MadWorld

A night to dismember.

I saw a pigeon get hit by a bus today. A London intersection, a looming 73, Speckles McFlappy looks the wrong way for one soft second, and he's gone, taken from us in a misty red explosion and ensuing drift of dirty feathers. It was incredibly disturbing to watch, not least because some school kid carefully picked his way into the middle of the road a minute later to deposit a Polo Mint halo on the body. (I imagine that, right now, the same child's probably quietly strangling a pig, or chopping up his own step-family.) Weirdly, however, an hour after this tawdry event left me shaking, I was chainsawing a perfect stranger in half and then throwing his lifeless corpse into a dumpster, laughing my head off throughout.

All of which is to say that MadWorld's relationship with violence is rather special. MPs will froth, petitions will be signed, and Germans will go without, but in reality, PlatinumGames' wild street fighter has as much to do with real brutality as a 200-stone man lurching back to the all-day buffet with his own home-made plate has to do with food: both are exercises in excess. This isn't just violent; it's so violent that the overall effect is one of stunned high spirits. That's why MadWorld's closest parallel is not Gears of War, or even Hostel: it's something like that annual festival in Spain where everyone gets hooped and then chucks tomatoes at each other until somebody dies, or they get bored, or they simply run out of tomatoes.

Don't get me wrong: SEGA's new Wii title has comfortably earned its 18 certificate, and the flavours of arm-lopping, bone-crushing, and face-grinding made available to you in the opening chapter alone is enough to suggest that we're going to need to add a few lengthy additional clauses to the Confessional, just to cover off all the spellbindingly imaginative splatter at your disposal. But, even a few minutes into the game, putting a street sign through someone's neck isn't going to make you whimper - it's going to make you smirk. This is button-thumping, point-scoring nonsense of the highest order, and you can leave your real-world tears and post-traumatic stress for the likes of Speckles McFlappy and his Spearmint wake.

'MadWorld' Screenshot 1

Almost everything in the game world has been rendered lethal by spikes or blades. If copycats are going to try this at home, they're going to have to learn to weld.

As you may have suspected, MadWorld's plot is a gleeful contractual obligation. A city's been cut off from the mainland, a murderous game-show is taking place in the streets, and you're caught in the middle. There's revenge, there's confusion, and there's probably a twist or two, but essentially your job is to head through the levels, killing everybody you see, as gruesomely as you possibly can. The protagonist's named Jack, and that's about as deep as things go on this one.

Good. You don't want complex motives, narrative brilliance and emotional journeys from MadWorld. You want a herd of stylish disposables to wade into, and a weighty stack of nasty things to do to them up close. On this front, the game seems entirely capable of delivering.

Throughout, MadWorld restricts itself to a modest palette of black, white and red (okay, and occasionally a bit of yellow), to create visual effects which turn out to be anything but modest. The results of what should be a pared-down approach is actually a cartoon explosion of chaos which blasts across the screen like an x-ray, and leaves other, busier, games looking distinctly wanting. And, having played the opening section, there are no signs so far that long-term variety will be a problem, the first level alone providing a stylish tangle of strikingly skewed alleyways, industrial machinery, and a cinematic big-city waterfront, while the grubby newsprint veneer adds a confident coherency.

'MadWorld' Screenshot 2

Cut-scenes feature a sexy fetish lady decked out in a frankly hazardous bra. This, however, is a picture of a gurning villain.

And it's not just a looker: the development team has sharpened the Wii's often fuzzy controls to something approaching glinting precision. With the nunchuk handling movement, A and B unleash a quick punch and a slash of the arm-mounted chainsaw respectively, with a sharp yank of the remote up or across providing stronger special moves such as an uppercut and a horizontal slice. The A button also works contextually for actions, allowing you to pick up objects and grab hold of enemies, while another quick shake on the remote will launch them through the air. Despite the range of moves available, MadWorld's more than usually responsive to quick gestural commands, and shows a winning intelligence when it comes to interpreting your inputs.

