Impressions – MadWorld is Killer Entertainment

These are hands-on impressions of MadWorld, which we played at the “Guns ‘n’ Gore II” Event in London, hosted by SEGA Europe.

MadWorld’s fictional local of Varrigan City exists in a Graphical Novel inspired world of juicy monochromatic visuals, ludicrous comic book violence and all backed by a hip-hop soundtrack.

The city has been invaded by a terrorist cell called The Organizers, who set out to turn the city’s population into unwilling participants of a sadistic game show called “Death Watch”. You play Jack, a mechanic with a chainsaw on his arm (what else?) and hope to win the grand prize of a 100 Million Dollars.

Each section of the game, from city streets to subways, is passed by beating a set score for that area, and points are earned by pulling off stylish, violent and brutal kills. A strong, sharp decapitation with your chainsaw will net you a few insignificant points, while slamming a tyre over an enemy’s body, jabbing a road sign through their head and tossing them into a spike-lined dumpster will see you earning thousands of points.

Control of Jack is relatively simple, with the Nunchuck offering movement and the Wii Remote’s primary buttons giving melee and chainsaw attacks, as well as allowing you to pick up objects scattered around the city. The majority of attacks though, from throwing an enemy to pulling off most of the finishing blows, are performed with shakes and waggles of the Wii Remote; spinning it in a circle to hammer toss an enemy, for example. Comparisons to No More Heroes are likely come release.

So it stands to reason that diehard Clover Studios fans (which mostly transformed into Platinum Games, the designers of MadWorld) could be worried about the difficulty of the game. Both Viewtiful Joe and Godhand were revered for being extremely difficult games, but MadWorld eschews button combos, small timing windows and even a dodge/block button in favour of accessible controls. Still, the levels we played were extremely early in the game, and were presented alongside tutorials and help text, so there’s every chance that the difficulty will ramp up soon.

Like Sega’s Yakuza, MadWorld is bursting with location-based moves, calling on the environment to help create violent blows. Enemies can have their face shred against a speeding train, tossed against a spike wall or dunked into a toilet. Visual cues onscreen indicate when such a move can be performed.

The game features plenty of minigames, which are unlocked throughout the story. The first, and available at the event, is called “The Turbinator”, and involves you lobbing bewildered foes into a gigantic aeroplane engine, churning them into giblets and a vapour of blood. These will be playable as multiplayer games; however as pass-the-remote, hotseat style games.

Visually, the game is extremely striking; bold comic book lines, splashes of blood red and the odd golden pop-up. When viewed on a properly calibrated HDTV, the game could be mistaken for an Xbox 360 or PS3 title; the sharp lines and strong contrast of black and white allows it to surpass chunky-polygonal models and low-resolution textures. Also, the game has a rocking hip-hop soundtrack and hilarious commentary by Greg Proops (Whose Line Is It Anyway?) and John DiMaggio (Jake the Dog from Adventure Time, Bender, Marcus Fenix).

MadWorld is looking extremely exciting, with absolutely hip presentation and utterly brutal gameplay. It might not be as hardcore as GodHand and Viewtiful Joe, but its every bit as cool.

If you’re still craving MadWorld impressions, jump over to the previews written by some of the other journos and bloggers at the event: SegaNerds, Cubed3 and BlueHeroGaming.