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FASHIONABLY LATE REVIEW
MadWorld

When discussing MadWorld, it’s important to have a chat about No More Heroes first. Darling of the critical round table, No More Heroes is held high as a game for gamers. The lynchpin of this loyalty is an unrelenting humour, as well as the central theory the game presents, which is that everything in-between the beginning of a sequence and the final confrontation is reliably and largely tedious. The game has been allowed to swagger with a ridiculous “style over substance” stance, functioning and revelling as the great jokester in the room, having arrived to expose the truth like the smarmy, over-educated and under-employed enthusiasts that burn a candle for the accomplishment. Ultimately gamers are invited to join in on the joke, or stand outside in the cold wind with the crowd that didn’t appreciate it, and thereby didn’t get it, obviously.

But once upon a time there was another game far less fortunate with the critics. God Hand swaggered onto the PS2, walking down a path of rose petals, carried by the expectations of Okami. Clover Studios understood a thing or two about the trappings of videogames as well. But where there was the tedium of the stage in between greater conflicts, God Hand offered a deeply rich and evolving fighting system to fill the void, iced with a humour and style that largely remains the sharpest knife to ever cut through popular culture in gaming. Perhaps the best way to frame the game is to suggest that God Hand asked the question, “Why did the gorilla ride the bus?” And the straightforward answer is of course, “To kick your ass!”

Here, it’s important to note that this crystalline realization resulted in most reviewers vomiting the lowest scores imaginable. It was easier to believe that such an accomplished development team had simply lost their minds. It was also very difficult to say all the pretty post-modern words used to discuss the earlier release of Okami, and my guess would be that it was also easier to tear the game to shreds rather than risk belonging to the small cult following that savours the title to this day. Regardless, God Hand accepted several things about the limiting nature of videogames, and pursued any sideways possibility that could make the experience enjoyable all over again.

MadWorld, then, is the refusal to accept the negative response to God Hand — an attempt to continue the experiment, thus pushing the medium forward against the kicking and screaming of the old guard who incidentally find themselves more capable of love this second time around. As the first release from the newly formed Platinum Games, the title frames the company’s desire to achieve more. And really, why else would anyone want to work on a project where that wasn’t the goal? But unlike No More Heroes, MadWorld delivers a tangible experience along with the balls-out approach to game design.

When T.S. Eliot wrote that the world would end “not with a bang, but with a whimper,” he wasn’t excluding the possibility of people killing one another in the streets. This is the arena MadWorld welcomes its players to with the air of Roman gladiators set within the urban sprawl of the modern world. And here we are offered the chance to find the entertainment value of that sport, free at anytime to give the finger in response, with that finger being a rusty chainsaw of course.

MadWorld acknowledges the status of the in-between foot soldiers of the videogame world – the fodder we’ve sliced, diced, and shot so many times before. The countless many are ultimately brainless, yet they’re necessary, serving as the horde that stands between the player and the final boss battle that their presence ideally builds toward. Rather than making the grunts better killers, or giving the player better ways to kill them, MadWorld wants to include them in the spectacle. The stage should build and carry into the great carnage that is the boss fight. Tedium is where you find it, and it is certainly we as the gamer that have changed, not the structure of a game and the place of minions within it. So MadWorld attempts to redefine the experience by enlarging the spectacle, and spreading it throughout the whole of the game.

The stages are littered with gruesome instruments of death, with the game then asking that we entertain ourselves within this arena. There isn’t a point at which it states which way is right and which is wrong. The gamer is merely awarded more points based on creativity rooted in sadistic ultra-violence, and is therefore encouraged to become the Picasso of blood against the black and white canvas. We take these static mannequins of the videogame world, and find new means to pull out their entrails and reduce them to loose piles of meat.

When God Hand gauged that the player was doing to well, it would unleash a demon to balance the playing field. In a similar way, MadWorld unleashes mini-bosses that are ideally dealt with quickly. And in the middle of all of this is Blood Bath: the chance to earn extra points by participating in mini-games that involve greater spectacles of carnage. As a game within the game, it leaves me with more questions than answers. There is no audience beyond the player, and the game leaves the player like a child in a room full of sharp toys. And yet the continual theme of the game is as much about entertaining it via the imaginary audience. Is there a reversal of some established relationship here?

