Madworld, Wii

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Madworld, Wii

POSTED: Monday, May 18, 2009, 7:00 AM

Filed Under: Video Games Wii

Take a dazed enemy and slam him, butthole first, onto a four-foot spike.

Remember when Manhunt 2 was released for the Wii and everyone lost their shit about how the game made you mimic killing motions with the Wii remote and nunchuck? I guess now that Jack Johnson, the famous video game crusader, has been disbarred there's no one left to pick up the torches and pitchforks against Madworld, because there's been nary a peep and the game does exactly the same thing.

Nintendo's latest attempt to make the Wii attractive to the "hardcore gamer," Madworld drops you into the combat boots of Jack, a cigar-chomping, chopper-riding, badass with a scorching case of roid rage. As Jack, you're dropped into the middle of Varrigan City's televised violence fest, Death Watch. With a chainsaw attached to his arm, Jack moves from level to level, slicing hordes of enemies to bits with great aplomb, tossing them into flaming hobo-fire trash cans, and, ultimately, finding the most horrifying ways to finish them off. I have never seen a game where you could take a dazed enemy and slam him, butthole first, onto a four-foot spike.

If that all sounds really greusome, it is. But bear in mind that Madworld is presented in cel-shaded black and white, giving it an animated Sin City flavor. The only color you'll see is the geyser-like spurts of red blood and yellow onomatopoeia that flash across the screen. The game is beautiful to look at - if you can find beauty in ramming a sign post through someone's head - and that can often make you forget you're playing one of the most violent games out there. The art is accompanied by great voice work. The developer nabbed Greg Proops from Whose Line is it Anyway? and John DiMaggio, who does the voice of Futurama's Bender, to spew profanity-laced commentary to accompany the buckets of gore. Their dialog is often really funny, but the sad thing is that most of it is designed to be played over and over again whenever common events happen (say, you toss a guy in a dumpster). I can't tell you how many times I heard the same joke about the one guy's wife.

The violence is probably going to be what attracts most people to the game, and though there's plenty to go around, it gets old fast. One of Madworld's few weak points are in the lack of variety in its death dealing and level design. The first time I picked up a enemy and slammed him, ad nauseam, onto a bed of spikes was an eye opener. I'll even admit that it elicited a chuckle. But after about the 50th time, it became a chore. The levels are designed as such: enter new area; kill a crap ton of mindless, leather-clad punks; score enough points to to unlock the Bloodbath Challenge (more on those in a second); score even more points to unlock the boss. Rinse, lather, repeat. The minigame Bloodbath Challenges do provide a bit of relief, though, and will be familiar to any Wii owner. Basically, you're given a brief amount of time and a task (like seeing how many guys you can swat into an oncoming train, or how many throw into a massive meat grinder). The more havoc you wreak, the more points you'll pick up, and the faster you'll get to the boss. The boss battles are where it's at. They're themed well and the bosses themselves are all way larger than you, making it much more fun when you take them down.

While, overall, Madworld is a lot of fun in small doses, it's not likely to win over the hardcore set and send them scrambling to own a Wii. The controls aren't perfect, the game's targeting system is pretty much worthless, and it's really short. You'd be lucky to get more than five hours out of it, and there isn't much there to make you want to go back and play it again. But you'll love it if you own a Wii and enjoy a steady diet of death and mayhem.

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