MadWorld (Wii)

[Erik Bauer]

I've ben gifted, some weeks ago, of MadWorld for my birthday.
It was totally unexpected as I was, yes somewhat attracted by tis title, but for the most part dubious about it's effective value.
But a friend of mine decided to gift me with it...
...and all I can say is that MadWorld is one of the funniest games I've ever played!
Ok, maybe it is not a masterpiece like RE4 or Zelda... but it is so ludicrously violent to be as funny as watching a Scary Movie episode, expecially if played with friends.

Technically the game uses a very particular Black and White cell shading where the only colors are: Black and White (for almost anything), Red (For the blood) and Yellow (For on screen messages). This gives the game a cool "Sin City" comic look and abstracts you that much from the utter violence you are going to commit while playing to setup your mood in a sort of "Let's have fun" mode.
All the game is commented by a couple of funny speakers, while the soundtrack is basically a collection of funny hip-hop songs that contributes to keep up the funny tone of the game.

The setting and plot of MadWorld are a mix of "Excape from New York", "The Running Man" and "Sin City": You are Jack Cayman, an ex special op soldier with a mechanical arm armed with a chainsaw and for some reasons (I won't spoil anything here, yes there IS a plot behind the game!) you enter a deadly reality show called "Death Watch". This competition takes place in the main isladn of a big town, whose bridges have been cut down (Yes, something very similar to Manhattan).
The purpose of the game is survive by maiming and killing all the other players you encounter, and making points, as many points you can!
Points are made by hurting and maiming opponents, the more you maim them before the killing blow, the more points you collect. And I assure you, there are many and many ways to maim an kill your opponents: from plugging a road sign in their torso to putting them into a fire blazing barrel; from chopping their limbs with your weapons to lock them into big flat-tires; and so on... And all those maiming methods can be combined one wit the other before actually killing the opponent with the final killing blow.
Talking about killing blows there are several of them, depending on the opponent position, on your wielded weapon and on the lethal environment near you. You can rip them in two with your chainsaw, impale them on pointy spikes, literally break their back, crush their heart...
While all this seems just utter and pure violence (in fact it is), the bloody massacre that is the gameplay is so exaggerated that in combination with the soundtrack and funny live comments results in one of the most funny games you can play on any system.

[Gambit37]

I'm waiting for the conservative press to start another "violent games corrupt children" campaign with this one at the center of their complaint.

[Erik Bauer]

Well, MadWorld is in fact rated as 18+ so it can't (should not) be corrupting childrens... but I got what you mean, those press articles tend to be annoyingly repetitive. And pointless: I'm playing videogames since the age of 8 (I'm 36 now) and yet have to become blind, mind deficient and violent.

[Trantor]

I've never heard of this game, but it sounds awesome! Will have to check it out, come April or so...