Mohawk & Headphone Jack
released on Aug 31, 1996
Protean platform hero with attitude (well, with sunglasses) rocks out in this novel but forgotten would-be Sonic-killer, collecting CDs (this is pre-Napster, remember) and avoiding segmented slinkies and nasty robot bugs in disorienting mode 7 mazes with no constant "down". The boneless wonder (er, and his Walkman) pours himself into cracks, splatters against walls, curls into a defensive porcupine-koosh hybrid, always lands on his feet (by growing feet where his hands were!) and blasts apart into little jelly gibs as a special offensive attack. Gross. And as if a radical surferpunk made of snot wasn't cool enough to begin with, a power-up gives him a chopper wheel in place of feet. Dude is the hood ornament on his own motorbike! One- or two-player (nonsimultaneous).
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The following is a transcript of a video review which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/1L6E7T_a0Pc
The Super Nintendo library features a handful of games that push the system’s capabilities far beyond the perceived boundaries that most other developers worked within. The system’s Mode 7 function enabled some games to go beyond anything that had been done previously and create experiences that were unique to the platform. The ability to rotate large objects would allow developers to expand their platformer ideas, allowing for swinging platforms on the smaller scale, and entire gravity shifts if they were feeling experimental. One developer, led by a star programmer, would take advantage of the new features and push the console to the extreme. After the release of the first Bubsy game, Solid Software were awarded some freedom by Accolade and decided to make an attempt at a new, trendy mascot for themselves. And no other character is more appropriately late 90’s than Mo Hawk. Sporting a Walkman, some sunglasses and nothing else, Mo Hawk is condensed 90’s energy as a character. Solid Software had mathematically devised the perfect mascot for themselves and would implement that character into a mathematically appropriate platforming game. So while there are a lot of heavily calculated factors involved in Mohawk & Headphone Jack, and technological feats to be impressed by, does the game do anything more? Does Mo Hawk have something important to convey to the player, or is there something about the level designs and themes that mimic Sonic the Hedgehog’s environmentalist ideas? Was Mohawk & Headphone Jack created to be something beside a tech-demo or a Sonic copycat? And most importantly, is this game a secret Bubsy sequel?
Released in 1997, Mohawk & Headphone Jack tells the story of the evil General Headslot’s attack on Party Planet’s music collection and Mohawk’s adventure to get the collection back. The CDs had been scattered throughout the planet’s seven layers and the player must collect as many as they can, as well as battle a few of Headslot’s commanders to continue through the layers. Since the events are occurring beneath the planet’s surface, the gravitational forces that Mohawk will experience are constantly changing and the levels within the game reflect that by rotating around the character. This is where the game’s infamous motion sickness generation comes from. The game engages somewhere in the region of 32 gravitation directions and frequently utilises as many of them as possible, including frantically shifting between them. The Super Nintendo’s Mode 7 function was unmatched at the time, and most home PCs and the Mega Drive were not capable of replicating the unique aspects of this game. So while it is safe to say there was nothing exactly like Mohawk & Headphone Jack, the game does heavily borrow from it’s forebear.
Bubsy Bobcat made his first appearance in 1993’s Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, and the character has been marred by disinterest ever since. Bubsy’s original adventure was Accolade’s attempt at a mascot platformer of their own, hoping to capitalise on the popularity of Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. This first game emphasised collection and exploration and would be among the many early collect-a-thon style platformers. This amounted to yet another entry to the mascot-platformer-pile and Accolade were even stubborn enough to continue giving the go-ahead for more entries into the Bubsy franchise, ultimately resulting in the infamous Bubsy 3D in 1996. Meanwhile, those core attributes of Bubsy gameplay - the exploration and collection - were being expanded upon by one of Accolade’s development partners.
