MadWorld

Madworld was a Wii title I liked the idea of, though I still will never consider the Wii consoles true gaming machines they do have their moments and I thought this was going to be one of them.

The black and white unique art style and hyper violence I believed would really set it apart from the rest of the action games on the market. Sadly I was sorely mistaken.

It tells the story of a mysterious stranger with a chainsaw arm who participates in a gruelling arena tournament to the death and that's about as intellectual as it gets.

Sure I wasn't expecting anything even remotely smart nor clever unique gameplay, I just thought it would be take your brain out action but it fails even on that front.

The awkward Wii controls had me flailing around like a lunatic with little payoff making the "Action" less than fluid. To make matters worse that art style got real old real fast and did the game no favours at all.

Sure it's not THAT bad, but it's just so underwhelming, clunky and unlikeable that the style and novelty of swinging your arm like a chainsaw is entirely lost.

Less gimmicks, better games please.

The Good:

Unique art style

The Bad:

Doesn't deliver on its promises

Gets old fast

Clunky controls

Things I Learnt From This Game:

I just cannot take Nintendo consoles seriously as gaming machines anymore

The developers managed to take something as awesome as slicing and dicing people with a chainsaw and make it boring! Impressive

This has thus far, to the best of my knowledge, only been released for the Wii console, and the following is a review of said version. It is a beat'em-up about a television show(!) where gladiators take on one another in a championship. The visual style is unique to this medium(I believe) and comparable to that of Sin City, entirely in a stark, Noir-like B&W. The one exception? The countless gallons of red blood, and don't let the cover fool you, it isn't downbeat or censored. In fact, next to nothing in this is. From the brutal, gory and constant violence is completely over-the-top, through the sexualized females(I know that they're merely pixels, those chicks are still hawt) in this(seriously, even Amala has cleavage) to the running commentary(the one negative of which is that it repeats itself... and yes, you're not mistaken; one of them really is John Di Maggio, perhaps best known as Bender on Futurama, and here, he gets to say just about whatever you might guess that he wants, no matter how explicit and provocative), absolutely nothing comes off as watered down. With that said, this does feel the need to moralize over all the slaughter we take part in... I don't know, I guess they couldn't get away with it without a compromise. The House of the Dead: Overkill(and the rest of that series) didn't; I suppose it makes all the difference if they're undead. This is pretty short - a day or two, or four-five hours in recorded time, that is what it will take to defeat it. If you think about it, however, it has to be; the arcade approach would get old if not, and it doesn't, nor does it overstay its welcome. There is a little re-playability value, as getting through it unlocks a harder difficulty setting and 2 weapons. You can't really go back and do "much" better, as you have to get a certain score, and there's a time-limit, anyway. Yeah, you may prefer to stick with renting this. With that said, you should have the time of your life playing this. You rack up points by doing especially creative, humiliating and painful things to your foes(who are first and foremost victims; also, don't worry about quantity, they live by the Hollywood adage where opposing fighters wait for their turn and come at you one at a time, if not always), say, ramming a sign-post(or other long objects) through their head and a barrel(or similar) over their torso, and *then* take them out, in a nasty manner, and as the score gets higher, new things become available in the dozen or so small, simple and well-done levels(the locations are interesting enough), the last of them being the boss. You'll usually be picking up stuff, using it on them, wash, rinse, repeat. And you can grab 'em, head-butt them, toss them, smash them into spikes. For the genre, this has nice freedom, and they were smart enough to make stuff appear often enough for it not to seem limited. This does what these types of VGs have been missing since they debuted; at (plenty of) key points, you can trigger a nifty move by, when prompted to, moving, shaking or twirling the Wii-Mote and/or Nunchuk, giving you a really cool sense of being in the combat. The chainsaw(on your right arm!) is marvelous and effective, you can choose between horizontal or vertical swipes(by mimicking it with the Wii-Mote! No, it doesn't translate the exact move you make, then again, it's closer than any other I know of for this kind of thing), and yes, you can use it whenever you want, until it runs out of gas, and it recharges pretty fast. You can pick up and use mêlée instruments of death(that have different patterns of attacks), including dual knives, and you can put them away and store them, since they will wear down. Then there are boxes and such to throw(aim could use work), and you can swing staff-like things. You can use your surroundings to a great extent. You can Power Struggle(think crossing swords, and going for the upper hand), particularly against the ones you *need* to take a chunk out of the health bar of, and this is one of the places where you respond to directions about how and when to move the Wii-Mote and/or Nunchuk. When someone is a standing pulp and needs the last push to cease their habit of breathing, you can do Finishers(the icons could maybe be clearer, usually you don't realize if it was A or B before you press the correct one), where you destroy them in one out of several unforgettable ways. The camera is a third person perspective, but it will get you a superior angle on the massacre you inflict at all the right times. It is nearly always where it should be, you can reset it to straight behind you(allowing you to turn around swifter) at any time, and it comes with an immensely useful Target Lock, and that can be canceled easily, as well. The controls are intuitive, responsive and quickly mastered, and the dodge helps prevent a ton of possible frustration(not all). You get to drive a motorcycle a couple of times, and you can saw, spin(in select areas) or grip(and then hurl onto the road!) to make minced meat out of the other drivers. You can punch regularly, once or as a combo. The music is awesome, it really gets the adrenaline pumping, like the excellent, fun and addictive game-play. Sound is magnificent in general. Voice-acting is fantastic. The plot is clichéd, if perfectly tolerable and with a satisfying conclusion; story-telling is in comic book form. Graphics are stunning and don't hurt your eyes, if a few things that shouldn't be(fingers, snowflakes) are square. The lead character is your average bad-ass. Designs are impeccable. I recommend this to any fan of guilt-free entertainment. They clearly went out of their way to make this enjoyable. 9/10

