Madworld is an odd one, all right.
It bears more than a passing resemblance to Itchy and Scratchy from The Simpsons: Animated hyperviolence as a satire of the crass media culture, but also a convenient excuse to show someone getting their heart cut with a chainsaw.
In Madworld’s story, corporate terrorists have taken over a Manhattan-analog. They block all exits from the city, infect everyone with an airborne virus, and promise cures for anyone willing to kill their fellow man. All the action gets recorded by the city’s built-in network of traffic and security cameras, points are assigned for kills, and the winners can take home big prizes. Some “contestants” can even pick up sponsors.
Into this scenario steps Jack, a cigar-chomping tough guy who looks like he could be Hellboy’s cousin, but with goggles in the place of ground-down horns and a metal hand with a retractable chainsaw in the place of a stone one.
I’m not sure how you would quantify “the most violent video game ever made,” but I can’t think of one that could top Madworld. The black, white and red color scheme emphasises the violence rather than blunting it. It’s not easy to shock people these days, but there were some bona-fide screams in our living room when people watched Jack drive a signpost through the neck of a resisting street punk.
Madworld would be a pretty dismal experience if it were just hyperviolence, but it wisely takes the edge off with humor. Greg Proops and John “Futurama’s Bender” DiMaggio do a great job as the game’s cheerfully depraved color commentators, though the canned dialog gets repeated far too often. The arenas get stranger and more irreverent, with Jack throwing pirate hats to distract ninjas or launching zombies at the moon with a catapult.
I love the soundtrack, too. I’m considering actually buying it if it gets release separately.
So, how’s it play? To me, it comes up a bit short as a brawler.
Games like Devil May Cry or God Hand give you a big arsenal of moves to use on henchmen, and they get their replayability from learning to use your full range of options and look great doing it. From that perspective, Madworld feels much more limited. Most of the variety and point combos come not from varying your moves or dodging, but by schlepping a bunch of debris around to jam into some schmuck.
The limited length and scope of the game is likely to be a sticking point for players. The game consists of only a handful of arenas, and though I haven’t finished it myself because I’m refusing to move on until I beat a particularly finicky challenge, reports are that Madworld can be completed in 6 to 10 hours. That’s incredibly short for a $50 game, but our household has it on loan from a friend, so I can’t tell you if I feel cheated or not.
And the camera controls! Augh! I guess they did the best they could with the Wii, but holding down the C-button to lock on to an enemy only seems to work half the time, and when it does, it usually locks on to someone other than who you wanted to focus on.
Despite all this, Madworld is definitely a game that deserves a look, if perhaps not a buy. I’d trade a dozen surefire blockbuster sequels for one game that tries something risky.
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