MadWorld

PlatinumGames makes great games, but they don't sell as many copies as they should - Vanquish hasn't broken one million sales.

Bayonetta, MadWorld and Vanquish developer PlatinumGames has outlined its new vision and lamented the decline of originality in video games.

PlatinumGames, the creator of Bayonetta and MadWorld, will reveal its next project this week.

SEGA Europe's development boss Gary Dunn was "blown away" by Microsoft's and Sony's motion-sensing demonstrations at E3 and "immediately" wants to start working with the new technology.

SEGA America mouthpiece Sean Ratcliffe has said MadWorld could become a franchise in a heartbeat if the audience demands it.

Self-appointed American media watchdog and purveyor of moral outrage, the National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF), has issued a thoroughly wholesome statement indicating its unhappiness with Nintendo after SEGA's stylish Wii brawler MadWorld saw release in the US yesterday.

Jack has just torn the head clean off a man dressed as a minotaur, when yet another steroid-pumped goon wanders into shot. Perfect timing! In one graceful movement I slam the beast's still-warm horned skull down onto the unfortunate man's shoulders. It connects with such force that, as I step back to admire my handiwork, it remains lodged in place. If Xzibit were here perhaps he'd quip: "Yo Dawg! We heard you like head so we put a new head in your head." Instead, as MadWorld's two commentators come from the Wrestlemania tradition of television commentary, we're treated to the cruder line: "You've got one minute left: which is precisely the amount of time your wife spent f***ing you on your honeymoon."

Next, I grab a signpost and spear the brute's second-hand face with it. As he stumbles about, understandably disorientated from his improbable wounds, I rev the chainsaw attachment on Jack's right arm and, encouraged by the FINISHER! icon flashing on screen, slice him vertically in two with a deft flick of the Wiimote. His torso flaps open like a peeled banana as a crimson puddle bubbles about my feet. Jack's ratings soar.

Gamers who have been clamouring for adult content for Nintendo's Wii are to be sorely disappointed. MadWorld is as juvenile a videogame as Barbie's Horse Adventures. Of course, juvenile doesn't necessarily mean that it's in any way suitable for children. Quite the opposite, in fact. After all, Barbie never got to dip her pony into a flaming oil drum before ramming it onto a spiked wall. Eyes first. Repeatedly.

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SEGA has confirmed that MadWorld will be released for Wii on 20th March.

PlatinumGames' blood-soaked action game did a lot to win us over in our recent MadWorld hands-on preview, and despite the gushing claret it's more House of the Dead meets God Hand than Hostel.

"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," we said at the time.

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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.

SEGA has smacked a US date of 10th March on brutal Wii action game MadWorld.

Controversial Wii game MadWorld has been given an 18 rating by the British Board of Classification, with no cuts made.

Nintendo US almost-boss Cammie Dunaway reckons hardcore gamers will sit up and take notice of the Wii next year, as the "breadth of offerings" will increase to cover plenty of audiences.

Watchdog outfit Mediawatch-UK has received sacks of "hostile emails" after calling for a ban of gory SEGA Wii game MadWorld.

It's difficult to understand why there's so much controversy surrounding MadWorld when the violence is so very Tom and Jerry. It's mostly prop-based, slapstick comedy; giant spikes, falling objects, tyres being jammed over characters' heads, enemies getting thrown into the path of subway trains. If it weren't for the copious red splashes spattering the black and white gameworld and the vicious, limb-ripping finishing moves, it would be hard to imagine it sparking much debate - even on the family-friendly Wii.

SEGA Wii game MadWorld will "spoil the family fun image" of the console, according to Mediawatch-UK, a British organisation that campaigns for decency in television, games and films.

What's black and white and red all over? Apart from a sunburned zebra, a Commie panda and a magpie in a blender? That's right, an ultra-violent fighting game developed by the makers of Okami and published by SEGA exclusively for Wii in the first quarter of 2009! I am brilliant fun at parties.

SEGA has whipped out its calendar and put dates alongside its upcoming titles, including Sonic Unleashed, which will be out this November. However, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Empire: Total War both fall into 2009.

Warning, signs.

The closure of Capcom's Clover Studio - the division responsible for the likes of Viewtiful Joe, Okami and God Hand - was met with plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth among gamers. That's understandable - studios creating high-profile original games aren't exactly ten a penny, after all. Still, just because Clover's doors were shut last March doesn't mean that the creative talent that fuelled the studio dissipated. Instead, the key players reformed as a development company called Seeds, Inc - which was subsequently renamed to PlatinumGames Inc.