2026 Special - Ex-Mutants

The year is 2055 and Earth has been decimated by World War III. If that wasn't enough, radiation and some sort of weird virus have mutated the remaining humans. Mankind's only hope lies in the hands of cyborg scientist Kildare and his Ex-Mutants. Utilizing highly advanced regenerative processes, Kildare is able to transform mutants back into their former selves. Unsurprisingly, he's made a lot of enemies in the mutant community. One particularly rude individual by the name of Sluggo has kidnapped four of the six Ex-Mutants. As Ackroyd or Shannon, it's your job to rescue the team, land a decisive blow on the mutant empire, and recover enough power cells to keep Kildare's laboratory running.

"Oh my God!"

Regardless of how I feel about Ex-Mutants, any game that pulls half as much shit as I'm about to discuss deserves to be flung down an empty corridor and stomped until it's dust. This action-platformer is - and I don't use this this description lightly - a crime against nature. A group of people woke up one morning with the desire to create a video game that inflicts pain. Look. I don't even have to share my opinion. If the rest of the review was just an objective list of everything that occurs in a typical play-through, you'd say "This sounds fucking horrifying." while dramatically falling out of your chair. 

The first stage begins much like any other. Shannon runs, jumps, climbs ladders, and bashes mutants with her nunchaku. Navigating a labyrinth of wall-mounted lasers and secret rooms placed behind destructible walls, she'll inevitably trip over the standard array of power-ups. Logs and shuriken add projectiles to the melee attack while bombs provide some explosive effect. Unfortunate souls who decide to stick with this game should keep both eyes out for rarities, such as 1ups, power cells, and the health extending "E". 

Almost every subsequent stage follows the same format. Shannon performs the same actions, dodges the same array of traps, and even bashes the same mutants. Instead of wall-mounted lasers, a cave features wall-mounted statues that spit fire. In the jungle, pipes embedded in the wall fire bolts at bored Ex-Mutants. The further you get in this game, the blander and more predictable it becomes. Average mutants can't escape it either. Even if their shapes change, their powers hardly ever deviate from "stretchy limbs" or "throws rocks". I hate to say it, but there is comfort in repetition. At least I don't have to worry about encountering something new. Who knows what emotional damage can occur when that happens.

Sewer stage... jfc

...This game suffers from Taz-Mania syndrome. I seriously never imagined such a thing could happen, yet here we are. Taz-Mania syndrome is when a video game manages to have both a mine-cart stage and a floating-log stage. That's two unforgivable sins in one sandwich. Unsurprisingly, both stages have mechanics explicitly purposed to wrong players and ruin their weekends. Due to the speed and momentum of being propelled by a platform on wheels, a mistimed jump is enough to send Shannon flying to her doom. Getting shot at by catapults, pelted by birds, blasted by large fish, and badgered by men with large fists. These are all incidents made exponentially more annoying due to an inexplicable fog that has blanketed the river. And you know damn well that there aren't any checkpoints in these obnoxious stages. Amusingly, Shannon will give players a little pep talk if they lose several lives to the cart or log. She'll even congratulate the few who persevere. 

What's most damning of all is that as much as I hate them, I have to admit that these two stages probably wouldn't even make the top ten of a "Worst mine-cart and/or log-ride" list. They might as well be Donkey Kong Country next to the likes of Cut-Throat Island or Taz-Mania. Still, a lot of work went into something inherently awful, while the meat of the game suffers from repetition and asset reskins. That's not even the worst of it either, because we've just arrived at the part of the review where I complain about bosses.

In the second jungle stage, you'll have to fight a bat. Do you see him? He's in the picture directly above. Oh, my bad. I should've mentioned that there isn't an honest method for defeating this winged prick. He's too fast and durable for an Ex-Mutant. The only strategy - which I stumbled upon by accident - is to trick his dumb ass into flying off-screen and then mash the attack button until he's mashed into paste. Funny thing about the protagonists is that they don't have any invulnerability after taking damage. Yep. It's another unforgivable sin on a sandwich that no sane person would even dare to nibble. 

I shouldn't have to tell you that getting pricked and prodded into oblivion by damn near everything turns an unremarkable slog into an unbearable slog. However, we're still not quite done yet. Sluggo is a serious asshole that buries the screen in projectiles, sometimes creating scenarios where it's impossible to avoid damage. Neither him nor any of the bosses have a rhythm, so all you really can do is run, strike the sluggish fuck 2 or 3 times, then try to dodge all the trash that rains from the sky. I'd tell you that this finale isn't any fun, but anything resembling fun hasn't occurred in the entire rest of the game, so... idk. 

What really damns Ex-Mutants is its brutal mundanity. The worst moments almost feel quaint, which makes me hate them even more. I needed something catastrophically awful in order to feel whole again. Instead, I was treated to something that commits every game-design crime imaginable, but in ways that made me think it wasn't THAT bad. No! It is THAT bad! Gabriel, my dude, what are you doing here? Have you spent so long in the bowels of hell that the flames don't feel warm anymore? You swallowed the triple-decker unforgettable sin sandwich and didn't even flinch? Yuko, don't just stand there saying "Oh my god!" tell Gabe that somebody loves him. Tell him that... oh what's the use... Man's just going to dig up something even worse in the future.   

"Oh my god!"