The absence of a lock-on can make brawling a little confusing for the first few minutes, but it quickly clicks into place, and soon Jack will be knee-deep in the mob, fists connecting left, right and centre. A few quick blows to the game's early enemies will send them into a stun, which allows you to deliver brilliantly gruesome finishing moves - punching their heads off, or chainsawing them down the middle, for example. It sounds like Gears, but where that game ends tends to be where this one begins, and those are just the appetisers for a smorgasbord of nasty overindulgence which also includes options to rip out an enemy's heart and squish it, or yank off their skull and shake their spinal column about, like it's the world's yuckiest set of maracas.

But these basic attacks amount to nothing but the simplest of MadWorld's melodies - if you want to play the full grisly symphony, you're going to have to bring in the environment itself. That's why each level provides so much scope for experimental butchery: untended electrical panels spark at you from pillars, while huge industrial fan-blades chug quickly on the walls, and burning barrels are scattered around the streets. Any one of them used on its own will provide a pleasing shower of gore and points, but the real skill comes in chaining them together: why simply smack an enemy over the head, when you can stun them with a few backfists, jam a tire over them to immobilise their arms, shove them into a flaming oil drum, and then throw their charring body into an open dumpster, and watch the heavy lid chop them in half? I feel a bit weird suggesting that kind of agenda in the cold light of day, but in the midnight fantasyland of MadWorld it becomes an innocent, tentative delight - a happy exploration of cause and effect that seems entirely natural.

It's in drawing out these combos that the big points are found and the weapon unlocks begin, and the more you play of MadWorld, the more apparent it becomes that it's a numbers game at heart - every bit as score-fixated as Geometry Wars or Robotron. Enemy AI, while initially simplistic, rises to your challenge as the game progresses, your targets breaking free of headlocks and doing their best to surround you, but the baddies remain a raw material for your invention more than a challenging and tactical adversary. They're there to be sliced and pummelled as much as to fight back, and the long-term skill progression seems likely to come from doing away with them spectacularly to beat the score challenge set for each level rather than in simply staying alive.

'MadWorld' Screenshot 3

Mini-games like Death Press and Man Darts are as enjoyable as their names suggest.

This focus on grisly style seems an obvious hangover from PlatinumGames' Capcom days, and it's an agenda which suggests MadWorld's lifespan may be significantly extended beyond its status as a bloody-handed curio of the beat-'em-up market. Long after the kinetic impact of the splatter fades and the gruesome cabinet of curiosities that makes up the level design has lost its power to comically disgust, you'll be left with a fighting game that, as with The Club, plays like a series of gratifying logic puzzles, with maps ready to be memorised and perfected, and enemies reduced to what they truly are: nothing more than pulpy receptacles for points. Special weapons, such as spiked bats and twin blades, may initially seem like gruesome toys, but they soon become necessary tools of the trade: an extra layer of score-boosting fanfare to add to your carefully planned replays.

'MadWorld' Screenshot 4

Despite the explosive splatter and screen-filling violence, the most important thing to keep your eye on is the score counter.

So far, the result of all this clockwork carnage is looking rather special, promising a game as immediate and rewarding as Smash TV, but with the same level of style and flourish as Jet Set Radio. That's an unusual combination, to be sure, but so is a splinter of road sign through your fleshy temporal lobes. In the end, perhaps such strange mixtures are to be expected: after all, MadWorld's a Japanese game that seeks to simultaneously parody, celebrate, and satiate the jaded tastes of a Western audience. That's a pretty neat trick to pull off, but given how confidently PlatinumGames wrings a sense of Technicolor spectacle out of its monochrome presentation, trickery hardly seems to be too thin on the ground.

MadWorld is due out exclusively for Nintendo Wii in March.

