Ex-Mutants

Ex-Mutants reached the Sega Mega Drive in 1992 under Sega's own label, adapted from an American comic. The premise is thoroughly of its decade: the year is 2055, the planet is poisoned by radiation and viruses, and most of humanity has become mutated monsters. A scientist hopes to restore the species through six young people who resisted the mutation — except somebody has abducted four of them. Two are left.

You choose which of the pair goes out at the start. Ackroyd is slow and strong and fights with an axe, Shannon is fast, weaker, and swings nunchaku. The difference tells in play: Ackroyd puts enemies down sooner but dodges poorly, while Shannon is nimble and has to land far more hits. Oddly, the team members you free never become playable, which robs the game of an idea it was practically holding out.

Otherwise this is a straightforward side-scrolling action platformer across six stages. Alongside enemies there are lava pits, lasers, falling rocks and mines waiting for you, so you jump about as often as you fight. Progress is held together by collecting batteries that unlock further information from the scientist, and by the weapons found along the way. The controls are precise and dependable, which was far from guaranteed in platformers of the period.

The difficulty runs high, occasionally to the point of irritation. Ordinary enemies absorb more hits than you would expect, and the boss fights swing between learnable patterns and encounters where it is unclear what is being asked of you. The environments look good and are nicely detailed, while the music does its job and leaves nothing behind.

What remains is a decent platformer for a single run that does nothing wrong and nothing surprising either. Anyone who likes their Mega Drive action on the harsh side will not be bored. On oldgame.cz it launches straight in the browser.