Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Dr. Muto

Written by Adam Woolcott on March 14, 2003

Full Review: MorphingЕinto mediocrity!

While 2002 was a pretty solid year for games all-around, the strongest genre of last year was easily the action/platformer genre. Thanks to excellent PS2 platformers like Sly Cooper and Ratchet & Clank, along with the return of Mario on the GameCube, platform games took center stage as high-quality entertainment. Unfortunately, this also means there was a glut of uninspired games of this vein hoping to capitalize on the success of the quality titles. Such is the case with Midway's Dr. Muto Ц while the concept is creative with the whole morphing process & emphasis on action as well as platform jumping is a nice departure for the genre, the execution is haphazard at best, resulting in a game that looks good and plays pretty well, but is so incredibly boring that it's not really worth bothering with unless you're the die-hardest of the die-hard platform fanatics.

Dr. Muto's story tells the tale of, who else, Dr. Muto Ц a mad scientist guy who's created all sorts of unusual gadgets & despite being a complete psycho, is considered a genius as well. However, one of the Doctor's inventions, that was supposed to help conserve energy for his home planet of Midway (ha, ha, ha), goes awry and instead turns planet Midway into planet Alderaan, only without old man Obi-Wan feeling a disturbance in the force. Living on a small island of the remains of Midway, Muto starts looking for a way to re-assemble the planet (ah, I bet Luke Skywalker wished the force could re-assemble Alderaan), and finds a particular device to accomplish this task. Unfortunately, according to his computer AI, named Al (who is, by the way, a complete retard), he has to go around different planets around Midway to find the pieces to assemble the device and save his planet & and save his own name which is beyond being drug through the mud, and is now being drug through vats of human waste. And so, your journey begins on a quest to re-build the world (no, I didn't just break into a Dark Cloud review).

While Dr. Muto is classified as a platform game, it can be argued that it's more of an action/adventure. It does have a vast array of platform elements, but it's an afterthought (read: it's not like the platform aspects are particularly challenging), as opposed to the different action/collecting elements, which are the main focus. Dr. Muto not only runs around collecting pieces for his device, he's also collecting Isotopes, acquiring enemy DNA, and keeping his health high by collecting heart pieces. There is no hopping and bopping enemies that platform games are known for, but the Dr. has a device to electrocute enemies (well, more like stun them, and it's necessary for some enemies as you'll learn while playing), and a beam/ray thing that blows stuff up.

What ends up being the lone creative point in the game is the whole morphing process. As you play into the game, Dr. Muto acquires new things to morph into as he goes along, and sometimes they're very necessary to advance. The Dr. can morph into a mouse, a gorilla, a fly, and many other different creatures. Sometimes they'll get you through tight spaces, other times gives you more strength to knock off tougher enemies. In a game that was a lot better tuned and more interesting, this would be a very, very cool thing Ц instead with Dr. Muto, it's a fun diversion in an otherwise boring game.

As always, at the end of the day, a game has to be fun to be any good. In Dr. Muto's case, it's lacking all that and more. Playing through the levels is tedious and boring, as most of the aspects in the game are nothing new and doesn't do anything to improve on what's already been done. The platforming aspects, as mentioned, are extremely easy, and since so much of the game is a fetch-quest item hunt, repetition sets in pretty quickly. It doesn't help that the game is lacking an overall challenge Ц it's not hard at all to probably blow through this game in a day or 2, if you can stand the boredom long enough.

At the very least, the controls are pretty solid, but a bit touchy Ц Muto keeps moving for a second after you stop him, and the camera controls are difficult at first when aligning a good angle (it goes a bit farther off than you want it to go, and doesn't stop right away). It's not all bad though, as the scheme is intuitive and works pretty well despite the touchiness.

Visually, Dr. Muto does a pretty good job, though it could still use some work. The game is pretty dark by default, so seeing things can be a pretty difficult task in places. Besides that, the game is detailed well with a cartoony edge to all the characters, who look the part well. While nothing really stands out (like the rest of the game, actually), it's not an ugly game by any means, but not one of the PS2's best either.

The audio is sparse, but not too bad Ц the voice acting is cartoony and somewhat silly & stereotypical (Al is a drone like talker, figures for an AI, and Muto sounds completely unintelligible), but is never bad given the plot and direction of the game. Other stuff like sound effects are sampled from many places (I about pissed when I heard the same alarm sample as used in Splinter Cell). The in-game music actually sounds like something out of a Gex game, and as such I have to say I like it (when do we get a new Gex game, anyway?!).