The Return of the Wacky Shooter

The goal of the modern PC shooter seems to be to give the user the feeling of what it's really like to go on a killing spree. With the success of Quake and its 3-D engine, which lets players roam through a monochromatic universe killing soldiers, cartoony shooters like Duke Nukem 3D and Blood disappeared. Since then, only kid-oriented fare such as Earthworm Jim 3D and Rayman 2 has had the silly touch. The current state of games is represented by Soldier of Fortune, where you can shoot a man in the hand, head or crotch, and Tomb Raider 4, where elegant shadowing effects are as impressive as the heroine's outsize bust. But now Interplay brings us Bioware's MDK2, a very silly shooter for adults.

In MDK2 (available for the PC and for the Dreamcast) you alternately play as a superhero janitor, a six legged gun-toting dog and an "eccentric" scientist as they battle the alien horde, headed by a shades-wearing, 100-foot-tall creature who purrs "Who's your daddy?" as he flicks you into the void with his fingertip.

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