March 24, 2009

Get ready for some excitement, Death Fans!

MadWorld is a great game.

It can be easy to dismiss it as being gory for goriness sake, or going for shock value and little else, but that’s selling the game extremely short. It may not be worth $50 to everyone, but it is totally worth playing if you don’t mind a little violence and cursing.

The plot… the plot doesn’t matter. You’re in a location. It’s a game show about murdering called Deathwatch. You murder people until you get to a ranking match with a fellow murderer and have a dramatic boss fight. And that’s it.

But oh, what a that that is. The gameplay mechanics are based around point-scoring. The majority of the time, the enemies aren’t that difficult to kill. It’s all about killing them in ways that get you more and more and more points. Stab a sign through a guy before killing them? Point bonus. Toss them into a twirling sawblade? Point bonus. There are point threshholds on each level that change the level up. You may get a new weapon, or unlock a new area, or get to do the ever-popular BLOODBATH CHALLENGE! Eventually, you get to face the boss.
The combat is perhaps less fluid than a God of War or something, but the Wiimote is actually used well. You do motions in very satisfying ways. Flicking the Wiimote to throw people is completely satisfying, as is pulling the Wiimote and nunchuck apart to tear a dude in half. It does get to the point where you can get seriously into it, and if you do, your arms will get tired. Good thing the game is perfect for play in short chunks.

This game looks better than many 360 and PS3 games, and it’s all because of that kickass art style. Have you seen screens? Seen the game in motion? If so, I really don’t think I need to mention it, but dammit, it’s such a pretty game.

If you actually watched that clip, you’ve heard one of the other best parts of the game: The announcers. They are, by far, one of the greatest highlights of the game. Everything they say is funny and appropriate. They do get into the issue of repetition with their quotes, though. I wish they would have put some smarter logic in there so that it would only play each clip once a level or something. Still, they are totally worth listening to, and voiced amazingly well. They’re so awesome that the first thing my brother did was try to find a way to turn them up so he could hear them better, as they do sometimes get drowned out by the sound effects.
That’s not all that’s awesome about the sound, though. Personally, I think the soundtrack is fan-fucking-tastic. I crave, deeply crave a copy of this soundtrack, but it’s only available as a bonus for pre-ordering in the UK and Austrailia. Trust me, when it hits the interwebs at large, I am going to get my paws on a copy.
(I do have to mention here, an oddity. When a game creates good, unique rap for it’s soundtrack? I love the everloving crap out of it. This, The World Ends With You, Persona 3… when it meshes with the game so well, I can’t help but love it. Crave it. When I don’t normally have anything to do with that type of music. It’s interesting, I suppose.)
But yeah, the soundtrack just energizes you. This is a game I cannot play sitting down. Between the motions, the constant action, the music… it’s just a damn thrilling game.

The game’s gore and crude language are going to turn some people off. That’s a shame, though, because most of it honestly seems to be in parody, and hell, it’s awesome anyway. The gameplay itself, too, is pretty well the best action I’ve seen on the Wii this side of Mario Galaxy. Play this game.

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