Tendo City

Mohawk & Headphone Jack, for SNES, from Black Pearl, is a very, VERY strange game. This is one of the games I got this summer... a NeoGAF thread (about 2d platformers with Mario Galaxy-style gravity effects) got me to write most of this (though I've improved the writeup now), but it deserves to be here too because of how strange this game is. :loopy:

Seriously, I don't know if any other platformer fits that label any more perfectly... Mohawk & Headphone Jack is a very strange game. One the one hand it is a traditional platformer with plenty of jumping, attacking enemies, and collecting items. On the other hand it is unbelievably, ridiculously confusing, strange, and unique. Despite having a built-in detailed level map you can access from the pause menu, It's easily one of the most disorienting games ever made... if this sounds strange, it won't for long. :rolling:

To be short, M&HJ is done in 100% Mode 7. Instead of simply running through the levels, the levels rotate around you depending on the floor surface you are standing on and, if you jump, its size (and thus gravity). Your character stays standing upright, in the middle of the screen, while the level rotates or spins around you as you run and jump along the often curving paths. Levels are enclosed spaces -- there is a "floor" all around the edge of the level, with many obstacles and walls and small platforms and other things filling the inside of the level. You can't run around every corner, as 90 degree (or more) corners or edges are barriers you cannot run along. You can only run around more shallow curves. You will also jump through (and land on the top of, normal platformer style) thin platforms; you will only attach to the underside of larger, round or oval blocks of land. Every one of these surfaces you can run along has its own gravity that depends on its size, so that when you're on a floor and jump up and there is a platform (with a floor surface facing you -- a small round platform, for instance) at some point you'll get caught by that platform's gravity and the screen will flip around and you'll be on the platform, looking up at the floor you just jumped from (because remember, unlike something like MetalStorm for the NES (action/platformer with gravity flipping which causes you to attach to either the ceiling of floor), here your character always stays right-side-up while the level flips around behind you...). This gets very confusing very fast.

To compound the issue, you can run really, really fast. In fact, the characters in this game rival Sonic for his speed. There are very few enemies in the game and no instant-death pits, but because of your speed the enemies that there are can be tough to avoid because when you're running at full speed there's no way you'll see them before they hit you... the best solution is to attack constantly while you are running, because when you press the attack button you transform into a rolling spike-ball form, so you can attack while moving. Then you just either hope you run into the enemies or memorize their locations. Most of them are easy, but later on some harder ones you can't just run into but have to jump on or over show up, forcing you to be more cautious or die.

You complete the level by collecting 100 CDs and then finding the level exit. There are a lot of CDs so that part isn't hard... it's finding the exit that can be. Collecting special giant CDs unlocks additional music tracks. THe game does have a password save system so that you don't have to start over each time, thankfully, though of course you only get new passwords at the end of each level. Oh yes, the characters. Mohawk and Headphone Jack are these really strange guys made of putty or Play-Doh or Jello or something like that. They have naked, featureless (except for their faces and the hair on their heads and the headphones they always wear) yellow bodies which can change shape. They can squeeze through very narrow tubes by turning flat, they attack by turning into a rolling spiked wheel, using a Bomb causes your character to explode into little yellow bits which bounce around the screen for a while,damaging or destroying anything on it, before you reform where you were, some special powerups add things like a wheel on the bottom of the sprite instead of legs or wings instead of arms...

Most importantly, though, is that map on the menu screen. While you can complete level one without it, once you know it a bit at least, without that map the game would be IMPOSSIBLE. You just get so totally disoriented so quickly that it's ridiculous... it's a very interesting and unique game, but it's also almost unplayable in a way.