Comments (60) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • canIdoyabombsforya #1 3 years ago

    Oh granny this looks fun
  • mingster #2 3 years ago

    this is about the only game for the wii thats actually made me want one
  • Evolution #3 3 years ago

  • Matt_Edwards #4 3 years ago

    I haven't even turned my Wii on since No More Heroes.

    Hope I can find out where the remote is by March :)
  • Redeye #5 3 years ago

    And this hands-on just about nails it for me.

    Even if I have to throw a road sign through someone's head first. ;)
  • wadgem #6 3 years ago

    Nicely written article! Made me quite excited, and I haven't turned on my Wii in yonks.
  • kinky_mong #7 3 years ago

    The stuff about scoring and trying to chain together moves makes this sound like a 3D Viewtiful Joe and has therefore made me even more excited about this game.
  • Stretch #8 3 years ago

    2 words make me want this - MAN DARTS...

    As above I havent played with the wii in yonks, so would be good to get something to play on it again!

    MAN DARTS!
  • shotgun44 #9 3 years ago

    Sounds awesome! I'll have to get my bro to buy this for the wii!
  • robson_wii #10 3 years ago

    Nice insight...Hope the review is as good...then a definite purchase
  • JohnnyWashnGo #11 3 years ago

    This is an almost certain purchase for me. The Wii is a little underused these days and needs a kick in the arse to wake it up once again. Madworld may just be the kick it needs.
  • coastal #12 3 years ago

    might be the first thing that makes me regret selling the wii.




    nah just kidding.
  • sneetch #13 3 years ago

    @Matt_Edwards
    Hope I can find out where the remote is by March :)

    Probably behind the DVD player, at least, that's where mine was. :)

    This sounds like it could be a laugh any game that can be favourably linked with Smash TV and Robotron has potential.
  • vegard #14 3 years ago

    heeeeey, maybe i should hold on to the wii a little bit longer?
  • merkdot #15 3 years ago

    I suspect this game will be pretty shit in reality. Ignoring the visuals (which I am trying desperately to, because they fuck up my retinas), it sounds pretty shallow. I suppose it's all relative for Wii owners at this point though.
  • FooAtari #16 3 years ago

    I like the sound of this game, but not sure I could handle the visuals for more than 10 mins. It just looks like it would be hard to focus on for any period of time.

    Being developed by Sega though I really hope it's good.
  • IronCladChicken #17 3 years ago

    @merkdot As opposed to the innate complexity of gears of war I suppose? Or Halo3?
  • MoGamer2006 #18 3 years ago

    @FooAtari

    Mercifully, Sega is just the publisher - PlatinumGames is the developer.
  • Rirekon #19 3 years ago

    "Man darts" sounds wrong even in the context of MadWorld...
  • DB2k #20 3 years ago

    there were no buses running in London yesterday. Get your facts right. Appalling reporting. I demand a Daily Mail review of this poor attempt at free news.
  • asphaltcowboy #21 3 years ago

    Sounds great and as I said in the release date article - the only game for Wii I'm looking forward to right now. Will there be online leaderboards?
  • Farfarer #22 3 years ago

    Finally, a reason to use my Wii since I finished No More Heroes.
  • MoGamer2006 #23 3 years ago

    Do the so called "mature/hardcore" gamers only play games with violence in 'em? I'm not saying I could've done without my Xbox, but there's been some corking games on Wii over the last few months.
  • Freek #24 3 years ago

    No, they play Mario Galaxy too, and ocaisionally Wii Sports.

    It's not so much the style of the game but the gameplay that matters, and there's a large group of gamers who want more then the casual games and mini game collections that are proving verry popular among the non tradional gamers the Wii atracts.
    Edited by 1 at 03/02/09 @ 15:50
  • canIdoyabombsforya #25 3 years ago

    "Do the so called "mature/hardcore" gamers only play games with violence in 'em? I'm not saying I could've done without my Xbox, but there's been some corking games on Wii over the last few months. "

    The only people with enough time on their hands to be considered 'hardcore' are thirteen year olds. Enough said really?
    Come to think of it, I don't know anyone under 25 with a Wii.

