10th January 2008, 8:12 PM
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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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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