Perhaps oddly, despite the speed and strangeness, at times the game feels boring. Evemies do not respawn so that even if you get hit, if you kill the enemy in question until you die or get game over at least they'll stay dead (I don't remember offhand for sure if enemies respawn upon death, but I think they do). It is also true that there are no instant-death pits and few enemies, so you do spend a lot of time just running around and hitting spike (attack), though later on of course tougher enemies show up who require more strategy. Level one is a bit tame, really... level two is where the game really starts to get crazy. Level one does have its moments, though, particularly when you accidentally jump too high at the end of the level and find yourself back at the start with nothing to do but run through the stage again it's annoying (he almost does it at the end of the video... made me nervous for a moment...), but overall the first level isn't too bad. Level two gets weirder... the game introduces transit tubes (the things your guys squish into and speed through), warps that send you to some other location on the map (so the map is of only limited help, as it's not easy to identify the warp points or where they will send you on the zoomed-out Mode 7 map you scroll around), flames that hurt you badly (but that you need to get past anyway, of course), a giant double infinite figure-eight loop... but yes, you spend a lot of time running around lost or watching the screen spin in circles. It allows you to run so fast that as soon as you jump on a small platform and start moving if you accidentally tap jump you have NO IDEA where you'll end up...yeah, 'weird and unique' here definitely also comes along with 'frustrating and disorienting'. Even so, it's a quite interesting game, that's for sure. I gave up on trying to beat it after a couple of levels, but it's pretty interesting. And what's wrong with playing a game where you're not in danger of being killed every two seconds, really? Well, unless you do what the game lets you and unthinkingly run around, that is... then you'll die fast just from running into enemies. :)

Despite the flaws, Mohawk & Headphone Jack is worth the experience, for sure, if just because of its uniqueness. It's just so totally weird and different that it should be seen. It's kind of too bad that it was totally unknown at the time of its release... It came out in 1995 and vanished immediately. Finding almost any information about it online is very difficult. I do remember an article about it in Nintendo Power back in 1995 around its release, but that's it... There is a decent video review of the game on Youtube, though. The voiceover isn't that great, but the video shows the game nicely (though he spends a really long time in a bonus room near the beginning. Really once you've run around that sphere and picked up the few items there you're supposed to warp back, not float around in space for like a minuite. :))... or rather, it shows how weird it is. It's kind of amazing a game this bizarre actually got published, in a way... they certainly showed what you can do with Mode 7, though, and the gravity effects are quite interesting.

Watch the video. It must be seen!
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Nobody cares? Oh well...

More like nobody read the thread.

So... it's Sonic the Hedgehog with spinning levels?

I'm not reading all that. Give us a "too long, didn't read" version. Condense it to two paragraphs to make it more palatable for those of us with no attention span. I'll skim a bit of it in the mean time, though.

Quote:You complete the level by collecting 100 CDs and then finding the level exit.

This sounds kind of boring. Is the gameplay legitimately good without a heavy emphasis on searching/collecting? I mean, I thought Banjo-Kazooie pulled off the idea well, but others, like DK64 and some of Mario Sunshine, make it a headache.

I can't even follow what's going on in that video... it makes my head hurt. My monitor might be too dim, but it looks like he's just starts orbiting around in space for 30 seconds around 0:57. It looks kind of confusing. How long did it take you to get down the physics?

Actually, watching it again, it looked like the player didn't have to collect all of those CDs before warping. So there are more than 100 cds, and you only have to collect that much? That doesn't sound so bad. I might download a ROM if I get bored. I'm still working my way through N+, though. I think I have 22 levels left.

"Kind of" confusing? Now there's an understatement... :)

... Just read the post, it answers most of your questions. I also kind of like the way that I keep piling on more and more and more weird as I keep describing the game system... :D It's just so strange!

"Rotating (fully Mode 7) side-scrolling platforming game where the world spins around the character as they walk around the sides of platforms, starring naked yellow (mostly featureless) clay-like guys with mohawks and headphones who can change their shape"? It makes you think "what were they on when they thought of THAT"...

Somewhere over half of that post is describing exactly how weird and confusing the game is. That "Weird" in the thread title probably should have been "disorienting", because it is. I've never played another game as disorienting as this one, and that includes old first-person dungeon crawling RPGs. It is so, so easy to get hopelessly lost (when gravity flips due to jumping too close to another platform, when you run fast around a small platform and everything is spinning, etc)... if not for the game's map on the pause menu, it'd probably be impossible. As it is, it's just really disorienting.

I do have to say that the "orbiting in space for 30 seconds" thing he does is pointless and silly, though. There's no reason for it other than to spin around... all you have to actually do in that bonus area is grab that small group of CDs and then go back into the warp, a couple of seconds later. He decides instead to spin around pointlessly for a long time.

Oh yes, and you're right, each level has far more than 100 CDs in it. You do not need to collect them all, only 100 of the ones in the stage. More will just get you points that won't be saved anyway when the system turns off... the CD requirement isn't hard to meet. It's finding the exit that's the real challenge, particularly from level 2 on. Level one is pretty easy (to complete and to navigate), but level two... well, let's just say that things get a lot harder.

