As a vintage gamer who has seen the evolution of the industry from the days of Pong till now, I’ve seen a lot of crazy things and weathered a ton of different gaming revolutions. All that said, as much as I love video games, I do deeply appreciate titles that have the nerve to target sacred cows and have some fun with them, especially when you can appreciate the fact that it’s all done with love. Mullet Madjack absolutely fits that bill, and if you grew up in an era of going to your local Electronics Boutique, Babbages, or even Toys R Us to look at all of the game boxes on the wall. If you remember going through those motions to help you make your purchasing decisions, you’ll want to take a moment to get a good laugh at the Unboxing option in the main menu before even getting started, as it sets the tone for the rest of the experience perfectly.

Channeling the game show vibes of the classic Smash TV or the cinematic one-liner extravaganza that was The Running Man, what immediately sets the tone is the anime-style announcer. With her twisted sense of humor, overly-excited delivery, and sharp comments that can sometimes sting, you immediately get the sense of just how ridiculous everything is likely to be. Your mission is thankfully pretty simple, and that’s to simply stay alive. The problem is that aside from dangerous environments and a load of enemies shooting at you, you’ll need to stay on the move, racking up kills in order to keep boosting your time to yourself from running out, since that will mean it’s game over. Thankfully your be-mulleted 90s action hero stand-in is just the guy for the job.

In terms of play, it should be no surprise that intensity is the name of the game here since the faster you can move through the level, killing everything in sight, the longer you’re likely to survive. What you’ll discover as you play is that there are loads of ways to take out your enemies other than shooting them, and aside from it simply being more fun to do things like kick enemies into giant fans or other traps, you’ll often get better bonuses for those kills as well. Also, while you’ll have the option as you choose your perks to get more powerful weapons, some of your other choices may better suit your play style or give you greater advantages the further you’re able to go. While this all makes for gameplay that people will likely either thoroughly enjoy or hate, I really love that the flow and style of play here is simply in a bonkers class of its own.