| Back in the day, there was always one guy at the arcade who could milk a single quarter on the pinball machine for hours, racking up replays and extra games like he was ordering another round. Along came Space Invaders, Defender and Pac-Man, and a new breed was born - the electronic warrior who could conquer level after level of computer games with mind-numbing regularity. The pinball wizard of Tommy fame gave way to Tron and The Last Starfighter. But the hero status allotted the new breed was just as strong.
The popularity of arcade games has remained a constant, and many a game engineer cut his or her teeth designing these simple, yet challenging masterpieces. For my money, the newest in this long line is Mutant Storm from PoMPoM and Garage Games.
PoMPoM is a two-man shop in the U.K., and their first title, SpaceTripper, was a clever little shooter with some interface issues. Basically, the problem was that it wasn’t playable with a mouse. That problem is now overcome, and Mutant Storm is incredibly easy to get going.
Simplicity is the key to Mutant Storm. The goal is to wipe out mutants and score points, period. It’s a top-down view of your humble ship, encircled by menacing mutants creeping ever closer. You occupy the center and stay there - no moving around like in Asteroids, no sliding side to side like Space Invaders. You fire away, and they keep coming.
To add variety and intrigue, like any good arcade game, Mutant Storm contains a wealth of power-ups, bonuses, multipliers and belts that signify difficulty levels. There are 89 levels, rich in variety, and you can literally play for hours.
For example, I was feeling pretty good, after several games, about clearing the first four levels. I reached a plateau, routinely getting wiped out after scoring about 40,000 points. After more time than I care to admit, I paused and checked out the link to the Web site where gamers have uploaded their high scores. That was when I went back in time, and again felt like the kid at the back of the crowd staring in at some god-like pro racking up unbelievable scores while sipping a code and chatting with his girl friend.
The highest score at the brag page at PoMPoM Games (http://www.pompom.org.uk/showscore.php) that I saw was posted by AID and totaled something like 156 million points, clearing more than 500 levels and playing for almost 240 minutes. Four hours on a single game! Humbled, I returned with a vengeance and while I got better, fast, I still felt pretty small.
Enough testimonial and back to the review. As for aesthetics, I found the sound track to be engaging and rich, with deep thumping bass rumbles and rich explosions accompanying my cannon blasts. Destructive sequences were bright and satisfying. The absence of music is easily overcome by firing up your own selections.
The graphics are also excellent, which was surprising for such a small, 13MB download from the Garage Games site (http://www.garagegames.com). Bright lights, detailed backgrounds and interesting level constructions all added up to a tight little game. But there isn’t a lot of time to enjoy the scenery when there is so much blasting to do.
What really spurred me was the simple, elegant interface. I was scoring within a second of starting the game for the first time. No tutorial, no training wheels - just plopped into the action with guns blazing. The mouse works fine for control, although there were times when I had trouble aiming at mutants that managed to creep right next to me. Fortunately, they aren’t too smart in the lower levels and they tend to stop and wait for oblivion.
Basically you trace a circle, blasting away with the left click button for all you’re worth. Ammo is unlimited. I don’t know if your wrist will feel the effects of tracing small circles after an hour or two - a joystick may come in handy.
Power-ups come in these flavors:
1. Three-way cannon that shoots three beams - about 45 degrees left, dead center-and 45 degrees right 2. Big fat laser that carves a nice path through the mutants 3. Homing missile - fire and forget 4. Barbed spinners that briefly churn through the mutants 5. Permanent shield to protect your ship
Whenever the player dies, the screen starts to sway from side to side, which was annoying at first but I got used to it. Getting the hang of when to use a room-clearing smart bomb is key - you want to wait until death is imminent, but they are so darned handy.
Other than that, it is all very simple. Extra lives come every 10th level. There is a multiplayer option for systems with two gamepads, and the designers even have code for OSX and Linux. Admittedly, I have a soft spot in my heart for independent game makers such as Garage Games, and it doesn’t hurt that they are situated in Eugene, Oregon, where I went to school. And maybe I just needed a good blast-a-thon to lift my spirits. Whatever the reason, I liked this game for its simplicity, its true-to-the-roots, retro feel, and its playability. The only thing I miss is the ability to peer over the shoulder of some god-like player while he schools the rest of us rubes in how to master a game. | 
