The Mosquito Gang, a Fun Concept, But a Sour Experience - Preview

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There's something intriguing about exploring the gameification of the most mundane ideas in video games. Powerwash Simulator, released in 2022, is the perfect example of such a statement, yet it still received critical and commercial acclaim aplenty despite the otherwise unimaginative concept. 2015's asymmetrical multiplayer game 'Who's Your Daddy?!', meanwhile, tasks one player, taking on the role of a father, with preventing his infant son from a gruesome death, while another player takes on the role of said infant son and has to… You get the idea.

Allowing us as the player to engage in what would otherwise be a well-trodden "real world" experience with a digital-enabled twist clearly has some merit, then, and Space Racoon Game Studio sees this with The Mosquito Gang, a game in which the four Mosquitos must work together to fill three blood banks, all whilst the single Human must complete their own objectives whilst swatting the pesky insects away.

The Mosquitos have the mildly easier job, having to attack en masse, locking on the human and, after inputting a quick QTE, take a portion of the Human players blood to either take back to one of the three blood banks, or to exchange it for various perks to assist your blood-fuelled escapades further. It takes quite a few trips back and forth to fill up any one bloodbank, mind you, and with an understandably minuscule health bar, getting whacked just a few times will both set you back progress-wise, and remove one of your finite shared lives.

The act of reviving is somewhat awkward, with various methods available; The only one not wholly reliant on your mozzie teammates is flying around in your ghost-ito form, collecting inexplicably themed orbs to fill a bar, reviving you at your more-often-than-not perilous place of death. Alternatively, your teammates can revive you at either the location where you died or at a machine conveniently placed within your 'base' of operations, where the aforementioned perk machines live.

These perks can change anything from your suck speed - yes, really - to granting various abilities, such as teleportation, so you'll have to make a decision as to what to do with the precious blood you've collected from the human.

Playing as a human seems more straightforward on paper, but the implementation is significantly clumsier than it needed to be. You, as the lone - and unnecessarily ripped - man, have an assortment of tasks you can complete as but one of your many win conditions, with the eradication of your Mosquito nemeses being the obvious underlying one.

The Mosquito Gang seemingly goes out of its way to obfuscate, with neither the task nor its components earmarked for approachability's sake. And, considering you're up against four opponents with a much simpler task, time is of the essence. What's more - and this is more of a problem on the Steam Deck than on a PC - seeing your minuscule adversaries is nearly impossible. I held the Steam Deck mere inches away from my face the few times I had the honour of playing as the human, and still, I had endless trouble spotting the ever-buzzing bugs.

On a performance level, the Steam Deck struggles with stability, with nigh-on everything thrown at it, the frame rate fluctuates between 70 and 90, leaving a distinct choppiness to the gameplay throughout. As such, it's better to restrict the frame rate from within the game to 60, then accept that rare drops to the mid-40s may momentarily happen instead of the constant variations.

Settings can be turned down in the game to help alleviate some of the stutters, but considering the issues already noted about how hard it is to find the Mosquitos, I found reducing these settings only worsened this very unique gripe.

There are brief moments when playing The Mosquito Gang that the glimpse of something special materialises, but the game has this inherent ability to ruthlessly strip that feeling away at its earliest convenience. There's an underlying whiff at each turn that something isn't sitting right, whether it be the sound effect that is used in the collection of the orbs when you're reviving - I have absolutely heard that very same sound elsewhere, but can't quite put my finger where off the top of my head - or the unlicensed inclusion of 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" or Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina", minus lyrics, when you turn the record player on as a Mosquito.

Outside of the game, the Space Racoon Game Studio website reeks of AI, be it the generated images of "raccoons" wearing an assortment of space suits, or text descriptors on the "About Studio" page that clumsily reads as follows:

"The people working in our company are real professionals in their field. At the same time, a trusting and warm family atmosphere reigns within the company. Thanks to this, the work process flows easily and naturally, and the results of the work cannot leave our clients indifferent. Here you can see our main employees, work with whom will translate your ideas into reality."

Various reviews also litter the Steam page, with some users clearly identifying themselves as devs while others seem to masquerade as fans. The more you peer down the rabbit hole, the more reckless disingenuity becomes apparent by the moment. It utterly sours the experience personally for me, for what could otherwise have been a fun experience months down the line with the various needed refinements.

If all that doesn't bother you, The Mosquito Gang can be bought on Steam for $10.

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