Mohawk & Headphone Jack levels are split by two overarching objectives, the first is to collect a number of CDs that causes a portal to open to the next level, and the second is to defeat a boss. Travelling throughout the entire level is almost mandatory while collecting CDs while the boss levels don’t require more than defeating the enemy. Mohawk has a fairly high top speed and the level can fly by if there aren’t any obstacles in the path. This rarely occurs, though, as every level is heavily populated by enemies that will force the player to slow down in order to deal with them. Initially, I found this quite frustrating as I wanted to zoom around the levels and avoid hazards instead of having to walk around hoping to avoid enemies. My opinion changed a bit on this as the game continued, but by about the fifth world my lenience had evaporated and I was just hoping the levels would open up for once. Mohawk has up to 5 health and two different attacks; a screen clear that requires ammo to use and totally not Sonic’s spin-dash. Strangely, this spikey ball form cannot be held indefinitely so the player can’t just roll around at the speed of sound, although there are many places to go and there is certainly a rainbow to follow. The ball attack also sits right in the middle of the game’s attack hierarchy so Mohawk can attack through some projectiles, but things like fire will always hit through the spikes. Mohawk also has two different types of jump which might seem unnecessary at first but that lower jump does come in quite handy throughout a lot of tight, perilous platforming sections. Landing on the edges of those platforms can be a pretty aggravating death sentence so the player has to make sure, safe movements at almost all times. There are also a number of powerups to utilise while exploring a level, ranging from underwater breathing to flight. Flight is rather challenging within the gravitational changes and can result in some of the worst screen flipping in the game.
Levels in Mohawk & Headphone Jack are gigantic and often packed with smaller platforming challenges and extreme geography. Their sizes make finding one’s way and remembering where one has been difficult, and the ease of getting lost is often exacerbated by the lack of effective landmarks and visual distinction. Flying through this big grey, circular room could lead to having to complete multiple laps and I did find that I was frequently having to do that. Sometimes the levels include lock and key scenarios too and these would often be the least convenient they could be. I spent upwards of 40 minutes within one attempt at a level because it required returning back to the same place three separate times. And I had a map to follow. And whoever thought 7-2 was acceptable needs some form of therapy. What the hell. Most stages in the game contain a system of pipes that Mohawk can squeeze into to be slowly transported around. Some of these pipes are impossibly absurd. 2-1 contains 2 separate pipes that take more than a minute to finish. The player has to sit and watch Mohawk spinning around in these pipes for some unbelievable lengths of time. Some levels have very similar mechanics which just teleport Mohawk to the exit. I can hardly understand any reason to do this deliberately. And if you didn’t think it could be more tedious, 7-2, the final level in the game, uses the pipes as a maze. The map I found ran out of alphabetical labels for the entries and exits, it then ran out of single digit number labels, and managed to get to Am in just pipe entrance and exit labels. That’s 50 labels. Excluding the 18 teleporter labels. And I had a map. What were kids supposed to do in 1997? And I didn’t even get into the secret areas!
Mode Seven allowed for some very unique functions and became even more important with the implementation of the Super FX chip, but embracing new technology blindly doesn’t always result in something valuable. While the inclusion of the background rotation is fascinating, a handful of accommodations would have gone a long way to making that spinning tolerable. Falling through a transition or entering a tight space with a flight powerup can cause a lot of rotations to trigger in quick succession and if it were possible to put a limit on the number of rotations that could occur in that time I think that would have made those instances less disorientating and more bearable. Similarly, scripting transitions through environments would mean that the view of Mohawk would always be consistent and it would make progress through levels predictable and clear. Currently, the level design favours wide rooms with very little gravity implementation or narrow halls filled with hazards and regular gravity changes, so scripting a camera within these layouts would likely do little to help the problems. But those scripted camera changes would offer some form of landmark for the player to use as a breadcrumb. Because most of the worlds rarely feature much in the way of visual luxuries.
I enjoy some janky visuals and I’m always happy to look at pixel art, but they sure did pick some colours for this game. Mohawk & Headphone Jack features some interesting palette choices. Most of the levels are grey with some accent colours, and I suppose this is thematically appropriate, although the themes are really hard to see if you don’t know the names of the levels. The non-grey levels are brown, or purple, or… Oh no! This palette is a crime. Whatever artistic idea this is supposed to convey has been totally overshadowed by the sheer eyesore. I don’t even see how this represents “Guts”. That stereotypical 90’s aesthetic never features palettes like this. Their design algorithm was way off. There is a strange secondary issue with the palettes in that the enemies of most levels will use the same colours. Camouflaging the enemies makes the exploration even slower and Mohawk’s high speed even less applicable. And those enemy designs are subpar. This game features a desolate selection of sprite-sheet animation, almost every enemy is a collection of rotating shapes which makes them quite uninteresting to engage with and very easy to forget. Unfortunately, the bosses aren’t much better.
