Video Game / Attack of the Mutant Penguins

We've got aliens, but not supremely funky homeboy aliens.

...When you get the bat, you gotta kill all the penguins, but they don't die if you hit them. Instead, there's a bunch of power orbs that scatter all over. You gotta get all the power orbs to power up your bat so you can kill the penguins, but you only kill the penguins wearing hats, because the ones that don't wear hats fight the ones that do wear hats. If the mutant penguins on the Doom Scale outweigh the regular penguins, the Doom Scale starts screaming and going apeshit!

— Angry Video Game Nerd, Atari Jaguar (Part 2)

Developed by Sunrise Games and released for the Atari Jaguar in 1995, Attack of the Mutant Penguins is one of the strangest video games on any system. (There was also a PC version simply titled Mutant Penguins.)

The game's premise is that evil green aliens from the distant galaxy of "Bleurgggh" have decide to invade the Earth having disguised themselves as penguins, since watching wildlife documentaries left them with the impression that penguins were obviously the dominant species on Earth. Two Earth boys named Bernard and Rodney have to save the world from the alien penguins, by obtaining and wielding various weapons and building penguin-killing machines. Meanwhile, the mutant penguins are trying to trigger the Doomscale and destroy the Earth.

Interestingly, Mutant Penguins constitutes one of the first entries in the Tower Defense genre, long before the concept was popularized by StarCraft and Warcraft maps.

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Tropes:

• Adorable Evil Minions: The alien penguins wear a variety of silly costumes.
• Aliens Are Bastards: They are not here to conquer Earth but to destroy it For the Evulz.
• Batter Up!: Rodney wields a mean baseball bat.
• Big Red Button: The players must prevent too many evil penguins from getting on the Doomscale and causing it to press one of these.
• Bonus Stage: After completing a level, you get to play one of three randomly chosen penguin-shooting games.
• Doomsday Device / Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Doomscale, a giant scale for balancing penguins on. If it becomes unbalanced to the right, the game ends with an Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
• Frying Pan of Doom: Bernard's main weapon.
• The Goomba: Alien penguins, the lowest Mooks on the totem pole.
• Hollywood Evolution: Some levels have a "mutation station," which the alien penguins can use to turn themselves into mutant penguins.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chest: Treasure chests can be opened by dropping gremlins on them.
• Live Item: Gremlins, which are used to open chests and build machines.
• Mooks, but no Bosses: The player battles alien penguins and mutant penguins, but there are no bosses to challenge.
• Mutants: The mutant penguins of the title. They are heavier than the alien penguins and so make the Doomscale overload faster.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Some of the machines the players can use have names like "the Spike Shafter," "the Crusher," and the "Grabandsling."
• Spelling Bonus: Collecting letters from treasure chests to spell B-A-T or P-A-N will get Bernard or Rodney their main weapon.
• Sticky Situation: The players can use glue to temporarily immobilize penguins.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The players can use dynamite to destroy penguins.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction: Players can build various machines to skewer, crush, and mutilate the penguins.

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