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E3 2008: Mad World Preview
What's black, white, and red all over? SEGA's Wii-exclusive action game.
Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Author: Tracy Erickson

  • Game: Mad World
  • Platform: Wii
  • Publisher: Sega
  • Developer: Platinum Games
  • Genre: Over the top killing simulation
  • Release Date: Q1 2009
  • Why You Should Care: Stylish presentation; over-the-top action; finally a hardcore game on Wii!
  • Why You Should Worry: Potentially annoying commentary; appears to have little depth; violence for the sake of violence.

  • Nintendo may have broken its promise to deliver some hardcore action, but don't fret because SEGA plans on dishing out more than enough with Mad World. This surprising Wii-exclusive combines style and violence for an unlikely experience.

    Mad World signs you up for the gruesome "Deathwatch" television program that pits contestants in a bloody battle for first place. Each competitor must execute vicious kills to stay in the game, otherwise they're dropped from the contest; in other words, if a contestant doesn't fight for survival he gets killed himself. You take on the role of Jack, a new contestant that enters the game and quickly starts racking up kills. It's a brutal, unadulterated festival of gore and violence that rewards kills with points and funny commentary.

    While we weren't able to go hands-on with the game, we did sit through an action-packed walk through of one of the earliest levels. Jack can wield a wide range of weapons, but he'll always have a chainsaw at his side. Acquiring points via kills allows you to unlock new weapons. You can also pick up objects in the surrounding environment to use in combat, as well as utilize the environment itself for dastardly dispatches. For example, one particularly nasty kill had Jack picking up a contestant and chucking him at a bulls-eye target on the lid of a dumpster. As soon as the body hit the target, it slumped into the open dumpster which then triggered the lid to close. The weight of the lid coming down on the opponent's body sliced it in half.

    As expected, the game takes advantage of the Wii Remote and nunchuk for unique motion-control kills. Equipped with a set of double daggers, Jack could literally cut an enemy in two. By jabbing the daggers together into a contestant's body and then physically separating the Wii Remote and nunchuk, the daggers effectively move away from each other and slice the body into two discrete parts. The various types of attacks at your disposal are downright brutal. Perhaps the most cringe-worthy had to be Jack's sign-post-through-the-head kill. Maybe next time that dude will think twice before rolling through a stop sign.

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