MADWORLD Review

Written by: Steve Martin Posted: 1st April 2009

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Things get MAD in this Wii review.

MADWORLD Details:

	Action
	Nintendo Wii
	PlatinumGames
	SEGA

18+

Out Now

1-2

MADWORLD definitely deserves its 18 certification, as with Sega’s previous Wii outing House of the Dead: OVERKILL, this is the complete opposite to the family-friendly series championed by Nintendo. This is a truly adult title, and will hopefully silence those critics who simply disregard the Wii as a kids game console.

You play as Jack Cayman, a monster of a man with a chainsaw attached to his right hand, who has entered into the Death Watch games in the fictional Varrigan City on Jefferson Island. The Death Watch games are a modern ultra-violent version of the gladiator fights, where men and women are pitted against each other in a free-for-all survival challenge for the entertainment of its fans and sponsors.

This kind of reminds me of Manhunt, without the need for stealth, the levels are full of context sensitive kills, walls of spikes known as “rose-bushes” are there for you to slam the enemies against, signposts can be ripped out of the ground and can be driven through a baddies necks, complete with a shower of blood. Levels are filled with goons ready to be killed and maimed however you please, and points are awarded for more creative kills. For example, picking up a tyre and slam dunking onto an enemy earns you a number of points, if you then plough a signpost through the same enemy you get more points and finally slamming them into the rosebush a few times earns you a wealth of points! This also ups your ranking from “routine violence” to “hardcore violence”, delivering more pain to more enemies can see you hitting the ultra and super violence levels.

Most objects in the levels can be used as weapons or used to activate a context sensitive kill and experimenting is the name of the game. Stunned baddies allow you to perform finishing moves by pressing A or B and following the on-screen instructions, these range from Jack twisting his head off to reaching into a guys chest and removing his heart before squishing it into a pulp. The bloodiness of this game cannot be overstated, and is deliberate which you realise once you come across your first Bloodbath Challenge.

The majority of the levels are completed by collecting a target number of points, at different landmarks. You are given new weapons, power-ups or a Bloodbath challenge, before finally unlocking the boss battle for the level. For example, getting 100,000 points may allow you access to a spiked bat which can be used to knock enemies for six, or into spikes on the walls! Anyway, Bloodbath challenges are a chance to get big points during set-pieces. It usually revolves around using enemies as projectiles to score bonus points, such as Man Darts where you are given a spiked bat and you need to smash the baddies head first into a giant dart board. You earn more points depending on your dart scores. These are usually quite fun and varied to begin with, however there used more than once, which is a little frustrating. Also, one in particular is impossible to do, although it involves shaking bottles of pop and shoving them down people’s throats and watching them rocket away into the air!

Boss battles are quite impressive and are good fun, requiring you to complete motion activated set-pieces known as power struggles to deal maximum damage to the boss character. The boss’s range from humans to robots to paranormal beings, depending on the level you are currently on.

Some levels take place with Jack on his motorbike, these levels are a little lacklustre, but at least it breaks some of the tedium of the usual level set-ups. Jack’s attack repertoire, which is quite varied in the main levels, is severely stunted in these levels, with either a left or right attack performed using the remote or nunchuck. It makes it very difficult to get the big combos and the big points which are common place in the free-roaming levels.

The major gripe is the difficulty, on normal its way too easy and you’ll fly through the game no problem. Enemies barely attack you and can be carried around to set up elaborate kills with the greatest of ease. On hard, things go hardcore, maybe a little too hardcore! The games camera doesn’t help either, it sits very close behind Jack and makes rear attacks all too frequent.

Graphically, MADWORLD is stunning, with the black and white visuals creating a truly stylish setting for the gratuitous violence, sound effects are accompanied by words, creating a comic book ambience to the gritty noir backdrop. There are only three colours in this MADWORLD’s pallet, black, white and blood red, and this really helps to emphasise the on-screen killing, as the level is gradually painted red! Killing has never been so beautiful, slow-mo is used to create a cinematic quality to the carnage, and the over-use of blood is reminiscent of a Tarantino movie! There is the occasional stutter in the frame rate, but this is only when you are moving from one area to the next, so is most likely due to the loading required.

The colour commentary of the two “sports-style” announcers (one of whom is voiced by Bender from Futurama) is hilarious to begin with and is filthy enough to turn all the blood in this game from red to blue, but very quickly it begins to repeat and loses its humour, which is a real shame as it really adds to the over-the-top gameplay. The rest of the voice acting is decent, especially Jack’s gravelly, rough oration, which is reminds me of David Hayter’s Snake from the Metal Gear series. The original music in the game is mostly inspired foul-mouthed hip-hop or rap, which usually fits in with the on-screen killing, but can become tiresome and is on the whole forgettable.

This is a fantastic looking title that brings in some fresh blood for mature Wii owners. Although the majority of the game is brilliantly violent fun with the kills always being immensely satisfying, the repetitive gameplay elements, easy difficulty and short play time (about 3 hours) make it more of a one play experience! An experience I enjoyed and highly recommend, but people want more for their money these days! I’d file this one under the “To Rent” rather than the “To Buy” category! Granted, there are challenges in some of the levels to make you go back once more, and the hard mode makes the game much more challenging, and you can always try for a massive high score, or grab a friend to try out the mediocre multiplayer mode (two players taking part in a Bloodbath challenge) but it lacks that lasting appeal. Overall, it’s a great game while it lasts but could really do with just a couple more levels and a few more ideas to really make it an essential purchase.