As for "boring", well, it is kind of strange, but in a way it can get dull sometimes. Sure, on the one hand it's weird and the levels are big and there is a lot to explore and find and stuff, but... when you're running around lost or confused so much, it gets old after a while. Trying to navigate your way to somewhere, even if you know where you're going, is very difficult unless you check the map constantly every time you jump to flip gravity given how everything spins... and while the enemies can kill you, and will, often there are no enemies around (such as after you kill them, because they won't respawn until you die). The background graphics are pretty repetitive... this was unavoidable with the Mode 7 graphics of the game, I'm sure (they do have that somewhat distinctive "Mode 7 graphics here!" look), but it is an issue sometimes. So yes, it can be a bit boring at times... even so, it's a game worth trying, anyway. It's just so strange and unique that it's worth the experience. And get past level 1; it takes at least level 2 to really show the game's true weirdness.

The rotating worlds alone make it worth playing.

Alright, I downloaded the ROM and am giving it a shot right now. Man, what a strange game... I've never heard of it before this thread. I'm surprised it doesn't at least have cult status, but I'll probably become less surprised by the notion as I play more. :p What's the deal with having two different jumps? To look cool?

Hmm, this game might have been better had they scaled back the view a bit. It'd be less confusing, I think, to see more of the picture. I'm having trouble doing a speedy jump off a platform and orbiting it, any tips for this? With the way the player does it in the youtube video, it looks like it only works if you have a small planet.

I like how if you change the music, you see the character change it in his CD player.

I'm on the second level now.

Argh, fucking fire! That part is hard. That was my last life, too.

I'll say this about the game -- at least the arrows help you find your way around the levels. I'd be completely lost without them, and they give the game some semblance of flow. The disorientation is manageable, as you said. I'm sure it gets worse in later levels, but the game is still a cool experience.

The worst part about level two is the warps -- while in level one finding the exit isn't too hard because of how the level is pretty much a straight (curving) path from start to end, level two is much more involved, with large interior platforms, etc, and the exit is in an area separate from the rest of the level. You have to take a warp to get there, and you need to take another warp to get to the area with that warp in it... it's obvious something special is needed because on the map there are walls separating you from those areas and there are no transit tube passages going through the gaps, and indeed there are warps... I think the warp paths are semi-visible as dashed lines (maybe), but even so finding them is hard. I eventually said "okay, it's GOT to be in the area past that wall of flames" and indeed, there it was. That level was quite frustrating before I figured that out... (and yes, getting past the fire isn't easy. I did manage it eventually, though... it pretty much requires full health and some luck, I'd say, unless there's a trick I didn't figure out (can it be disabled or something? If it can I didn't manage to figure out how.)... can't walk over it on the other side of the passage, that little lip there knocks you into the air and the gravity of the side with the flames will grab you and pull you down... no getting around it...)

Quote:I like how if you change the music, you see the character change it in his CD player.

It's annoying, though, that passwords don't save which music you've unlocked, so every time you play you start with the first song again... (or at least, that's how it seemed to me) but yes, that is a nice touch.

Quote:Hmm, this game might have been better had they scaled back the view a bit. It'd be less confusing, I think, to see more of the picture. I'm having trouble doing a speedy jump off a platform and orbiting it, any tips for this? With the way the player does it in the youtube video, it looks like it only works if you have a small planet.

Yeah, that only really works in that mini stage you access through the purple warp. Anywhere else and some other platform's gravity will pull you down before long.

As for the confusion, yes, a lot of it is because of how fast you can go and that when you are going fast you cannot see what is coming at you, so either you have to slow down, just hope you won't get into trouble (and you will!), or constantly check the map, and none of those are really great solutions. Being able to see farther would make it less confusing, as would not being able to go as fast... but they clearly wanted it to be disorienting, so I don't know if they wanted that. :)

Quote:What's the deal with having two different jumps? To look cool?

Good question, I really have no idea... wait, one goes a little bit higher than the other. Also, in the higher one you flip over in the animation, while in the lower one you just jump -- vital difference there! :D Really, I don't know why they needed two jumps, as you only usually need one of them... but they are slightly different, for as much as that matters.