Reviews// MadWorld

The graphics are served by complimentary dialogue and cutscenes that are similarly hyperbolic. Sometimes listening to your handler, Agent XIII, explain how best to make the viewers happy using evisceration is amusing, sometimes it grates. Had I just been playing for my own pleasure, I'd probably have started skipping through a lot of the exposition as the game progressed. But I was playing to review, so I wasn't allowed to. Sitting through it was a mild inconvenience, not a chore, however.

Once you cut beyond the savagery of MadWorld's appearance and the sometime banality of its dialogue, you're left with a solid and enjoyable, if not particularly remarkable hack'n'slash.

A typical level comprises around half an hours' play, depending on how adept you are at dishing out pain. The bulk of this is spent fighting grunts as you try to build up enough points to compete against the stage's boss. You get points, predictably, by killing folk. A kill made using 'routine violence' - mashing at your standard attack buttons or using your chainsaw - earns you a certain amount of points, but doing it with a flourish (skewering them with a road sign, sticking a bin over their head then pinning them to a rosebush, for example) will earn you more.

The different finishes are, it must be said, quite satisfying - at least initially. I'm sure my parents don't love the fact that I squirm with guilty glee at thrusting the Wii Remote to slot my enemies with a chainsaw, but that is what I found myself doing. There was a sense of diminishing returns, but it remains fun. Generally, motion control as a means to waving a chainsaw about is enjoyable.

While Platinum has done a good job of mapping the fighting controls to the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, the directional movement hasn't fared so well, however. It's at times clunky and inaccurate, leading to frustration and teeth-gritting. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's annoying.

Back to the level design, and the problem with the points-earning formula is that you're quickly armed with all your basic moves, and very little is added to them as you proceed. Different weapons, such as spears and spiked clubs, are thrown out there periodically to offer some variation. Similarly, in different levels, different ways to finish a kill are presented, although these inevitably come down to different objects that will mince your foe when you throw him in their direction. This just isn't always enough to prevent a hint of monotony creeping in.

The levels are peppered with mini-games, such as playing darts with enemies using a spiky board, while additional variation is offered with the likes of a weak motorbike-riding level - these features do a reasonable job of breaking up the run-of-the-mill brawling. On several occasions, however, I found myself grinding away against stock bad guys at the end of a level in order to rack up enough points to face the boss.

Eclectic level design might have detracted from the creeping sense of repetition, but while Platinum has made an effort on this front, it's ultimately difficult to find much variations in environments that all use the exact same colour palette.

Another frustration is the save system. If you lose a life you start right back in the thick of the action where you kicked the bucket. If you lose all your lives, however, it's back to the start of the level. If you've made it as far as the boss, that can mean anything up to half an hours' progress lost.

There's a local multi-player mode, but it basically just pits you against a mate in one of the single-player mini games. It's vaguely diverting, but the split screen aggravates the 'what the f**k is going on?!' factor.

None of that, however, is to say that MadWorld is a bad experience. Despite its flaws, it's fun. Fun! The control scheme works well, the finishing moves are fun and the whole thing oozes bloody style.

SPOnG Score: 73%
Conclusion
If you're one of those (now seemingly-rare) core gamers sat at home staring remorsefully at your Wii, aching for a 'mature' game, MadWorld will hit the spot. It's not superb and it won't blow your head off with unrefined awesomeness, but you'll enjoy undermining society's values and the mainstream perception of the Wii as you make people into tiny, fleshy bits.