1000 bullets and one mullet. “Mullet Mad Jack”, brought to you by HAMMER95 and Epopeia Games, is a fast-paced, FPS single-player title that throws you directly into an old-school classic anime from the 90s.

The year is 2090, man and the internet have merged into a new being, one that needs a dopamine hit every 10 seconds or else it will die. You must speed through multiple levels slaying and crushing the skulls of dastardly robots while being live-streamed to millions. Your goal is to save the popular ‘streamer’ princess being held hostage by some billionaire robots.

The narrative while straightforward was quirky and unique, making me excited to see how it would progress over time. I cannot stress enough how much I loved this game from its opening premise to the very end sequence.

Long story short, try to complete each level as quickly as you can while also keeping the audience entertained by killing things. When you kill enemies, the audience gives you likes which also gives you more time.

Your life is only 10 seconds so destroy those bots and most importantly look good while doing it. To start, the controls are super easy to learn. Apart from your normal WASD to move and LMB to shoot, you can also dash with SHIFT, kick or do a finisher with RMB and throw with R if you have a weapon.

The movement feels super clean and responsive as I dash around the room hacking and slashing with my katana and kicking robots into fans or explosive barrels. The starting level enemies are somewhat easy as you learn the movement of the game and what you can do but they do amp up in difficulty as you get further into the chapter or higher levels.

The boss fights are something else too. The final level of each chapter has a boss fight in this arena-like area. Each boss is different and unique in attack patterns; again, getting more difficult as you progress.

There are power-ups you can get after each level such as speed boosts, ‘nut’ shots that give you a little extra time if you hit them and weapons like shotguns, SMGs, katanas or plasma guns. If you die, however, not only do you restart the chapter from the beginning, lose all these power-ups and start with your revolver. You can choose a permanent power-up at the end of each chapter that you keep though which is a bonus. While it is only single-player, I found there was enough material to keep me entertained for hours from getting my best time to just trying to kill everything on each level.

Graphically, my oh my does this game look amazing. The bright bold colours and clean crisp graphics make it so enjoyable to stick my knife through a robot’s skull; a perfect contrast to the violence that ensues. Mullet Mad Jack gives me all the vibes from the 80s and 90s that I so very much wished I got to be there for myself.

The splashes of neon and sharp edges piercing the scenery in the boss fights provided a very classic anime look. If you are a fan of ‘Cowboy Bebop’ or ‘Urusei Yatsura’, I have no doubt you will absolutely love this game from the graphics alone.

The soundtrack and overall effects in Mullet Mad Jack are also a very notable mention. The gunshots and slashing from the swords are very precise and arcade-like, providing nothing but satisfaction when kicking a robot into a fan and watching it disintegrate with a crunch. The soundtrack was also very retro/synth wave-like and made me reminisce about the days of ‘Knight Rider’. You know, the days when David Hasselhoff graced our screens and ‘REO

Speedwagon’ was blasting on repeat. The graphics and sound paired together built the perfect atmosphere for running and hacking your way to the end of a level.

To sum up, Mullet Mad Jack is my favourite game of 2024 so far. Its simple yet effective gameplay and graphics and sound had me hooked for hours; playing with any spare time I had. The power-ups and challenging aspect of not wanting to die and lose all my progress had me break a sweat but it was genuinely a fun time. Even the soundtrack had me busting a groove in my chair while also providing a rhythmic feel while slaying robots.

Mullet Mad Jack is definitely a game to keep an eye on and I am very excited to see what the developers have in store for the future. Till then, keep slaying those robots, save the princess and importantly look damn stylish while doing it.

Written by: Larry