The following is my video review on MadWorld for the Wii. Below it is my "script" for it, although i usually just winged it in the past, using whatever notes i made. So yeah, enjoy.
So in the past, people have made the complaint along the lines of "Aww, Gears of War is only a good game because you chainsaw people and half and shit". Well sometimes, you have to realize that it's just a video game. You get it to have fun, and if the game can make you have fun by throwing dismembered limbs in your face, why the hell not? Madworld is perfect example of a game that exploits this to the max, throwing blood, guts, profanity, sex appeal, and even offensive stereotypes, all at your face at once.
MadWorld takes place in Varrigan island, putting you in the role of Jack, being a former mechanic and ex-marine. The island has now become consumed with a game known as Death Watch, a deadly sport that is being played in order to win the grand prize of 100 million dollars. However, while Jack joins the games appearing as a regular contestant, it turns out that he's really trying to find out how the games all started, and needs to put and end to it. For a game that really didn't require any plot whatsoever, the story is actually pretty good. Learning about the origin of how the games began in this peaceful island is really interesting, and sort of resembles the Japanese horror flick, Battle Royale.
The soundtrack in this game is also very good. While MadWorld may be better suited with heavy metal, the hip hop soundtrack is still great. Along with the music, you are treated with mostly terrific voice acting, aside from the cliche thugs you meet. Probably the most entertaining voice acting is done by John Dimaggio, who serves as an announcer that sounds like a mix between Bender and Marcus Fenix, both being characters voiced by him. The only issue I had was with everyone repeating their lines too frequently, including the announcers, and the thugs.
As for graphics, they are both amazing and painful to watch at the same time. The whole black and white comic book style mixed with the coloured blood was a great idea, and is executed near flawlessly. The problem is, when the game is so action packed, and filled with all these effects, the game really starts to hurt your eyes after an hour or so, and forced me to stop playing for a bit. It may even cause the player to become colour blind if you play for a large amount of time.
Moving on to the gameplay itself, its quite parallel to what I just said about the graphics. While it plays very well, it gets old over time. The premise is very simple. You have a chainsaw strapped to your arm, your character is jacked up on the roids, and the environments are filled with opportunities for you to take advantage of. If you hit an enemy enough, you can perform a finisher move, usually consisting of throwing them, or doing something cool with your chainsaw. This is also one of the first Wii games where I'm glad they took advantage of the motion sensors, as MadWorld certainly knows what to do with it.
As for the environment around you, there's plenty of things for you to have fun with. See a flat tire? Throw it on your enemy. See a caution sign? Kill 'em with irony and shove it through their skull. See a wall of spikes? Throw your enemy into it. Or fuck it, why not just do all of them at the same time? This is generally how MadWorld is played, and it's simply a blast.
When you enter the game, you are forced to challenge other bosses. Just like No More Heroes, you have your own rank, and you must defeat other bosses in order to gain their rank and progress. However, you will need to gain points before you are able to face them. To get those points, the game wants you to be as stylish as possible, giving incentive for the player to get creative. On top of this, the game also unlocks several things for you as you get those points. Things like new weapons, health regeneration, and the ridiculously fun minigames keep the game interesting up until the boss battles. These fun minigames are also available to be played in splitscreen multiplayer, so that's always a plus. The boss battles themselves are also pretty challenging, and offer for some really entertaining god of war styled attacks.
So what's wrong with MadWorld? Well, the camera angles are horrible, and don't let you control them properly. The continues system also replaces any form of checkpoints, which can be a problem for a game that should be easy to pick up and play. So if you fail to pick up any continues and you lose at one of the challenging boss fights, you pretty much have to play for another 20 minutes just so you can get another shot at him, which is the point where I just turn off the system and do something else. Those are really the only complaints I have with MadWorld, other than the fact that the game is just plain repetitive. While the first hour of playing will completely blow your mind, the satisfaction of whipping a guy into a wall of spikes does start to get old.
So the bottom line is, MadWorld is a really fun game that does get repetitive. The campaign is interesting enough for you to completely finish it, and the excessively mature nature of this game can keep you entertained for some time. But once you experience this game once, there isn't that much incentive to see the same death animations over and over again, as fun as they are too perform. Possibly try renting it to see if its something you want to keep on playing, although I do recommend that your try this game out, assuming you aren't easily offended, and that your eyes are in good shape.
