What's black, white, and re.. SMACK!! Okay, nevermind.
The story is like a mixture of Escape From New York, The Warriors and No More Heroes. Varrigan City has completely gone insane and the government has cut it off from the rest of the world. The chaos was caused by a group who run a violent game show called Deathwatch, a show where everyone must kill or be killed. The game is on in Varrigan City and player character Jack has decided to join in. However, Jack isn't just in Varrigan City for fun and games, and it soon becomes apparant that he has other goals in mind. To fulfill these goals, Jack needs to take out the top contestants and become number one.
The gameplay is an absolute joy to experience. Tha majority of the game has you, as Jack, exploring small, open areas of Varrigan City, gaining enough points to face the boss at the end of the stage. How do you get points? Well that's simple. Just KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, and... oh yeah, don't die.
You can simply pound on enemies repeatedly until you have the necessary points to proceed, but Madworld encourages variety. The more ways you kill, the more points you get. On his own, Jack can punch, grab, throw, and slice and dice with his mechanical chainsaw hand. The environment just piles on ways to kill thugs. Everything from street signs, barrels, food, and even enemies themselves can be used to slay enemies en masse. Of course, the game throws a few weapons your way as well.
There are also a total of two stages in which you hop on Jack's motorcycle and tear up the Varrigan City highway. These levels aren't quite as exciting as the standard on-foot stages, but they're a nice break from the usual gameplay. You cruise down a long stretch of road, killing vehicle driving enemies by either chainsawing them or tossing them out of their vehicle. They're fun enough, but I'm glad the game wasn't based around this gameplay.
On to the Bloodbath Challenges. Always introduced with a cutscene involving the ever lovable Black Baron, Bloodbath Challenges leave you in an enclosed space with a bunch of dim-witted thugs and tasks you with killing them in humorous and, of course, insanely violent ways. These challeneges are usually just the boost you need to finish off your point requirement.
I'm not going to get into the boss battles too much. I will say that they're very creative, and there's plenty of variety in their design. However, once you've become well acquainted with the dodge maneuver they're all rather easy.
The controls work well enough. The camera is basically the same as No More Heroes, mainly allowing you to lock in on an enemy or center it behind you. People have claimed to have issues with the difficulty and the 30 minute time limit in each stage but I've enever had such troubles.
There's really only two issues I have with the gameplay. First of all is the frame rate. It's usually a smooth playing game, but when you're surrounded on every side by five or so enemies, Madworld will occasionally chug. There are also times where the game pauses as you enter an area, as if it forgot what it was supposed to be loading. At one point the frame rate dipped so frequently and with such intensity that the game froze altogether, though it has only happened to me once.
The second issue I have with the gameplay is the stage variety. Mainly due to the graphical style of the game, Madworld's stages all look the same. No matter what stage you're on, you're in a medium to small black and white area killing enemy after enemy. They try to change it up by throwing different enemies at you, but you're killing them all the same way you killed the last enemy types. It doesn't help that the first few Bloodbath Challenges repeat themselves later on.
As I said, the graphical style of the game takes away from the stage variety. However, the graphical style also sets it apart from pretty much any other game out there. Everything, from the characters to the environments is portrayed in a comic-booked styled black and white. No grey here. Just black and white. The only thing that's not black and white is the blood, and there's plenty of it. The addition of little word bubbles like "thud" or "crash" just make the game's comic book style, that much more impressive. It's not like Ultimate Spider-Man's attempted comic book city, where the cartoony environments and cel-shaded characters blended about as well as pickles and milk (don't get me wrong though, it was a good game). At any given moment it feels like Madworld is a living comic book world and I love it.
The sound design in Madworld is phenominal. While Madworld is fun to look at, it's about a thousand times more fun to hear. Every aspect of the sound in Madworld surpasses that in almost any other game I've played.
First off, the music. Honestly, I've never been a huge fan of rap and hip-hop style music. However, Madworld's original soundtrack, composed entirely of rap, is one of the most entertaining and fitting soundtracks to ever grace a Wii game. Every track in the game will get you pumped to kill the first dude who gets in your way. At the same time, every track will stick in your head like glue, leaving you mumbling lyrics in your head for days to come.
The voice acting is excellent as well. Veteran voice actor Steven Jay Blum voices Jack. There's also two announcers constantly commenting on your behavior in the game. They're both very funny to listen to, but they will repeat themselves very often (and the Ultimate Spider-Man sense is tingling once again). Even with their frequent repetition, it would be hard to imagine Madworld without them.
Lastly, the sound effects. With the near constant sounds of chainsaws, bones being crushed, and explosions going off, I'd swear I was playing Gears of War minus the guns. The quality of the sound effects are excellent (I'm looking at you Brutal Legend) and they really tie the action together with a nice, bloody bow.
Overall, despite having a few fairly minor issues with the gameplay, I'm not going to resist the urge to give Madworld a perfect score. Like I said, it's one of the best games I've played on the system. In fact, I dare say it is the best. Eat your heart out Mario Galaxy. The next time you ask someone "What's black, white, and red all over?" and they reply with "A newspaper.", smack them in the head and go play some Madworld.