MadWorld Preview

Welcome to the Sin City-inspired MadWorld.

All of a sudden the Wii is turning into a games console that's a little less party machine and a little more harbinger of blood-soaked death. We're used to family-friendly loveliness from Nintendo's motion-sensing wonder. We're not used to gore so violent it makes a movie I saw recently, called Zombie Strippers, in which an undead woman bites off the testicles of an unfortunate bloke before turning to the camera and crunching them with her teeth, look like a Pixar movie.

Like House of the Dead: Overkill before it (which has, by a country mile, the most shocking ending to a game I have ever seen), MadWorld, also published by SEGA, one of the few publishers willing to take risks on the Wii, contains such over the top violence that it's impossible to find it offensive. Or shocking. Or disgusting. Or any other emotion that might get the Daily Mail's knickers in a twist.

Instead, MadWorld, part one of Japanese developer PlatinumGames' three-game deal with SEGA (which includes the upcoming Bayonetta and Infinite Space), is more likely to make you laugh. MadWorld's violence is so stylised that you just can't take it seriously. The entire game, from plot to graphics to sound, is fully aware of this fact, and makes the most of it.

MadWorld's premise is clearly inspired by sci-fi Schwarzenegger movie/Stephen King novel The Running Man. Varrigan City has been overrun by thugs and is now nothing more than a war zone. The place has been cut off - there are no bridges out, no tunnels in - and no police. Sounds pretty boring, right? No wonder Deathwatch, a brutal bloodsport, has evolved to keep everyone entertained.

You play Jack, who has entered himself into the competition. XIII is a representative of a mysterious company that wants to sponsor Jack's blood-soaked adventures, and acts as Jack's guide, a wizard-type voice screaming instructions in his ear. That's pretty much it. It's not deep, it's not particularly meaningful, but it doesn't matter.

You play Jack, a man on a mission. And with a chainsaw.

MadWorld's aesthetic borrows from an equally visceral piece of popular culture. The game is coloured entirely in black and white, except for the blood. Remind you of anything? Frank Miller's film noir comic/film Sin City perhaps? Good. So it should. The game looks strikingly similar.

Which isn't a slight. In fact, MadWorld is perhaps the Wii's most graphically striking game yet. The thick red blood stands out like a beaming sun against a pale blue sky. When Jack tears someone in half and blood sprays out in every direction, you can almost feel it splashing against your face. And those worried about picking out Jack, his enemies and other objects against the black and white background need not. At first there is a degree of adjustment, but after about 10 minutes of play your eyes and brain adjust to the depth of field in place and you have no problem telling Jack from that ominous wall of spikes so conveniently placed over yonder.

The opening chapter sets Jack a single target - Little Eddie, who acts as the end of level boss. To get to him, though, you need to get 16 million points. Points scoring, really, is what MadWorld is all about.

When you first play MadWorld you're struck by how simple and responsive the controls feel, a pleasant surprise when you consider how frustrating the controls are with many Wii games. Jack's movement is controlled with the Nunchuck thumb stick. He can grab objects and enemies with the A button, then flick the Nunchuck for a head butt or flick the Wii Remote to hurl them in a forward direction. Basic attacks are based on taps of the A and B buttons and movement of the Wii Remote: swing it from left to right and Jack will back fist his enemy. Hold B down, though, and he will rev his chainsaw, allowing you to carve thugs up into little pieces.

At points in combat you'll have the opportunity to do a gruesome finisher. The game will prompt you to press A or B in these situations in a quick time event fashion. The finishers are context sensitive, and depend on how you're killing your enemy. If you're using the chainsaw you might tear your enemy in half. If you're simply punching then it might involve a bone-crunching neck snap.