MadWorld isn’t always an easy game to label, layered as it is. If it were a person, it would certainly strut around the house naked. But it also possesses a confrontational spirit, questioning our relationship to gaming, and exactly what we entered into this medium for in the first place. Yet as gritty and grim as it becomes, the game counters realism and the pursuit of graphical reality for cartoonish ultra-violence, all the while content to see the audience either vomit from or embrace the result.

It’s interesting to compare the means by which Okami returned life to the world with a rich palette, versus the way in which MadWorld uses the essential proof fluid of life to paint the town red.

When the player is all murdered out, the boss challenge raises from the ground, a large bell waiting to be rung by Jack’s fist. And though the boss is the figure that can do all the over the top actions that fodder figures can’t, these ominous characters never upstage the stage itself. There’s still the essential set of rules: watch their actions, wait for the exposed strategy, and execute. But here the boss serves as an idealized owner of the stage, tying the themes together without losing the energy that brought the player that far. MadWorld still pays respect to the place of the stage boss within videogames, but keeps them as the natural result of the effort to reach them, valuing every moment in-between.

And this is where No More Heroes comes back to us as the game that saw the boss as the only figure that mattered. MadWorld instead respects that ownership of each stage, with the boss serving as the embodiment of it, and thus only as good as the entire act. The boss is the thematic representation of the stage, and conquering them is how we complete the entirety of the dance, but cutting a path toward them is every bit as important.

Yet at the same time, the player is the real boss of MadWorld. Consider that videogame bosses tend to be overpowered, with a plethora of moves at their disposal. Here, through Jack Cayman, players experience a role reversal via the use of varying finishing tactics and the helpless grunts that cross his path. In this sense, the player also claims ownership of the stage, the final boss confrontation then serving as a sort of turf war to decide on the ultimate victor.

The story and function of Death Watch within the game has me reminiscing about nostalgic violence, of 1980s not-too-distant future films like Escape from New York; about a grittier, dirtier media that used violence to further an understanding of ourselves, the world, and our place within it. It would take a real Death Watch event to steal ratings from the 24/7 news networks that now own the rights to that, and use it to tell far less compelling stories.

What impresses me most is the way MadWorld manages to bleed all over Nintendo’s pristine moneymaker. And it does so for a reason. With all the talk of the Wii never being used for long durations of time, MadWorld offers the most visceral packets of game-play available on the console. There are no distractions, detours, or stops – just instant gratification at the touch of a button. MadWorld comprehends the Wii as a device and has no delusions about conducting a ballet or symphony, or helping the player perfect their golf swing – though it does let you golf oddly enough. The game offers blunt, sweaty movements to match the game-play, offering the possibility that what the Wii does best so far is eliminating the quick time button with brute flashes of physical action.

Since I’ve ridiculed the style over substance argument, let’s talk about form versus content when looking at MadWorld, because the game takes complete ownership over its structure.

I wanted to write this review because MadWorld’s sales have been less than stellar, and because that fact is a subject of great debate given the critical love the game has received. Some might question whether all our words are worth a nickel if they don’t bring results at the register. Microsoft doesn’t need us to sell Halo anymore than Nintendo needs us to sell the Wii, so a game like MadWorld seems like the ideal candidate for a few more speeches. Not that we’re sales people, mind you. I’m more in this for understanding why the Wii market seems so hard to understand. Doesn’t every new Wii owner likely know a hardcore gamer in some way or another?

I don’t actually consider MadWorld a hardcore game nearly so much as a hardcore reason to turn on the Wii. But do we say it was a great game and move on? Or do we sell it on the street corners? Or do we just keep writing until it sinks in?

My thoughts are that we keep writing and pushing ourselves, just as Platinum Games has with their work. Whether the industry finds value in the effects beyond the initial sales numbers, we still have to believe those elements are important by pushing to make them matter.

Posted in Features, Reviews, Wii |