Dr. Muto

Dr. Muto is Midway’s latest attempt to create a new franchise that can further establish the company as a high quality third party publisher that can make good non-sports titles. While the title has several problems, most notably, those found in other 3D platformers, Dr. Muto is an above average title but falls short of being a triple A title.

In Dr. Muto, you control the nerdy scientist with the same name. He wears big green glasses and sounds like a grown up version of Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory. Dr. Muto’s main weapon is a remote control that fires two types of rays. Each enemy responds differently to these rays and you will have to experiment to see what combination of rays destroy each enemy. In addition to the remote control, Dr. Muto can morph into different types of enemies. While you only have the ability to morph into a mouse at the beginning of the game, as you progress through the title, you will gain the ability to morph into a variety of creatures. At times, you are forced to be certain creatures. However, the vast majority of the time, you will be able to transform into these creatures at any time. But you probably won’t find them very useful. Perhaps a little fun at times–but just not very useful.

The goal in Dr. Muto is to recreate Planet Midway which has been destroyed by one of your experiments. To help in this quest is your computer guide, Al. He interjects with tips and strategies to help you throughout the course of the game. In order to recreate the planet Midway, you will have to collect pieces of a device called the genitor. These pieces are usually very easy to find once you get to a specific world. Once there, Al will interject and let you know where to collect the parts. As you gain more and more parts, you will then have the other planets opened up so you can visit them and collect the parts there.

Controlling Dr. Muto is pretty easy.
L1 strafes left
R1 strafes right
L2 brings up status
R2 centers camera behind character
Right thumbstick moves camera
Left thumbstick moves your character
Square captures
X jumps
Triangle morphs
Circle fires weapon
Clicking R2 goes into first person mode

The main control problem with the game is that the camera is absolutely horrible. While in most 3D platformers you will hear complaints about the camera, I doubt you will ever find a camera that is worse than the one in Dr. Muto. It never seems to be facing where you want it to and if you get close to a wall, the game will go in to a first person mode. While in a first person mode, your movement is limited and it can be very disorienting to return out of the first person mode–especially if you never initiated the first person mode to begin with.

Overall, there isn’t very much to get excited about in Dr. Muto. With just a little more development time, Midway could have released a great title. As it stands, the game is a pretty average platformer. Unfortunately, this year has seen a multitude of incredible platform titles released. However, if you are a fan of the genre or are looking for a new platformer to try, Dr. Muto is definitely worth a look.