MDK

MDK is a 1997 third-person shooter video game developed by Shiny Entertainment for Windows and subsequently ported to Mac OS by Shokwave, and to the PlayStation by Neversoft. The game was published on all systems by Playmates Interactive Entertainment (PIE) in North America, while Shiny handled the European release. The game tells the story of Kurt Hectic, a janitor who reluctantly attempts to save Earth from an alien invasion of gigantic strip mining city-sized vehicles named "Minecrawlers". The Minecrawlers are ruthlessly harvesting Earth's natural resources and crushing any people and cities that get in their way. Assisted by his somewhat eccentric boss, Dr. Fluke Hawkins, an inventive scientist, and an unusual robotic companion named Bones, Kurt embarks on a quest to infiltrate each Minecrawler and eliminate its pilot. After accomplishing this dangerous task, he must return to Dr. Hawkins' in-orbit space station, the Jim Dandy. Conceived and co-designed by Nick Bruty, MDK was Shiny's first PC game, and was notable for using software rendering, requiring a Pentium or equivalent microprocessor, rather than necessitating any GPU enhancements, despite its large 3D levels and complex polygonal enemies. As the developers were attempting very ambitious things, they wrote their own programming language. Additionally, when in sniper mode, the player has the ability to zoom up to 100x, but the developers chose not to employ any of the standard solutions to pop-up, such as clipping or fogging. They also worked to ensure the game ran at a minimum of 30 fps at all times on all machines. The game's original system requirements were a 60 MHz Pentium, 16MB of RAM, 17MB of hard drive storage, an SVGA-compatible video card, and a Sound Blaster or equivalent sound card. MDK received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the gameplay, the level design, the sardonic sense of...