Cons: Very Short, Shallow Gameplay, Repetitive
First let me get this out of the way, if gore, obscene language, and shocking imagery offend you. Take the mouse and click the back button because this game is NOT for you. I repeat, this game is NOT for you. Don’t even hear, watch or listen to this game. With that out of the way, let’s begin.
With the video game industry primarily focusing on First Person Shooters and Role Playing Games, most people have seemed to forgot about how fun video games like Beat ‘Em Ups can be. For those who yearn for good old fashion Beat ‘em Up games are often disappointed with the selection of next gen console games. With MadWorld being released will this change?
MadWorlds story takes place in Varrigan City where you take control of Jack who shows up in Varrigan City. Varrigan City has been taken over by a group of terrorists who are called The Organizers. This group of terrorists have turned the city into a setting for a game show called Deathwatch. All civilians are infected with a virus which slowly kills them unless they have the antidote. So for the game show civilians are forced to kill one another for the privilege to continue living.
At first start the story starts off slow and doesn’t seem very engaging, but that’s where you’re wrong. The story soon picks up and there’s a couple plot twists which keeps you from guessing what’s going to happen. After all Yasumi Matsuno who worked on several Final Fantasy games, is one of the developers behind the story.
The game runs on a point system. Every time you kill somebody you’re rewarded with points. Once you earn enough of these points you’ll be rewarded with weapons, health, mini games, and finally a boss battle. One disappointment with the point system is that there’s no online leaderboard what so ever, so those who are competitive may be turned off by this.
The
mini games for the most part are very fun, and often hilarious. For
example one of the mini games you can take part in is darts. In darts
you’ll be armed with a bat and a huge dart board is placed in front of
you. Your goal is to hit your enemies with the bat and have them fly
straight at the dart board. All of these minigames can be played with a
friend via splitscreen, which adds a little more replay value to the
game.
MadWorld gives you a handful of ways to depose of your enemies, you can simply just chainsaw your way through the game, but that won’t reward you with many points. So instead you’ll want to pull off more creative kills. For example the best way to get points would be to punch the enemy a couple times, impale him with a signpost, and then slam him onto a set of spikes. At first playing MadWorld seems fun and quite varied. But you’ll soon come to realize that beyond the gore and action, the gameplay is actually extremely shallow as you really only have one combo, and you’ll often find yourself following the same set of patterns to kill your enemies.
After each level you complete you’ll be greeted by a boss. These boss battles are quite frequent; this is a good thing because they are very well designed and creative. Each of the bosses has their own special quick time events which are quite cinematic and fun to watch, but you can still kill them by repeatedly slashing with your chainsaw. Once you defeat a boss, you’ll know you won’t be seeing them again after witnessing their gory and over the top death scenes.
You’ll end up fly through most of the game because the difficulty level is quite low. The first few levels are painfully easy, because the enemies don’t give up much of a fight; they simply just take what you throw at them. But after a few stages you’ll be pleased to find that they become harder. Once you beat the game you unlock hard mode. Here is where you’ll have most of your fun with the game. The enemies become very aggressive. Blocking and avoiding your attacks, and to add to the difficulty you only have one life to start with. With just a couple well placed hits you’ll be finished, leaving you to restart the level.
All the controls are done very well and unlike most of the wii’s games MadWorld doesn’t require you shake the remote like a deranged manic. Tapping the A button allows you to throw a simple combo, and swinging the wii remote up, down, left or right allows you to perform a uppercut or a backhand attack. Holding the B buttons allows you to take out your chainsaw which you use by swinging around the wii remote. Objects such as happy pills and garbage cans are picked up by simply walking near them and holding the A button or the D-Pad when prompt. Once you punished your enemy enough a skull appears on the screen, when this pops up you have the choice to either press down the B button or hold the A button to do a finishing move. Besides your offence you can also defend by dodging enemies, to do this you simply swing the nunchuck.
For what gameplay lacks MadWorld makes up for with its art direction. MadWorld sports elegant comic book style art. Although you might think that having a game which is all black and white would be a bad thing, you’re wrong. It fits the mood perfectly and works flawlessly giving it a unique look. Although the graphics are very well done, depending on the person they might tire your eyes. So long playing sessions should be avoided if that happens.
Along with the amazing art MadWorld also has a good soundtrack. The soundtrack consists of hip hop songs which fit the setting perfectly. The commentators are voiced by Greg Proops from Whose Line is it Anyway, and William DiMaggio who voices Bender from the television series Futurama. These commentators are the best I’ve heard in a video game so far. They’re raunchy, they’re offensive and it works. But be warned, when you first start up the game go to the sound settings and balance out the sound, because the default settings are horrible and will quickly have you reaching for the mute button.
With MadWorlds unique art direction and over the top action it’s sure to keep you entertained for a while, but once you get over the gore. You’ll be quick to realize that MadWorld is a very short and shallow game. Even though I loved this game and enjoyed it considerably, I only recommend this game for a weekend rent.
Story – 7
Gameplay -5
Presentation – 10