So in the past, people have made the complaint along the lines of "Aww, Gears of War is only a good game because you chainsaw people and half and shit". Well sometimes, you have to realize that it's just a video game. You get it to have fun, and if the game can make you have fun by throwing dismembered limbs in your face, why the hell not? Madworld is perfect example of a game that exploits this to the max, throwing blood, guts, profanity, sex appeal, and even offensive stereotypes, all at your face at once.
MadWorld takes place in Varrigan island, putting you in the role of Jack, being a former mechanic and ex-marine. The island has now become consumed with a game known as Death Watch, a deadly sport that is being played in order to win the grand prize of 100 million dollars. However, while Jack joins the games appearing as a regular contestant, it turns out that he's really trying to find out how the games all started, and needs to put and end to it. For a game that really didn't require any plot whatsoever, the story is actually pretty good. Learning about the origin of how the games began in this peaceful island is really interesting, and sort of resembles the Japanese horror flick, Battle Royale.
The soundtrack in this game is also very good. While MadWorld may be better suited with heavy metal, the hip hop soundtrack is still great. Along with the music, you are treated with mostly terrific voice acting, aside from the cliche thugs you meet. Probably the most entertaining voice acting is done by John Dimaggio, who serves as an announcer that sounds like a mix between Bender and Marcus Fenix, both being characters voiced by him. The only issue I had was with everyone repeating their lines too frequently, including the announcers, and the thugs.
As for graphics, they are both amazing and painful to watch at the same time. The whole black and white comic book style mixed with the coloured blood was a great idea, and is executed near flawlessly. The problem is, when the game is so action packed, and filled with all these effects, the game really starts to hurt your eyes after an hour or so, and forced me to stop playing for a bit. It may even cause the player to become colour blind if you play for a large amount of time.
Moving on to the gameplay itself, its quite parallel to what I just said about the graphics. While it plays very well, it gets old over time. The premise is very simple. You have a chainsaw strapped to your arm, your character is jacked up on the roids, and the environments are filled with opportunities for you to take advantage of. If you hit an enemy enough, you can perform a finisher move, usually consisting of throwing them, or doing something cool with your chainsaw. This is also one of the first Wii games where I'm glad they took advantage of the motion sensors, as MadWorld certainly knows what to do with it.
As for the environment around you, there's plenty of things for you to have fun with. See a flat tire? Throw it on your enemy. See a caution sign? Kill 'em with irony and shove it through their skull. See a wall of spikes? Throw your enemy into it. Or fuck it, why not just do all of them at the same time? This is generally how MadWorld is played, and it's simply a blast.
When you enter the game, you are forced to challenge other bosses. Just like No More Heroes, you have your own rank, and you must defeat other bosses in order to gain their rank and progress. However, you will need to gain points before you are able to face them. To get those points, the game wants you to be as stylish as possible, giving incentive for the player to get creative. On top of this, the game also unlocks several things for you as you get those points. Things like new weapons, health regeneration, and the ridiculously fun minigames keep the game interesting up until the boss battles. These fun minigames are also available to be played in splitscreen multiplayer, so that's always a plus. The boss battles themselves are also pretty challenging, and offer for some really entertaining god of war styled attacks.
So what's wrong with MadWorld? Well, the camera angles are horrible, and don't let you control them properly. The continues system also replaces any form of checkpoints, which can be a problem for a game that should be easy to pick up and play. So if you fail to pick up any continues and you lose at one of the challenging boss fights, you pretty much have to play for another 20 minutes just so you can get another shot at him, which is the point where I just turn off the system and do something else. Those are really the only complaints I have with MadWorld, other than the fact that the game is just plain repetitive. While the first hour of playing will completely blow your mind, the satisfaction of whipping a guy into a wall of spikes does start to get old.
So the bottom line is, MadWorld is a really fun game that does get repetitive. The campaign is interesting enough for you to completely finish it, and the excessively mature nature of this game can keep you entertained for some time. But once you experience this game once, there isn't that much incentive to see the same death animations over and over again, as fun as they are too perform. Possibly try renting it to see if its something you want to keep on playing, although I do recommend that your try this game out, assuming you aren't easily offended, and that your eyes are in good shape.