There are 8 total bosses throughout the game, and while one is repeated it has been altered significantly to seem like a new encounter. The Walker, the Tiki, the Octopus, the Orb, the Parasite, the Lava Surfer, and the Brain are all encountered within the second half of every world while General Headslot is the final encounter and occurs immediately after defeating the Brain. I defeated the Orb and the Parasite on my first attempts, the Octopus didn’t take much more than a handful, and every other boss was as challenging as the rest of the game. The Walker has a surprisingly wide range of attacks to throw at the player that can be fairly difficult to deal with when getting to grips with the controls. Somehow, when the player encounters General Headslot at the game’s conclusion, this battle is still tough. I think quite positively of these encounters, although their visual spectacle is quite lacking. The Tiki and the Lava Surfer were the largest hurdles for me to cross, as I just wasn’t able to enter the battles with a sufficient plan of attack and enough health to concoct one. It was possible to kind of aggress onto the Walker and win, so when the Tiki refused to be taken down by this strategy I had to reassess my approach to combating the higher tier enemies. The Lava Surfer is more of an endurance test that gets kind of boring after a while. The player must dodge the dolphins before getting to take a swing at the boss, and then the boss leaves the safe area so the player has to wait for them to come back. The Brain, the Orb, and the Parasite have very little in the way of dangerous attacks so the player can often sit right on top of them and continually deal damage. Overall, I think the bosses are decent but nothing noteworthy. They almost never use the game’s unique aspects within the fights but they aren’t disasters for it.
The game is very much a disaster, though. Ignoring the gravitation mechanic, the levels and the enemies are just lackluster. Shapeless, characterless blobs to run around and hope to not be killed by. And they will kill the player. Every time some flow arrives or some wacky geography appears, there’ll be some hazard ahead to spoil the momentum. The defining mechanic is a great concept, but it hasn’t been executed in a satisfactory way here. There’s too much danger for the chaos to be truly enjoyable which is especially disappointing for me because this kind of wild shit is exactly my thing. If you were ever curious about how Super Mario Galaxy would work on the Super Nintendo, then it’s worth playing the first level or two. For a casual playthrough, you’d have a better time with a lot of other games.
In the end, Mohawk and Headphone Jack has proven to be critically and artistically shallow, amounting to little more than a Bubsy spin-off with an AI generated 90’s skin stretched over it. Someone at Solid Software heard about Mode 7 and decided to pitch it as a game, without much consideration for any of the other factors that the game would include. Mohawk is just Sonic but slightly more naked. The levels are just Sonic levels without the flair. The player collects shapes and a developer said they could be CDs instead of balls of yarn and that was the entire narrative development up until someone had to write the manual. There’s very little to like about this game, but I’m happy I played it. I haven’t been so excited to finish a game in a long time.
This was a tough video to write, hopefully the next one won’t be so challenging.
The Super Nintendo library features a handful of games that push the system’s capabilities far beyond the perceived boundaries that most other developers worked within. The system’s Mode 7 function enabled some games to go beyond anything that had been done previously and create experiences that were unique to the platform. The ability to rotate large objects would allow developers to expand their platformer ideas, allowing for swinging platforms on the smaller scale, and entire gravity shifts if they were feeling experimental. One developer, led by a star programmer, would take advantage of the new features and push the console to the extreme. After the release of the first Bubsy game, Solid Software were awarded some freedom by Accolade and decided to make an attempt at a new, trendy mascot for themselves. And no other character is more appropriately late 90’s than Mo Hawk. Sporting a Walkman, some sunglasses and nothing else, Mo Hawk is condensed 90’s energy as a character. Solid Software had mathematically devised the perfect mascot for themselves and would implement that character into a mathematically appropriate platforming game. So while there are a lot of heavily calculated factors involved in Mohawk & Headphone Jack, and technological feats to be impressed by, does the game do anything more? Does Mo Hawk have something important to convey to the player, or is there something about the level designs and themes that mimic Sonic the Hedgehog’s environmentalist ideas? Was Mohawk & Headphone Jack created to be something beside a tech-demo or a Sonic copycat? And most importantly, is this game a secret Bubsy sequel?
Released in 1997, Mohawk & Headphone Jack tells the story of the evil General Headslot’s attack on Party Planet’s music collection and Mohawk’s adventure to get the collection back. The CDs had been scattered throughout the planet’s seven layers and the player must collect as many as they can, as well as battle a few of Headslot’s commanders to continue through the layers. Since the events are occurring beneath the planet’s surface, the gravitational forces that Mohawk will experience are constantly changing and the levels within the game reflect that by rotating around the character. This is where the game’s infamous motion sickness generation comes from. The game engages somewhere in the region of 32 gravitation directions and frequently utilises as many of them as possible, including frantically shifting between them. The Super Nintendo’s Mode 7 function was unmatched at the time, and most home PCs and the Mega Drive were not capable of replicating the unique aspects of this game. So while it is safe to say there was nothing exactly like Mohawk & Headphone Jack, the game does heavily borrow from it’s forebear.
