Madworld Review (WII)

An over the top gory beat em up adventure, that falls a little short on the landmark Wii title many were expecting.

Since its release, the Nintendo Wii has been branded a “kiddie console, a machine for the whole family” leaving the more mature Wii gamers out there longing for a blood filled action title to satisfy their thirst, and to be honest, outside of House of the Dead, Dead Rising or No More Heroes there is not a lot in the way of adult games. This is where Madworld comes in, offering an over the top gory beat ’em up adventure, that falls a little short on the landmark Wii title many were expecting.

Varigan City has been cut off from the outside world, forcing the residents into a violent fight for survival for the TV show Death Watch. After arriving in the city, our hero “Jack, Just Jack” finds himself contracted under the mysterious XIII. Jack must fight his way to the top and win the game while secretly holding on to his own reasons for being there under the watchful eye of the many cameras throughout the city.

The game itself lends inspiration from films such as Sin City and The Running Man and is set in a similar visual style to No More Heroes. Gameplay is split into time limited missions that are accessed through a main map screen, the mindless violence is visually impressive especially when the claret starts flying. This is helped somewhat by the deliberate black and white Sin City comic book style visuals. Madworld is not too serious and you earn points for killing opponents – the more impressive the kill, the more points you earn. The action is none stop and the gore level is maxed out. Having said that, the camera angles are terrible; the low third person view makes it difficult to see opponents in front of you as well as to the sides. This is made even more confusing when you start moving around the environment, as the camera seems to stay in one position and because there is no way to rotate the camera, you will have to keep resetting the view behind Jack to have some idea as to where opponents are on screen. This is a major flaw and cannot be easily overlooked as in No More Heroes. However if you do manage to get past the horrific camera angles, Madworld does provide a fairly satisfying game despite the fact that this will only last for an hour or so before the repetition kicks in for the long haul to the final credits. There is nothing really there to make you want to continue the adventure, you feel no connection to Jack or his reasons for being in the city, yet the sight and sound of an enemy being thrown into a wall of spikes will give you a sick smirk on your face and you will do it again, and again and maybe again before getting bored. The commentary, provided by Gregg Proops and John Dimaggio, also offers amusing enjoyment throughout the adventure although you won’t really notice while throwing opponents around the game environment.

In the words of Jack, “Bigger don’t mean Better!”

Character animation is a little uninspiring yet fluid, arenas are packed with death inducing objects of terror, but these are often flat and not as detailed as the characters. Blood spatter effects are very impressive, plentiful and presented in glorious detail. Enemies look exactly the same as each other with at a guess, five different designs, making them very repetitive very quickly. This is increased by their stupidly dumb A.I – Enemies on screen will either stand still or move in a set route until you get very close to them before they even turn to attack you giving you a very easy “first blood” attack, they will not team up on you and will mostly wait for you to attack before they make a move. The same goes for the boss battles. When a boss appears on screen they will wait for you to get close before beginning an attack, these boss battles are not well thought out and just feels like you have a slightly harder opponent to fight. The bosses throughout the game are better designed than the normal sentries although they are generally just bigger in stature. In the words of Jack, “Bigger don’t mean Better!”, and this is most definitely the case. Playing through, you don’t mind this as much as you would think, everything has a nice gentle flow and these minor flaws don’t spoil the game but instead helps to ease you through the campaign.

In addition to the single player mode, multiplayer has been added to support up to 2 players and no, there is NO online mode. The multiplayer modes offer nothing new or enjoyable to Madworld and you would not be disappointed if you skipped multiplayer altogether. However, if beating your mates in your lounge for brag value is your thing, Madworld does have a mediocre Man Darts mode where you hurl opponents at a huge dart board using a spiked bat to score points. A kind of 3D Human skittles mode where you knock down as many enemies as possible again to score yet more points, and that’s about it.
Timeframe is approximately 8-10 hours for the first run through, although this can be done in as little as 4-6, Madworld offers nothing in the way of replay value apart from an ultra hard mode on completion or the satisfaction in completing the game 100%.

Overall Madworld is a fun, over the top visually impressive beat em up adventure, plenty of blood and gore, Visuals are good and sound effects are satisfying, however the terrible camera and multiplayer modes stop this from becoming the modern day classic that fans anticipated. Madworld should be played, enjoyed to the edge of boredom and forgotten in anticipation for something better, let’s hope Platinum Games straighten things out before Bayonetta.
7/10

Bronze Y Award

3.5 / 5