OK, let me get this out first. With the Wii, I think Nintendo has created a really unique gaming experience that helps it stand apart from other current gen consoles. That being said, one of my main frustrations with the machine, and the software being produced for it, is the lack of any solid titles that takes full advantage of said experience. Especially from third parties. For every one title that works well, there seem to be another 20 that are require aimless waving about and an endless series of crap mini games. Couple that with the slim library of titles aimed at anyone over the age of 4 and you could why the machine could tend to gather dust.

With that out of the way, Madworld does not fit into that category at all. If you’ve seen any trailers or screen-shots for Madworld, it will take a solid 2.5 seconds to realize that this game is aimed squarely at adults. You’d like some evidence you say? OK then…

Did you see the airplane engine at 0:25 seconds? Yeah, you gotta throw guys into it. Like as many as you can as fast as you can. And not, oh I press my Y button and X button and its starts a combo. I mean you grab a guy and wave your controller towards the engine as hard as you can and paint the walls with him (without hurling the controller into the TV of course). And that is what I’m talking about. One of my complaints about Legends of Wrestlemania was the series of quicktime events which took you out of the game and consequently didn’t feel like you were actually performing the moves but just hitting buttons in a sequence. With Madworld, you feel very integrated in the game to the point where I found myself trying to come up with new and interesting ways to wave my controllers around and toss my opponents around. Which is good because you are rewarded for performing different combo attacks and finding more violent ways to dispose of your enemies. It actually gets to the point of scoring your attacks as “routine” if you use the same ones repeatedly.

The look and style of the game is very unique. The game has more of a illustrated style and is in black & white only using red for blood effects. Its minimalistic, but it provides a very stylized look that is visually different than anything else on the Wii (or any other console for that matter). It reminded me a lot of the French movie Renaissance from a couple of years ago. The music in the background fits perfectly and really complements the game’s atmosphere. There are also two play-by-play commentators that provide hilarious insight to happenings in the game. My only complaint is that between the commentators, music and sound effects that it at times could get overwhelming and a bit distracting but for the most part blended well together.

I have only two issues with the game. One is the inability to save during a mission. You can only save after a mission is completed which can be up to 30 minutes. If you bail mid-way, you’ll have to start all over again. My other issue is the length of the game. When you start out your rank is around 250. But with each successful mission, your rank jumps up radically so that after only 3-4 hours, I was already ranked around 47.

Due to its length, I find it hard to recommend as a full price purchase although its certainly worth a rental. Provided you enjoy more adult style games and have no issue with obscene amounts of violence, this game is right up your alley and is a nice change of pace to the Wii’s normal catalogue of family friendly and casual games.

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