Bubsy Bobcat made his first appearance in 1993’s Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, and the character has been marred by disinterest ever since. Bubsy’s original adventure was Accolade’s attempt at a mascot platformer of their own, hoping to capitalise on the popularity of Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. This first game emphasised collection and exploration and would be among the many early collect-a-thon style platformers. This amounted to yet another entry to the mascot-platformer-pile and Accolade were even stubborn enough to continue giving the go-ahead for more entries into the Bubsy franchise, ultimately resulting in the infamous Bubsy 3D in 1996. Meanwhile, those core attributes of Bubsy gameplay - the exploration and collection - were being expanded upon by one of Accolade’s development partners.
Mohawk & Headphone Jack levels are split by two overarching objectives, the first is to collect a number of CDs that causes a portal to open to the next level, and the second is to defeat a boss. Travelling throughout the entire level is almost mandatory while collecting CDs while the boss levels don’t require more than defeating the enemy. Mohawk has a fairly high top speed and the level can fly by if there aren’t any obstacles in the path. This rarely occurs, though, as every level is heavily populated by enemies that will force the player to slow down in order to deal with them. Initially, I found this quite frustrating as I wanted to zoom around the levels and avoid hazards instead of having to walk around hoping to avoid enemies. My opinion changed a bit on this as the game continued, but by about the fifth world my lenience had evaporated and I was just hoping the levels would open up for once. Mohawk has up to 5 health and two different attacks; a screen clear that requires ammo to use and totally not Sonic’s spin-dash. Strangely, this spikey ball form cannot be held indefinitely so the player can’t just roll around at the speed of sound, although there are many places to go and there is certainly a rainbow to follow. The ball attack also sits right in the middle of the game’s attack hierarchy so Mohawk can attack through some projectiles, but things like fire will always hit through the spikes. Mohawk also has two different types of jump which might seem unnecessary at first but that lower jump does come in quite handy throughout a lot of tight, perilous platforming sections. Landing on the edges of those platforms can be a pretty aggravating death sentence so the player has to make sure, safe movements at almost all times. There are also a number of powerups to utilise while exploring a level, ranging from underwater breathing to flight. Flight is rather challenging within the gravitational changes and can result in some of the worst screen flipping in the game.
Levels in Mohawk & Headphone Jack are gigantic and often packed with smaller platforming challenges and extreme geography. Their sizes make finding one’s way and remembering where one has been difficult, and the ease of getting lost is often exacerbated by the lack of effective landmarks and visual distinction. Flying through this big grey, circular room could lead to having to complete multiple laps and I did find that I was frequently having to do that. Sometimes the levels include lock and key scenarios too and these would often be the least convenient they could be. I spent upwards of 40 minutes within one attempt at a level because it required returning back to the same place three separate times. And I had a map to follow. And whoever thought 7-2 was acceptable needs some form of therapy. What the hell. Most stages in the game contain a system of pipes that Mohawk can squeeze into to be slowly transported around. Some of these pipes are impossibly absurd. 2-1 contains 2 separate pipes that take more than a minute to finish. The player has to sit and watch Mohawk spinning around in these pipes for some unbelievable lengths of time. Some levels have very similar mechanics which just teleport Mohawk to the exit. I can hardly understand any reason to do this deliberately. And if you didn’t think it could be more tedious, 7-2, the final level in the game, uses the pipes as a maze. The map I found ran out of alphabetical labels for the entries and exits, it then ran out of single digit number labels, and managed to get to Am in just pipe entrance and exit labels. That’s 50 labels. Excluding the 18 teleporter labels. And I had a map. What were kids supposed to do in 1997? And I didn’t even get into the secret areas!