    If this game was on the other consoles, the 13 year olds would be here slating it because you can't use a keyboard/mouse.
  • asphaltcowboy #26 3 years ago

    What are these "corking games" you speak of?
  • creepylizard #27 3 years ago

    @asphaltcowboy
    probably old gamecube games...
  • Santino #28 3 years ago

    sounds pretty great, was on my radar anyway but this is one of the best previews i have read. hopefully the start of this year will be better than the end of last year in terms of releases, although thankfully it looks like there are quite a few good games coming for the wii. sounds like this game might actually keep me off of street fighter 4 for a while.
  • hiddenranbir #29 3 years ago

    You got shaken from a pigeon.
  • Super_Zee #30 3 years ago

    A game for the Wii that I actually want!

    This sounds so much in the spirit of God Hand that I'm very, very excited.
  • MoGamer2006 #31 3 years ago

    @asphaltcowboy

    Do we really want to get into listomania? Okay, you asked for it... off the top of my head we've had... Smash Bros, Mario Kart, World Of Goo, Lost Winds, Zack & Wiki, Pro Evo 2008, de Blob, Tetris Party and Actionloop Twist (I'm not going to include multiformat stuff like Rock Band and Guitar Hero).

    As I say, I couldn't have done without my 360, but I'd say anyone should be able to find at least two good reasons there to fire up their Wii (indeed, IMHO Lost Winds and World Of Goo are pretty much essential).
  • sneetch #32 3 years ago

    @MoGamer2006
    As I say, I couldn't have done without my 360, but I'd say anyone should be able to find at least two good reasons there to fire up their Wii (indeed, IMHO Lost Winds and World Of Goo are pretty much essential).

    I don't know about you but I don't replay the same games again and again, I completed Lost Winds over a weekend at launch and I've just got de Blob a week or so but between the two there wasn't much reason to fire it up as I'd already played the games I liked when they launched (World of Goo I got on PC).
  • smelly #33 3 years ago

    (insert witty comment about me not using my wii - while saying how ace my 360 is - here)
  • smelly #34 3 years ago

    "No, they play Mario Galaxy too, and ocaisionally Wii Sports.

    It's not so much the style of the game but the gameplay that matters, and there's a large group of gamers who want more then the casual games and mini game collections that are proving verry popular among the non tradional gamers the Wii atracts."



    Did you just say Mario Galaxy was a "casual game"?

    Oh brother.

    Next you'll be telling me "insert fps title here" is more hardcore than it is...
  • Starkillah_79 #35 3 years ago

    NICE! Too Bad I Ain't Got A Wii :D
  • Burkey123 #36 3 years ago

    Cannot wait for this!
    Day one purchase for sure and should be for every wii owner.
  • Machetazo #37 3 years ago

    This comes across like a work of genius for the console. So much win. I'd better prod the Wii, in readiness for March.
  • smelly #38 3 years ago

    >Day one purchase for sure and should be for every wii owner.

    Erm.. what if it's crap?

    (I'll wait for reviews thanks)

    I'm not personally sad enough to buy a game just because it's got red pixels... In the same way as im not sad enough NOT to buy a game just because it's colourful.
  • Machetazo #39 3 years ago

    It'll probably be more frenetic than The Club. (Club = good - running around large maps looking for something to attack = not so) That's why I'm looking forward to it, in addition to the laughs from the surreal, ott nature of the play, hinted at in the preview. These levels seem more deliberate, and there are surely more opportunities to accumulate/retain combos and high scores, because you're not simply someone running around with a gun, it has a far greater emphasis on close quarters combat.
  • merkdot #40 3 years ago

    @IronCladChicken what? I never mentioned anything about those games. More low common denominator crap.
  • Gearskin #41 3 years ago

    I want this. It looks and sounds satisfying.
  • secombe #42 3 years ago

    High score gaming? Sold!
  • figaro7 #43 3 years ago

    This is what happens when a developer puts some effort into a wii game, cant wait!
  • peterfll #44 3 years ago

    I saw a pigeon run over by a taxi in Lisle Street behind Lec Sq in the 1990's. It wasn't plesant and a female friend I was with at the time has a panic attack and screamed for some time after.

