It's rare to need a break from a game after only fifteen minutes of play time, but that's exactly what happened when I sat down to review MadWorld on the Nintendo Wii. The game can be incredibly numbing—the blood and the f-bombs, the killing and the maiming, and the unrelenting negativity of the game don't offer much in the way subtlety. The game takes place in a black-and-white world, where red splashes of blood are the only color. It can sometimes be hard to see what's going on, but you'll always know what to do: kill.
You play Jack, a swaggering killer who is sponsored by an unnamed company, represented in a voice over by a sinister character called XIII. Your job is to kill people in the most entertaining ways possible, for the viewers of the show you're participating in. This little bit of metagaming gives the ideas behind MadWorld a crazy sort of logic. You get points for your kills because your viewers are grading you. Rending someone with your chainsaw is good for a few points, but why not shove a signpost through them, and then throw them into a bed of spikes? Each level is filled with weapons and environmental threats; finding the best ways to slice and dice your way to big points is half the fun.
Click here to read the rest of this article
