My childhood! Like many other Millennials, Goosebumps was a major part of my growing up and a gateway drug to horror. Horror extraordinaire R. L. Stine poured his heart and soul into the fantastic 100+ book series that every child pined for at the Scholastic Book Fair. One of those books, Attack of the Mutant (book #25 in the original series, 1994) made its way to the live action TV series and eventually a 1997 first-person Shooter for the PC. Six-year-old me was not ready for this level of excitement and terror.
Following the story from the book, you — a comic-lover — miss your bus stop and get off right in front of a building that resembles the lair of the evil Masked Mutant from your favorite comic series. Having nowhere else to go, you enter the building and find yourself helping the League of Good Guys to stop the Mutant and his crew of villains from turning the world into cartoons and taking over!
Right from the beginning, Attack of the Mutant (AotM) plops you into action. There are no directions given, just basic WASD and Space bar clicks. And from your first steps into the lair of the Mutant, you have to fight for your life against the many monsters and bad guys that live there. I can say with confidence that AotM has the scare factor of the books and TV series, but hyped up to 100. To this day, a certain chase sequence still has me on high alert.
I love this game because it allows beginner gamers to figure things out without being too hard, or get through obstacles without being too easy. You have to shoot goop guns at monsters, push things into other objects for a certain outcome, traverse puzzling mazes and jump over obstacles. There’s a little bit of something for everyone.
And that’s not to mention the scares. Though comic books aren’t my thing (and even the TV episode wasn’t my favorite), AotM managed to make the bad guys rather Joker-esque and menacing. Sure, Chin Chilla is a typical goon, but Pinky Flamingo is actually frightening with his disregard for human life and willingness to be just straight-up evil. The League of Good Guys too has memorable and extremely creative characters, the Galloping Gazelle being voiced by the one and only Adam West himself!
There are endless rooms and hallways I wish I could explore at the Mutant’s lair. It’s a shame we can only go through certain doors and interact with certain things. The music is incredible too, with melodies that embody what I think Goosebumps would sound like; in other words, the music matches the theming to a tee. AotM is also pretty revolutionary, being one of the first games using cel-shaded animation.
There are a few reasons why I keep coming back to AotM: I love the goosebumps series; it’s extremely nostalgic; the music and gameplay is great background noise; and it’s just a fun game all-around! It’s one of the few non-Nintendo games (shoutout to Dreamworks Interactive!) that can be played by fans old and new. It’s not too lengthy, running just about an hour on most playthroughs, but it quenches a thirst for a little time just having fun on the computer. Goosebumps: Attack of the Mutant is a marvel in playable entertainment that I can see lasting a lifetime, just like the books it was based off of. And I’m so glad there are other people who have fond memories of it too — it helps revive those memories in other 30-somethings as well as shows newer generations that classic gaming isn’t just Mario… or god-forbid Fortnite.
Interested in playing? Goosebumps: Attack of the Mutant is available for download here! Or, watch some gameplay here.
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