MadWorld is the first game from the renamed Clover Studios now under Sega’s banner as Platinum. The ultra violent, blood soaked game fits in with the public image of the Wii about as well as Freddy Kruger at a toddler group.

The story goes like this; a terrorist group has cut all the bridges linking Jefferson Island to the rest of whatever city it’s in and released a virus into the air. All the people of the island have to do to get a vaccine is to kill someone. After 24 hours whoever is left takes a share of $100,000,000 and gets to live. Obviously the fewer people left, the more money for the survivors. Cue the carnage.

You play as Jack, a mysterious man sent into the DeathWatch Games for reasons unknown. All you know about him as you begin the carnage is that he can take a man’s head off with his punch and has a chainsaw strapped to his arm.

The island is split into 5 areas, each containing 2 main levels with a boss each, followed by a fight against the area boss to earn the right to move deeper into the island. In each level the object is to score points by killing your enemies in as gruesome a way as possible to unlock new areas, weapons, games and finally, a chance to challenge the boss. It’s Smash TV meets Streets of Rage meets Manhunt, but does that make it a Vodka Martini or a Coke and Milk?

Where does your chainsaw want to go today?

The first thing that strikes fear into your fun-wanting mind in MadWorld is the control diagram. Pretty much every button on the wiimote and nunchuk is used including the dreaded swing motions on both. The nunchuk deals with dodging while the wiimote is concerned with dealing damage. Tapping A throws punches, wiimote swings throw power punches and holding B whips out your chainsaw to do some serious damage.

The controls come pretty naturally after running through the tutorial level and work fine through the first area, but once you hit the second area it begins to struggle. With the need to be dodging more complex attack patterns and faster enemies, the nunchuk dodge just doesn’t cut it. The problem is that it only comes in one flavour; a backflip. If done correctly the backflip can look awesome and feel awesome. The backflip sends Jack backwards from the direction he’s facing which means when Jack is running into the camera, away from an enemy, a dodge you thought was well timed just sent you straight into a sawblade. It’s a horrible error and one that will lose you more than a few lives, especially as the difficulty ramps up.

Another problem that ties in with the backflip issue is the camera. Honestly developers, we’ve been doing full 3D for over 10 years. Why are we still screwing up the camera? Like the backflip, the camera starts working against you. Especially when you’re facing a boss. Tapping the C button will put the camera behind Jack while holding it will lock-on to the nearest visible enemy. Fine in theory, but when running from a boss the camera will switch to auto a lot of the time and move the boss out of sight, making you unable to get a lock-on. Even worse, if the boss moves out of sight while the lock-on is registering (which takes about 3-4 seconds, a far cry from the instant Zelda lock-on) the lock will cancel, leaving you vulnerable. Even when the lock-on does stick the camera still struggles to keep the enemies in sight, especially quick enemies. Like the backflip, this will result in you getting several sharp objects in the face.

THAT WAS AWESOME! THAT WAS AWESOME!

The commentary is very good for the most part. Platinum have brought in John DiMaggio and Greg Proops who have been given a fantastic script and have also been able to improvise a few lines of their own, however as great as these lines are there just aren’t enough of them. I’ve heard the same lines repeat 4-5 times in a level and in 10-15 minute levels that’s painfully noticeable.

Then there’s the worry that came from the game’s hype; that things could get repetitive. Unfortunately the levels do quickly become very similar. Spikes here, crushy thing here, blades here and level-specific-death-tool-activated-in-exactly-the-same-way-every-time here. This will grow very tiresome during long play sessions. However, while the levels are very similar in make-up there are enough different enemy types to ensure you have to keep changing strategy to get the best results. Sadly, the point values for a kill don’t decrease the more you do it, so a 30,000 point kill will always be worth 30,000. This somewhat dulls the necessity to experiment and find new ways to kill.

The main centrepiece for the levels in terms of changing up the killing is the Bloodbath Challenges. These are activated once you’ve reached a certain points total, but a lot of them ultimately come down to firing stupider than usual enemies into targets. As entertaining as these can be, at 3 minutes they are far too long for what they are. I grew bored of Man Darts after roughly 10 minutes and Man Golf took less time due to its slower pace. It hurts even more when the commentator’s pool of lines seems to get even smaller during these challenges. There are some truly inspired challenges; a frantic scramble to stuff enough enemies into barrels to trigger a fireworks display springs to mind, mainly because the enemies actually fight back here.

Swing left, right, up and nunchuk up to not die

Bosses suffer due to an annoying need to rely on motion quick time events in order to do any serious damage. As you get further into the game the need arises to trigger these ‘Power Struggle’ events more and more just to deal decent damage. When you’re running these exact same sequences 5-6 times until a boss bites the dust, it brings a sour taste to what are some truly entertaining bosses.

The game also suffers, like so many other current generation games, from being terribly short. The campaign mode will last any competent player just a few hours. The addition of 2 new weapons doesn’t do much to add replay value. The Hard mode also unlocked upon completion doesn’t pose much more of a challenge as all it really does is replace the early level cannon fodder with the harder enemies from later in the game which you’ll be well versed in fighting by then.

Surprisingly for a game focused on extreme violence and a seemingly apathetic protagonist, the big high point is the story. There’s enough real human stories in the game to truly bring it home what’s happening on the island. The voice actors do a fine job of bringing the severity of the situation across. This still doesn’t make you care for the main character Jack though. His cold, just-a-job approach to his task makes him seem like more of a bad guy than the organisation that’s taken over the island.

A few other points worth mentioning:

• The controls often seem like they’re desperately trying to keep up with the action, the chainsaw and camera being particularly sluggish.
• The commentary, while initially brilliant quickly becomes tired and repeats far too often. A real waste of the talent on show.
• Rarely is a varied array of kills necessary, way too often just standing by a spike wall and piling enemies into it will rack up the points quickly.
• The Bloodbath Challenges, while initially entertaining quickly pale into repetitive target shoots.
• Quick-time events are way overused in boss battles, leading to sour tastes and sore arms once the adrenaline wears off.
• The game is short, and unless score attacks and multiplayer Bloodbath Challenges interest you it’s unlikely you’ll be returning once the credits roll.

There is no doubt that MadWorld is an extremely fun game, but its faults make it very hard to enjoy in the later stages. A surprisingly good story makes it easier to push through those troubles and get to the end than you might expect. However the over all length of the game and limited replay value makes it hard to recommend as a straight purchase.

You should play this game if…

…you’re looking for a decent 3D brawler

Final Score

A solid brawler that severely suffers from niggly control issues and an over reliance on repetitive set pieces.

(What does this score mean?)