    But I'm looking forward to this game still.
  • Lawlost #45 3 years ago

    I feel a 6 or 7 for the final review
  • smelly #46 3 years ago

    >I feel a 6 or 7 for the final review

    Ditto.. (after all it's not a high profile fps game) still might buy/rent it though
  • secombe #47 3 years ago

    I'm not personally sad enough to buy a game just because it's got red pixels... In the same way as im not sad enough NOT to buy a game just because it's colourful.

    Not sure about anyone else but I came away from this review with a few key words "fun", "smile" and "score-fixated"

    All adding up for me so far, regardless of the gore content. Lets just hope the final review is as positive as this preview.
  • merkdot #48 3 years ago

    lol@the cabin fever in this thread
  • smelly #49 3 years ago

    "Lets just hope the final review is as positive as this preview. "

    Aye..

    For some reason i doubt it will be.. but .. Aye anyhuws..

    And if not.. I still havent gotten around to playing "de blob" yet
  • NegativeZero #50 3 years ago

    I'm still stunned that this managed to get through the Australian censorship board. And as such I'm holding off until it releases so I can see whether they cut it prior to submitting it for classification.
  • septimus #51 3 years ago

    Looks good. Not worth keeping my Wii for sadly (nothing is). Hope they come to their senses and release this on a decent platform.
  • lemonfist #52 3 years ago

    I like the look of it, but perhaps a bit too much gore for the sake of it rather than the campy LOLs of the amazing God Hand?
  • Bangaioh #53 3 years ago

    Another excuse to buy a WII... I wish I had the time to play all these releases, I'm 85 hrs into Fallout3 and I don't think I'm going to drop the joypad before 120-150 hrs and this is probably the fifth game I'd like to play on a WII...
    Edited by 1 at 04/02/09 @ 10:52
  • asphaltcowboy #54 3 years ago

    @MoGamer2006

    Half those games came out in the first half of last year - I'm talking about recent games - you said last few months! There has been very little to shout about on Wii in recent months (certainly in the run-up to Christmas). MadWorld is the only thing on the horizon that I know of...
  • MoGamer2006 #55 3 years ago

    @asphaltcowboy

    Yes, and half those games came out in the latter half - so what's your point? But agreed, the run-up to Xmas was terrible.

    Look, I'm wasn't saying the Wii's 2008 line-up was stellar or consistent - hence my point that I was glad of my 360 being around - it was just a comment aimed at those "My Wii's been gathering dust since No More Heroes"-type posts, to whit that there's been occasional highlights if you're looking for something other than another violent kill-'em-up.
  • electrolite #56 3 years ago

    Still not convinced by this. Gore doesn't make a game interesting (unless you're 15, obv.), but it's good to see Sega give it a go. The more rounded a machine's catalogue the better
  • MoGamer2006 #57 3 years ago

    @CountFapula

    What the hell is that off-the-top-of-your-brain BS? Where did I suggest you had to like those games?

    Fucking hell....
  • Dermoth #58 3 years ago

    There are too many games like this. If I had a pound for every time I saw some arcadey, high-score whorey, graphically stylish, violently over- the-top slice of fun, I'd be a bazillionaire.

    Come on, Sega; give us something pedestrian and brown, with guns and crosshairs. It's WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT.
  • lemonfist #59 3 years ago

  • merkdot #60 3 years ago

    well, it's probably shitty gameplay underneath the black and white veneer, but if this is what passes for innovation now, then whoop-de-doo.