Terrorists have taken over Jefferson Island by jamming communications and blocking routes out. They have released a virus which will kill the residents within hours, and the only way they will hand over the vaccine is if the residents take part in their sick and twisted game called Death Watch. They explain that they need to kill other people and the whole affair is televised. This is where Jack comes in. Jack is very much like Marcus from Gears of War - well-built, gruff, and even comes armed with a chainsaw. Without any explanation of Jack's backstory, he begins killing anyone that stands in his way to confront the leader.
MadWorld is a gory third-person action game where the aim is to wrack up enough points to be permitted to battle the boss which concludes the level. Each level gives you a 30 minute time limit and 3 initial lives in order to accomplish your task. Lower ranking grunts will respawn frequently, which can be pretty tiresome to take them down. However, you can wrack up a larger score by taking them down in creative and brutal ways, encouraging you to vary your attacks and utilise the environment.
The tutorial level takes you through this process. Slamming a tire over an enemy gives you a certain amount of points, but additionally skewering the same enemy with a sign post will give you way more. Finally, you pick him up and slam him multiple times against a spiked wall called a "Rose Bush" which finally kills the enemy.
There are plenty of objects that you can pick up such as boxes, trash, tyres, sign posts etc., and plenty of environmental hazards such as saws, spikes, wall-mounted hooks and electrical appliances.
The enemies are pretty dumb and very passive-aggressive, allowing you to punch them around and pick them up without much resistance. Further into the game, they do become more aggressive, and are supported by more deadly foes. At first, you are destroying punks, but then meet all sorts of crazy enemies like ninjas, werewolves, zombies and aliens. These enemies don't seem to make sense in terms of the game's story, but the game just wants to be ridiculous.
As you play, a couple of commentators will make remarks on the action; as you deal damage or take damage yourself. There's also a lot of banter back and forth between them. It's very immature stuff, but great to listen to, although they can repeat the same lines. They even commentate on the game's end credits which is a nice addition.
The controls work well enough, and utilise a combination of the buttons and motion controls. You can pick up enemies by pressing and holding the A button and walk around with them in your hands. You can dodge enemy attacks by swinging the nunchuk and swinging the remote unleashes a dashing uppercut. Pressing A allows you to do basic punches. The B button revs up the chainsaw so swinging the remote slices. C locks on targets while Z is for jumping.
Reducing an enemy's health to zero gives you the option to hit them with a 'finisher'. These use the motion controls; and require you to shake or swing the remote or nunchuk to complete the brutal maneuver.
Once you have reached a certain points target, you get to play a timed mini-game. Each of these particular events has an introduction starring 'The Black Baron' kitted out in pimp attire. As he explains the game, one of his ladies saunters in and demonstrates a kill using The Black Baron. He's very much like South Park's Kenny, since he will be back to life in the next episode. It's ridiculous and over-the-top, but this fits into the game's style.
In terms of boss battles, there's plenty of variety, although you will employ a similar strategy to take them down. You can usually get some basic punches in, before dodging their attacks. A certain attack will produce an on-screen prompt which triggers a short sequence of quick-time-events. Doing this sequence correctly deals a large amount of damage to the boss, and repeating this three times or so will be enough to reduce their health to zero. At this point you get the final quick-time-event to dispose of them in a brutal way.
The art-style for the game uses a black and white comic aesthetic, with use of onomatopoeia to describe sounds. The limited colour scheme looks surprisingly good, and gives a sharper image compared to other games which use conventional graphics but end up being murky/blurry due to the graphical limitations of the Wii. There's a bit more colour than black and white though; after-all it wouldn't be brutal without using red for the blood!
There are also a couple of stages in which Jack travels down a motorway on his motorcycle, either utilising his chainsaw to kill enemies, or grabbing and throwing them. These levels are nowhere near as exciting as the standard on-foot stages, but they add a bit of diversity to the game.
There's a few places that feature instant deaths, either from environmental hazards or special enemies. I found it a weird choice to have this on the first level, where you must avoid falling onto the train lines. Another problem with the gameplay is the camera angle is zoomed in and often positioned awkwardly, making it difficult to see enemies.
I found the game is best when played in short bursts because it can feel a bit tiring and repetitive, but the game isn't a bad game at all. I'd actually say the game is a must own on the Wii, since it's a very unique game. Nintendo is usually associated with kid-friendly games, but MadWorld is aimed at the complete opposite side of the spectrum. It's gory and offensive, but you can't help but smile about how ridiculous it is.