Mullet Mad Jack Review – Save the girl, save the world

Often developers tend to add complicated mechanics to make their game stand out. Most of the time, this works against them because players don’t fully understand what the game is trying to convey. However, for the topic at hand with Mullet Mad Jack, this is very much the opposite. Mullet Mad Jack is a short, simple, and over-the-top game and this review should help you get off the fence.

Moderate this!

The story — or premise of Mullet Mad Jack is surprisingly well done. Set in the future where robot billionaires have taken over. These billionaires hire Moderators (Jack) to give a constant supply of dopamine to the AI to keep it alive. How is this done you may ask? By killing other robots. But the catch is you’re on a 10-second timer, otherwise, you die. However, while this is a goal of Jack, the main motivation is saving a streaming princess inside a tower block. 

Think of it as streaming on Twitch. The Moderators ban the bots to save to stream, and the AI are the stream’s viewers. This game is an extreme version of that. 

Mullet Mad Jack’s story may not be the center point of the game, but it does a great job and justifying itself by how powerful it can make you feel. I was motivated to keep on going to save the princess because of how fun and simple the story was. Each time you beat a level, the princess awaits you, but it’s a ruse. Every time she’s pushed up a level, forcing you to keep going. The story isn’t the centerpiece of Mullet Mad Jack which works in this case. The gameplay plays a larger role and is the main course. The story being not as important works just fine in this case.

No fat, no filler, all fun

Gameplay of Mullet Mad Jack is where the real meat is. As my colleague puts it, the game is like if Neon White, Hades, and Cyberpunk 2077 had a baby. That’s probably the best way to sell the game to someone. The moment you start the game, Mullet Mad Jack does not let you breathe, and you will be thankful for that. Everything gets thrown at you right out of the gates. From there, it gets so much harder. 

So let’s dig into the rich and surprisingly deep gameplay.

First, as you enter a level, you’ll see a device on your left hand with a timer, and a gun or sword on your right. The device on the right hand is your health with 10 seconds being counted down. That’s right, time replaces health. If you get shot, your time goes down. To replenish it, you must get a kill. Depending on what difficulty you’re on, this can be anywhere around one second or four seconds per kill. But if you find an item such as a knife, book, hammer, or other objects and smash a robot in the face, your time refills to ten seconds.  

What I like about this mechanic, is that you can strategize when you want to use it. I made it a rule only to use the items whenever the time was at three seconds. When attacking a robot but stuffing its throat with an item, I get time back. It helps give you a second wind and rebuilds momentum.

I like this system. It forces you to play aggressively. If you slow down or turn around, that’s a death sentence. As long as you have some powerful weapons, maintaining the 10 seconds throughout the level should be easy. 

Weapons are great they can help out a lot, but upgrades, now they matter way more. In between each level, you get a selection of three things to pick from, one weapon and two upgrades. You can pick whichever, but you can only select one. These choices you get add permanent modifiers to you as long as you don’t die. You can earn upgrades like adding health or giving you the chance to dual-wield weapons. In other words, upgrades are going to be your best friend. On top of that, at the end of each stage, you get a permanent upgrade. This could be something like letting you upgrade weapons or allowing you to reroll your options at those aforementioned checkpoints. 

It’s a way to create a playstyle for you as you progress in Mullet Mad Jack. It kept me engaged because I was thinking about what upgrades I wanted to get and use and how they could help me. Keeping you as a player active and always figuring out what upgrades matter and what don’t can help with the immersion. 

Let’s talk about the level design. During the first four stages, I was going to give it a downvote, however, I may have been premature with my judgment. I’m glad I waited till beating Mullet Mad Jack to make a decision for the review. As you play, you may start to notice that many levels look the same. That might sound like a downer, but it’s what you do during the levels that can help its case. The games make no effort to make levels stand out from one another, and that’s fine. The chaos you cause by shooting and killing robots from you chaining your attacks will be a priority. Which results in the level design taking a back seat.

 Additionally, the level design is simple but it works. Just like the story, how the levels look is secondary because the combat for example is the main focus. There were moments when I was more focused on clearing the level as fast as I could and that made me not worry about the design. If a game does that and leans into the main attractions in this case the combat, that’s already a plus for me. 

Gameplay for Mullet Mad Jack is another highlight. Just like the level design, I started feeling stagnant around the end of the fourth level, but at that moment the game threw a wrench at me. This came in the form of things like new enemy types. Just when you’re feeling comfortable with the meta of the shooter, it turns on a dime. For example, the first new enemy type I encountered had a shield. You have to take out the shield before taking him out. As you can tell, time is not on your side. So you have to strategize how you’re going to deal with that, or you can just outright run past him. Whenever the game threw curveballs at me like a new enemy to deal with, that kept me on my toes.

Since Mullet Mad Jack plays like a rogue-like, when you die you start over. However, when you restart, the layout of the level is changed. This means checkpoints have been moved around, items won’t appear where they were last, and the level itself might be a little longer. If you’re thinking about having a plan for the level, good luck, it’s going to be impossible because of how everything shifts. This aspect I enjoy. It helps keep things new and you aware of what’s going on. Because of those changes, you have to diversify how you play. Plus, while certain sections appear twice, I didn’t notice that as much because of what I was doing at the level. My main goal was to get past the stage.

Rhythm keeps you alive

Music for Mullet Mad Jack needs its own section. The 90s aesthetic that the game is set in feels better with the synth-wave and chiptunes soundtrack. The electronica music is a good driver. While you don’t have to stay on the beat or go with the music, I did. That helps the momentum making it easier to push forward. Momentum just the upgrades is important, it can help your weapons do more damage. Every shot you take every robot you punch in the face gets amplified by the beat which results in you feeling the groove. When that happens, mowing down the robot army has an energetic feel to it. You may try to match the pace of the song which could make you a threat.

As you start playing, I highly suggest you put the music slightly louder than the game’s volume. The music can help you quickly get into the rhythm and tempo. It’ll come in handy when things get faster near the end of each stage. 

Mullet Mad Jack is a great game for on-the-go. It might be compatible with the Steam Deck.