Mutant Storm FAQ

Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Background Information
    i. Controls
    ii. Power-ups
       iii. Difficulties
       iv. Scoring
    v. Enemies
III. Guide
IV. Timeline
V. Contact and Copywrite Info

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I. Introduction
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Mutant Storm is a game available through Microsoft's Xbox
Live Arcade service. It's similar to Robotron, and very
addicting. It has 89 levels (or rooms), and some of them
are quite difficult. Thus, this guide.

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II. Background Information
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Before getting into specific strategies, I must cover the
game basics.

i. Controls

Left Thumbstick: Moves your ship
Right Thumbstick: Shoots lasers
Right Trigger: Uses bomb

ii. Power-ups

Power-ups come in three types: Laser, shield, and points.
There are different variations of these categories,
differentiated by the border around them.

Laser power-ups are red, and improve your firepower.
Borders:
Vertical lines- The lasers become larger and more
powerful.
Sets of three horizontal lines- The laser shoot in three
directions.
Circles in various sizes- You shoot homing missiles,
which are more powerful them your normal laser.

Shield power-ups are blue.
Borders:
Circular border- A small shield forms around your ship.
This is the only power-up that follows you through
multiple rooms. It will stay until you get hit.
Arrows - A larger shield forms around you. It only lasts
for a moment, but can kill almost any enemy that it
touches. Good for breaking through crowds, but you will
not get points for anything killed with the shield.

Points power-ups are green. There is only one type. When
you collect it, it adds some points to your score.

iii. Difficulties

Mutant Storm has 8 difficulty levels. Each is represented
by a belt, like in martial arts. It goes from white, to
yellow, etc., etc., all the way to black. As they
increase in difficulty, they also increase in points, as
it becomes easier to gain multipliers on higher
difficulties. The downside is that it's easier to lose
them. For instance, if you are playing white belt mode,
have a x4 and die, you will come back with a x3. However,
if this happened in yellow belt mode, you would respawn
with a x2.

You unlock new difficulty levels by performing well in
the game. In the bottom left corner is a belt and a
number. The color of these represents what difficulty you
are currently playing on. To unlock the next difficulty,
you must get this number up to the next multiple of 100.
For example, if you are in white belt mode, you start
with a zero. When you hit 100, you unlock yellow belt
mode. Then you must reach 200 to unlock the next level.
If you start a game on a higher difficulty, you
automatically start with the number required to unlock
that difficulty, so getting the next one is fairly easy.
(Note: You must die while on the newly obtained
difficulty to earn it.)

iv. Scoring

Multipliers

On the top middle of the screen is a bar. The more
enemies you kill, the more the bar fills up. When it
fills completely, a "x2" will appear on it. From that
point on, all the points you get are doubled. You can
continue filling the bar, and soon enough your scores are
tripled, quadrupled, quintupled. Dying will take you back
to a lower multiplier.

Time Bonus

There's a timer for each room, shown in the bottom right
corner of the screen. You get a time bonus each time you
complete a room. To determine your time bonus, the game
takes the amount left on the timer, rounds down to the
nearest second, and multiplies it by the number of the
difficulty level you're on (White belt is one, yellow is
two, etc.) then multiplies it by 100..

Boxes

Some levels have harmless boxes strewn throughout them.
For every box still standing when you complete a room,
you get 1,000 points (multipliers affect the amount).
There are two things to remember about boxes:
1. They are not hurt by enemies.
2. Boxes can be destroyed by touching your shield.

Bombs/Bomb Bonuses

Pointwise, it's to your advantage not to use bombs. For
one thing, anything that you kill with a bomb, you don't
get points for. And then there are bomb bonuses. At every
checkpoint (every tenth level), you are given a bomb
bonus for your remaining bombs. 3,000 points for the
first, 7,000 for the second, 10,000 for the third...And
then it totals all those amounts, and adds that to your
score as well. So, for having three bombs, you get 40,000
points.

v. Enemies

The game doesn't give names for enemies, so I've made up
my own to classify them. Also given are short
descriptions, and the number of points gained for killing
that enemy without a multiplier.

Name: Bogey
Points: 50-100
First Appears In: Room 1
Description: There are two or three types of these, and
some move faster then others, but they can all be killed
with a single laser beam.
Notes: None

Name: Bogey Tank
Points: 300
First Appears In: Room 3
Description: These are about the same size of bogeys, but
are slower, and harder to kill. Will sometimes be
referred to as tanks to save time.
Notes: In addition to spawning regularly, sometimes a
regular bogey will turn into a bogey tank.

Name: Crystal Ball
Points: 100 per part, making for a total of 2,300.
First Appears In: Room 4
Description: Shoot one of these, and it turns into two
pieces. Shoot the pieces, and they into two pieces. Shoot
those pieces, and they turn into two pieces, making for a
total of 16 tiny fragments.
Notes: None

Name: Maggot
Points: 30
First Appears In: Room 5
Description: These things are tiny and weak, but when
they appear, they're in massive waves.
Notes: In addition to spawning regularly, they also
appear in the wake/explosions of flower rockets.

Name: Shover Robots
Points: N/A
First Appears In: Room 6
Description: These robots just amble about. You can't
kill them, but since they can't fire anything, and don't
pay any attention to you, they're harmless.
Notes: In a more civilized setting, these robots would be
serving humanity by pushing blind people to the store.

Name: Flower Rockets
Points: 2,000
First Appears In: Room 5
Description: These can only be killed by shooting a
sensor on the front of it. They do not fire anything, but
they spawn a bunch of maggots behind them.
Notes: You can tell when one of these is coming because
there will be a light spot on the field, and the rocket
can be seen heading towards it in the background.

Name: Electroball
Points: 300 for cracking it open, then 300 for each ball
Description: These large bumpy balls move randomly, until
shot apart. Then they break into a bunch of tiny balls
that home in on you.
Notes: If you use a bomb to destroy an uncracked
electroball, it will also destroy all of the balls within
it.

MORE TO BE ADDED

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III. Guide
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Room 1: A bunch of bogeys spawn either to your left or
right. Just strafe up and down a little while shooting to
make sure you get them all.

Room 2: Bogeys form in the three corners of the
triangular area and circle the perimeter.

Room 3: Bogeys from inside the ring of boxes, then a
second wave of them with some bogey tanks thrown in. Stay
outside of the box ring and you'll be fine.

Room 4: Move out into the ring of bogeys and get as many
as you can before the crystal balls arrive. A handful of
bogey tanks will spawn one at a time. Don't pay special
attention to them, just hit them as you go.

Room 5: Flower rockets are usually difficult, but since
it's the only enemy in this room, it's an easy enough
target. Fire right after it surfaces, then take out the
maggots it leaves behind.

Room 6: A pair of shoverbots are in this level, but they
don't present much of a threat. Bogeys and an occasional
tank will spawn along the left and right sides of the
field. Just shoot up those spaces.

Room 7: Four shoverbots walk in a circular pattern while
a crystal ball spawns in each corner. You should be able
to destroy them before the wave of bogeys spawns in the
center.

MORE TO BE ADDED

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IV. Timeline
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3/16/05: Slight updates about difficulty levels and

3/6/05: First version submitted to Game FAQs. Guide is up
to Room 7, background information complete except for
some enemies.

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V. Contact and Copywrite Info
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This FAQ is copywrite 2005 to Zach Adams. Currently, the
only site allowed to use it is GameFAQs.com.

If you would like to host the guide, contribute, or ask
questions, contact me at [email protected]. My Xbox
Live tag is Phweemaggot. Add me to your friends list if
you want some competition on the Mutant Storm scoreboard.

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