MadWorld is definitely up there with No More Heroes as being a prime example of how the Wii was more than capable of having non family friendly games. The fact this game goes relatively overlooked especially since the developer, Platinum Games eventually hit it big with Bayonetta is honestly pretty sad.

The game stars Jack Cayman, a veteran contestant of DeathWatch, a kill or be killed fueled gladiatorial game show. His goal is to conquer the various other ranked players of the game and steadily climb the leaderboard to become number 1, all the while splitting intel with Agent 13, who sponsors Jack in progressing through the game and Amala, a government spy helping Jack in solving a mystery involving a deadly virus spread across the island forcing the citizens to kill in order to receive a cure.

As for the game itself, good lord, is it satisfying as hell to play?! The game has Jack running through various open ended levels with multiple ways to kill enemies. Jack is equipped with attacks of his own such as his signature chainsaw equipped arm but your real best weapon is more often than not, the levels themselves. They are filled with various hazards and weapons like spike covered walls (or rose bushes as the game chooses to call them), moving trains, catapults, and buzzsaws. Throwing enemies into these hazards along with combining that with shoving things like tires and signposts into them will raise your point count and steadily unlock various new ways to kill leading up to the boss. The more creative your kills are, the more points you receive. Eventually you'll take part in the Bloodbath Challenge, a segment hosted by the comically over stereotypical pimp, The Black Baron. These consist of things like batting enemies into an oversized dartboard or tossing them into firework launchers and watching them explode upon taking off. Basically every single way you can kill in this game is not only hilarious but satisfying to pull off.

Presentation wise, the game definitely stands out. The Sin City comic book art style definitely makes for a very unique looking game with the only thing in color being ironically, the blood. The character designs are also very cool, with plenty of them being obvious nods to other video game or movie characters. Such as Jack being a clear nod to Hellboy, RinRin resembling Chun Li, and The Masters resembling Obi Wan and Luke (or Qui Gon and Obi Wan or Anakin and Obi wan. One of those 3 anyway). The music is a great blend of hip hop and rock and roll with the boss themes standing out the most and the voice acting is especially good with every character being so well casted. Steve Blum as expected brings a very badass performance to Jack but the show is especially stolen by Who's Line Is It Anyway's Greg Proops and Adventure Time and Futurama's John DiMaggio who play Howard and Kreese, the announcers of DeathWatch. Every single line they say is hilarious, often poking fun at certain kills, when you grab a pickup, and of course breaking the fourth wall.

Overall, MadWorld is a very uniquely fun game. It's not perfect obviously since the camera could be a little better and the story being a tad all over the place (although with gameplay like this, I'm sure story will be the last thing on the player's mind). But regardless, it's a fun 3D style beat 'em up and one of the best in that category. If you haven't played it yet, now is a perfect time to start.