What is black, white, red all over, and up for a bit of the ultra-violence?

If you guess MadWorld, you got it right!

MadWorld, a first release from Platinum Games for the Wii, makes the bold design decision to render the entire game in exactly three colors: black, white, and blood.  Which, I do have to give the team props for because the graphics are well handled.  Over all the game shoots and scores a gritty look. Also, I must add- the controls for this game were good. The motion capture for the kill moves was intuitive (thanks to the overly large arrows for the home-schoolers), and well integrated into the game itself. After a near solid month of crap Wii games, it was nice to play a game that understood the concept behind the Wiimote.

To describe the central character of MadWorld: imagine taking Marv out of Sin City, and adding a dash of Ash from Evil Dead then lightly battering him in a Snake Plissken sauce before frying him up in a bath of Running Man. Actually, this is a close approximation of what that would look like.

MadWorld has a different take on that image, but it still does exactly that: it takes Jack, a beefy ex-marine with a jaw from Hell (Marv) who just happens to have a chainsaw attached to one arm (Ash), and Jack must rescue someone before he dies (Snake Plissken) while fending off murderers and criminals put on an island for a grisly game show (Running Man). 

Which, if you know your video game lore is a lift from the 1990 video game Smash TV. Or Running Man. Take your pick, really.

Anyway, MadWorld was created by a Japanese firm for express release in the United States using an American literary trope- the Noir story, and combining it with the Japanese literary trope- the pointlessly evil corporation. The corporation is doing all this to make up for backing the losing candidate in the elections. Or they think they can make a lot of money from all the TV advertising. Or something. It’s all kinda typically Japanese vague.

It also presents ultra-violence in such an over the top fashion that it becomes a source of comedy. I say ultra-violence because you do trap peoples arms with car tires, then shove parking signs through their necks, and then impale them on very large spikes that have been conveniently affixed to nearby walls. In fact, this game will likely not be released in Japan due to its extremely violent nature. 

Think about that- the Japanese think the game is too violent, and they practically invented the Rape Game genre.  I say practically, because you can argue the first ever rape game was Custer’s Revenge back in the day for the Atari 2600.  

Yeah, sex and violence is not a new thing for the video game industry.

But, back to MadWorld.
If MadWorld is engaging in criticism of American society and our casual relationship to violence and entertainment the game doesn’t take a stand if that relationship is good or bad. You could argue that the game itself is the stand, and the ultra-violent nature is the statement. But, the violence is so over the top it becomes comical in its game play. So, if the game means to say Americans take violence too lightly and are entertained by it too greatly, that message loses its punch by being silly.

The overall use of the Noir genre is also not well accomplished.  It starts off well with a grim urban environment.  Adds a gritty protagonist that has been to war and deeply changed by the experience. Then the game rounds it off with people who die sudden and violent deaths. 

Very Noir, and MadWorld has all that in spades.

But, some of the really key elements of Noir are missing- an unbending moral code, and betrayal at the hands of a woman.  And, MadWorld doesn’t really have either of those.  
 
Jack, the hero, is there because he’s been hired to do it. While being essentially a thug for hire is very Noir, the Noir protagonist becomes personally involved by the end of the story because he has been betrayed and people have been murdered.  He is outraged at the way peoples lives have been handled so casually, his personal code has been violated, and someone must pay. While there’s plenty of murder, there’s not a lot of betrayal in MadWorld. Nor is there the outrage in the way people are being treated. And, I really couldn’t tell if there was a moral code or not.

Jack, as far as I could tell, just doesn’t give a damn. Even though within the context of the story people are treated as things, they are put on TV to entertain the world with their gruesome deaths, Jack isn’t particularly upset by that and even participates in it.  In fact, Jack is revealed to have participated in the games before, and says at the end of the game, “I don’t help people.  I kill them.”  Which is a bad ass line, but it doesn’t express the outrage that stems from people being treated as pawns. It just says, you know, “I’m a bad ass!” 
 
Which, in the end, is the two great problems with MadWorld: it borrows heavily from the Noir genre but it really doesn’t play it very well, and pulls its own punch in delivering some social criticism about the relationship Americans have with violence and entertainment. Which is a shame, because video games are a great vehicle for subversive story-telling.

And, good fiction should be subversive.

Next time we’re in a bar and you’ve got some time, ask me about Mass Effect and where the game stands on gay marriage, pro-choice/pro-life, and the George Bush era of Unilateralism. You might be surprised about what a video game has to say about such things

In my Un-humble Opinion© MadWorld is a well put together game that looks good and handles right- which is a rarity on the Wii outside of sports games. So, if you’re in the market for a short game (5 to 6 real hours) that beats a lot of ass, you don’t mind a half-assed Noir story and a mild dose of social criticism, then pick it up. It’s fun.

If you don’t, well, you might want to explain that to this guy.

And, as always you can hit me up at abraxas@cybermonkeydeathsquad.com to tell me how awesome I am for working in two old school games.