Mode Seven allowed for some very unique functions and became even more important with the implementation of the Super FX chip, but embracing new technology blindly doesn’t always result in something valuable. While the inclusion of the background rotation is fascinating, a handful of accommodations would have gone a long way to making that spinning tolerable. Falling through a transition or entering a tight space with a flight powerup can cause a lot of rotations to trigger in quick succession and if it were possible to put a limit on the number of rotations that could occur in that time I think that would have made those instances less disorientating and more bearable. Similarly, scripting transitions through environments would mean that the view of Mohawk would always be consistent and it would make progress through levels predictable and clear. Currently, the level design favours wide rooms with very little gravity implementation or narrow halls filled with hazards and regular gravity changes, so scripting a camera within these layouts would likely do little to help the problems. But those scripted camera changes would offer some form of landmark for the player to use as a breadcrumb. Because most of the worlds rarely feature much in the way of visual luxuries.
I enjoy some janky visuals and I’m always happy to look at pixel art, but they sure did pick some colours for this game. Mohawk & Headphone Jack features some interesting palette choices. Most of the levels are grey with some accent colours, and I suppose this is thematically appropriate, although the themes are really hard to see if you don’t know the names of the levels. The non-grey levels are brown, or purple, or… Oh no! This palette is a crime. Whatever artistic idea this is supposed to convey has been totally overshadowed by the sheer eyesore. I don’t even see how this represents “Guts”. That stereotypical 90’s aesthetic never features palettes like this. Their design algorithm was way off. There is a strange secondary issue with the palettes in that the enemies of most levels will use the same colours. Camouflaging the enemies makes the exploration even slower and Mohawk’s high speed even less applicable. And those enemy designs are subpar. This game features a desolate selection of sprite-sheet animation, almost every enemy is a collection of rotating shapes which makes them quite uninteresting to engage with and very easy to forget. Unfortunately, the bosses aren’t much better.
There are 8 total bosses throughout the game, and while one is repeated it has been altered significantly to seem like a new encounter. The Walker, the Tiki, the Octopus, the Orb, the Parasite, the Lava Surfer, and the Brain are all encountered within the second half of every world while General Headslot is the final encounter and occurs immediately after defeating the Brain. I defeated the Orb and the Parasite on my first attempts, the Octopus didn’t take much more than a handful, and every other boss was as challenging as the rest of the game. The Walker has a surprisingly wide range of attacks to throw at the player that can be fairly difficult to deal with when getting to grips with the controls. Somehow, when the player encounters General Headslot at the game’s conclusion, this battle is still tough. I think quite positively of these encounters, although their visual spectacle is quite lacking. The Tiki and the Lava Surfer were the largest hurdles for me to cross, as I just wasn’t able to enter the battles with a sufficient plan of attack and enough health to concoct one. It was possible to kind of aggress onto the Walker and win, so when the Tiki refused to be taken down by this strategy I had to reassess my approach to combating the higher tier enemies. The Lava Surfer is more of an endurance test that gets kind of boring after a while. The player must dodge the dolphins before getting to take a swing at the boss, and then the boss leaves the safe area so the player has to wait for them to come back. The Brain, the Orb, and the Parasite have very little in the way of dangerous attacks so the player can often sit right on top of them and continually deal damage. Overall, I think the bosses are decent but nothing noteworthy. They almost never use the game’s unique aspects within the fights but they aren’t disasters for it.
The game is very much a disaster, though. Ignoring the gravitation mechanic, the levels and the enemies are just lackluster. Shapeless, characterless blobs to run around and hope to not be killed by. And they will kill the player. Every time some flow arrives or some wacky geography appears, there’ll be some hazard ahead to spoil the momentum. The defining mechanic is a great concept, but it hasn’t been executed in a satisfactory way here. There’s too much danger for the chaos to be truly enjoyable which is especially disappointing for me because this kind of wild shit is exactly my thing. If you were ever curious about how Super Mario Galaxy would work on the Super Nintendo, then it’s worth playing the first level or two. For a casual playthrough, you’d have a better time with a lot of other games.
In the end, Mohawk and Headphone Jack has proven to be critically and artistically shallow, amounting to little more than a Bubsy spin-off with an AI generated 90’s skin stretched over it. Someone at Solid Software heard about Mode 7 and decided to pitch it as a game, without much consideration for any of the other factors that the game would include. Mohawk is just Sonic but slightly more naked. The levels are just Sonic levels without the flair. The player collects shapes and a developer said they could be CDs instead of balls of yarn and that was the entire narrative development up until someone had to write the manual. There’s very little to like about this game, but I’m happy I played it. I haven’t been so excited to finish a game in a long time.
This was a tough video to write, hopefully the next one won’t be so challenging.