolk as you crumble their town into smoke and ashes. I was particularly amused by the female who yells the typical 1950's line, "You MEN did this...you, and your BOMBS!" However, even this sound byte loses its flavor, like a piece of old chewing gum, after hearing it for the 20th time.

I would never rate this title as merely a one-star game. In fact, if released as an arcade game as little as five years ago, this would've been a smash hit, repetitive as it may be. It also has some impressive graphics, which may not compete with most $40 games out there, though certainly competes with $20 games like Serious Sam. If only it had that added spit and polish, this would be a nice, three-out-of-four star affair. Without it, it's just a hair away from being acceptable. I have to admit: I had a lot of fun during the first 5 hours I played this game. After that, it was pretty much GAME OVER.

---Techtite