Jack of all blades

With its over the top action, a plot based loosely on Arnie Schwarzenegger's movie The Running Man, and the whole Sin City vibe MadWorld has going for it, you'd expect this to be one of the year's big gamer's games – a title which appeals to the more serious, mature end of the gaming spectrum.

So it's surprising when you first pick up MadWorld how... well... immature a lot of it is. Don't get us wrong, MadWorld's supreme gore factor and bad language makes every other game on Wii, even those few adult-aimed ones, look like Barbie's Horse Adventures. And yet, the violence is so over-the-top that it's more like a bloody, extreme version of the kind of cartoon calamities suffered by Wile E. Coyote.

Kill or die

It's also not all that deep, if we're honest. Let's look at the gameplay basics. Playing as Jack, a contestant in a kill-or-die game called DeathWatch, you leg it around a fully realised black-and-white city, smashing seven shades of sloppy red sin out of musclebound punk types in the most inventive way possible. This can mean slicing them up with your chainsaw, throwing 'em into hazards, and even punching them into such a state of grogginess that you can perform a Mortal Kombat style finisher – snapping necks; impaling them; slicing them in two… that sort of thing.

For bigger points you'll want to chain attacks – but this is no Devil May Cry. Complex combos aren't the order of the day here; instead, MadWorld sees you sticking as many sharp objects as you can into an enemy, maybe lodging a burning oil drum on their head for good measure, then picking 'em up and throwing them into the nearest spiked wall. If you've planned it right, you may even have lined up a couple of other hapless footmen, impaling all three in one fell swoop for an added bonus. Or maybe you'd prefer battering enemies into a skip, and see the lid come down severing their upper torso from their lower half? Basically, in MadWorld, the more actions that go into a kill, the bigger your score.

Once you've scored enough points, you'll get a Bloodbath Challenge. These involve... yet more killing! Throw folks onto a spiked moving train; batter them into a huge aeroplane fan; thump 'em onto an enormous human dartboard... all until you get to another high score. And once you've gotten to the area's requisite score, you can go and fight the boss – always mixture of fast-action combat and reaction-testing QTEs. Rinse and repeat this for a good few hours, and that's your lot – accompanied by commentary that's so laced with bad language, it's a bit like listening to a twelve year-old gangsta wannabe trying to impersonate their favourite WWE personality.

If it sounds a bit repetitive, that's because it is. And it's not helped by MadWorld's one big design flaw – if you get all the way to one of the crazy caricature bosses (ranging from hulking brutes to beanpole cowboys to Kill Bill style oriental assassins) and then you lose all of your lives, you'll have to replay the entire level. It's a very 90's way of designing a game really, harking back to the days when games were challenges to be beaten, not experiences to be had - although in that way, MadWorld is a proper gamer's game, after all.

Distinctive

And to its credit, MadWorld works on Wii in a way that it wouldn't have on any other console. Because you're waving the controls instead of bashing buttons, it's enjoyably immersive, and even the QTEs come across as intelligently implemented, with your movements representing the on-screen actions, where on Xbox and PS3 they'd be an uninventive way to get gamers immersed in a cutscene.

Add in a two-player party mode for extra laugh-out-loud longevity, and MadWorld certainly isn't a bad package. It's not the most sophisticated, intelligent game you'll ever have played, sure, but there's a lot of merit to the hype; MadWorld is easily one of the Wii's most distinctive, adult-aimed exclusives, guaranteed to entertain in short, silly, oh-so bloody spurts.

GAME's Verdict

• Looks truly spectacular in a film noir kind of way.
• Hilarious, over-the-top violence.
• Fun pick-up-and-play combat with brill boss battles.

• Being sent back to the start of a level when you run out of lives.
• No super deep combo system.
• Generally a bit repetitive.

Review by: Mark 'Vertical Slice' Scott
Version Tested: Wii
Review Published: 20.03.09

All around me are familiar maces...

The Wii may be massively popular with play-together families, but it's less so with the lucrative 18-30's lifestyle sector. It's a bracket which Sony have always targeted so well, but the happy smiley Wii currently has precious few games to appeal to this more demanding, action-craving adult crowd. MadWorld may go some way to changing that.

Target practice

MadWorld will be the first Wii game targeted directly at that audience since 2008's No More Heroes. Fittingly, it's a game which takes a lot from Suda 51's stylised hack and slash title, but adds its own very individual look and feel.

The first thing we noticed in our hands-on playtest was the tone. MadWorld is incredibly film noir – think Sin City and you won't be going far wrong. MadWorld's visuals are fully black and white, save for one notably bright red element: gallons of thick, ketchupy blood, fountaining glorously from the severed limbs of hundreds of foes, who seem to flood at you with some sort of morbid deathwish.

All of which suits the setting perfectly. The premise of MadWorld is that you're Jack, an undercover agent entered into a no-holds-barred blood sport called Death Watch. Like No More Heroes, you start off at the bottom rung of a ladder of professional killers, and have to slice your way through hordes of enemies before you get to a boss. However, it's the unique controls, inventively gruesome finishing moves and tongue-in-cheek gameshow feel which make MadWorld different to anything else out there.

Finish him!

Let's look at the controls first. On the Nunchuk, moving is done with the control stick, C is jump, and shaking your hand causes Jack to do a nifty backflip dodge move. On the Wii Remote, attacks are done with a combination of the A button and swinging the controller, or by holding B you can rev your chainsaw for some hand-waving slice-and-dice action. You can also pick up weapons to do severe damage, or even pick up foes with A and throw them into various hazards for huge bonuses.

And that brings us to the finishing moves. The goal of MadWorld, a little like Sega's own The Club, is to score as high as possible by taking out enemies in the most stylish way you can think of. So, slice a guy up with a chainsaw and you may score low, but pick him up, throw him at two guys standing in front of a huge wall fan, and watch as all three of them explode in showers of red stuff, and you're gonna get to your target score really quickly. Hit one of the Mortal Kombat style finishers, meanwhile, and you'll wince as you impale, snap or shred them to bits.

There's bonus games along the way, too. Labelled Bloodbath Challenges, the object here is to take out a never-ending stream of enemies within a time limit, multiplying your score by using a nearby hazard. The first Bloodbath Challenge we saw had Jack throwing enemies into a pit, where a spiked press would squish them into pulp – the more enemies thrown in there before the press comes down, the more points you accrue.

The second of MadWorld's Bloodbath Challenges we saw was called Man Darts. As the name would suggest, it had us slogging opponents baseball-style with a huge club into a giant oversized dartboard. It all goes to show how over-the top MadWorld actually is; despite the violence, it's hard to take seriously – especially with a comedy pimp character introducing each challenge.

Visceral

With your points total meeting your target, you finally get to face your first boss. The one we fought appeared to be a kind of black and white beanpole cowboy, grinding around the outside of our rectangular fighting cage like a reject from Sega's Jet Set Radio games. He was tricky, too – we soon saw our first Game Over screen, but with infinite continues it wasn't long before we were back, dodging, slashing and eventually chainsawing him into oblivion.

MadWorld is insanely fun in small bursts, but how well it will come across over the course of 10-15 hours remains to be seen. Inspired level design will be the decider, but at the mo MadWorld looks a visceral, violent, and very, very well done adult Wii exclusive.

Preview by: Mark 'Killer' Scott
Preview Published: 02.03.09