Mutant Mudds

Mutants always seem to draw the short straw. Even though mutation is what allows natural selection to occur, mutants are often portrayed as the bad guys (X-Men being one of the only counter-examples we can think of).

To be fair, though, some mutants have it coming - particularly those who come to Earth and try to kill everyone.

Mutant Mudds, available from the Nintendo 3DS eShop, is a retro-styled platformer with visuals and a difficulty curve to match. It can be too unforgiving at times, but there's still a solid downloadable title to be found.

Aliens have come down to Earth and are creating huge problems for the human race. Fortunately, as is usually the case in video games, there's a lone hero who is ready to mop them all up with his laser gun of doom.

Mutant Mudds asks you to jump, hover, and blast your way through dozens of tricky platforming levels, with the goal of collecting tokens, finding secret entrances, and blasting big blob monsters. You've also got special upgrades to use later into the game to reach areas you couldn't get to previously.

The action feels like something you might have played on the Sega Master System, with situations that demand quick reactions and tight movements. It'll take you many, many hours to beat every level, as you'll need to attack worlds several times before you manage to succeed.

There's a serious amount of content packed into Mutant Mudds, too, in the form of secret levels and objectives. The secret levels in particular are the highlight of the game, featuring even more difficult action and less of a focus on collecting things.

Mutant Mudds is occasionally delightful and always enjoyable - especially when you're asked to jump between three different planes, bringing the action close to the screen or pushing it farther away. Having your view hindered by an oncoming section of level is regularly entertaining, rather than a nuisance.

However, Mutant Mudds is perhaps a little too retro for its own good, with controls that can prove irksome.

You hover with your jetpack by tapping 'jump' while in the air, but it often feels very awkward to pull off the exact moves that the game requires, such as falling and then hovering at the last moment.

This wouldn't be too big a deal were it not for instakill obstacles such as spikes. Being taken all the way back to the start of a level due to controls that you simply can't wrap your head around becomes tiresome.

The level design varies in quality, too. For the most part it's solid, with quick reactions your main weapon, but in the later levels there are certain obstacles that are just too tricky to bypass.

For example, there are clouds positioned on platforms that will blow you into the foreground, but working out the timing between jumping from cloud to cloud can be excruciating.

Add to that some underwhelming stereoscopic 3D and Mutant Mudds isn't as brilliant as it could have been. Still, if you're looking for a good eShop download to help pass a few evenings, look no further.