MadWorld

MadWorld （マッドワールド　ＭａｄｄｏＷａｒｕｄｏ） is a beat 'em up video game developed by Platinum Games and published by Sega for the Nintendo Wii. It was one of the first games on the Nintendo Wii to actually show violence in a gory manner, the game is entirely in black and white, except for the blood, which is depicted as bright red.

The game is the spiritual predecesor of Anarchy Reigns, with many characters which appear in MadWorld appearing in Anarchy Reigns, including the protagonist Jack Cayman.

Plot
Three days before the game's event, the fictional Varrigan City became a target for a group of terrorists called "The Organizers", who severed the island city's transportation and communication ties with the rest of the world, and then released a virus onto its population that would kill them in less than 24 hours. However, the Organizers informed the populace that any person that killed another would receive the vaccine. The city was quickly transformed into the stage of a recurring game show called "DeathWatch", with announcers Howard "Buckshot" Holmes and former DeathWatch fighter Kreese Kreeley. The remaining citizens of Varrigan City as well as new hopefuls become the show's contestants, hoping to become the top-ranked fighter in the game and win a large cash prize.

Jack Cayman, a man with a retractable chainsaw built onto one arm, enters the games and manages to gain sponsorship from "Agent XIII". The game's organizers, led by Noa, knows Jack's motive is more than just to win, and learn that Jack works with someone on the outside. They come to learn that Jack was a former marine, police officer, and rogue agent, but now seems intent on a mission. Noa surmises that Jack is after the mayor's daughter, who is still inside the city.

While they could kill Jack at any time they realize he became an audience favorite thus gaining many sponsors with viewers betting on his success. They ultimately try to kill him in combat.

Gameplay
The player takes control of a character named Jack Cayman and must progress through levels in a linear fashion during the first playthrough, but can revisit any completed level to attempt to score more points or take on a harder challenge. MadWorld is divided into several levels representing different parts of Jefferson Island that have been converted into sets for the game show "DeathWatch", the plot is similar in setup to the manga known as Deadman Wonderland.

Most levels are open environments, allowing the player to explore them freely, although some sections of the level may require the player to earn a number of points before it will be accessible. A few levels feature motorcycle-based combat where the main character, Jack, is assaulted by foes as they race down a track or in a small arena. The player is challenged to beat the level's boss within a time limit, but in order to activate the boss fight, the player must accumulate enough points by defeating regular foes on the level.

There will also be other challenges, bonuses, or mini-bosses that will become active after the player accumulates enough points. A common feature of each of these levels is the "Bloodbath Challenge", a time-limited minigame that rewards the player for completing a specific type of activity with additional points. For example, the player may need to attempt to swing a bat at foes to knock them into a giant dartboard to score points, or to ensure foes are trapped in front of a speeding train.

Outside of these challenges, the player is awarded points for every defeat of a foe. The amount of points for beating foes increases by increasing the foe's power or using more unusual methods of winning. For example, while the player could throw an enemy on a wall, the player will earn significantly more points if they had previously forced a tire around the enemy.

The player controls Jack from a third-person perspective using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk attachment for attacks and movement, respectively. MadWorld does not make use of the Wii Remote's infrared sensor, as its developers found it unnecessary to pinpoint movements on the screen in order to attack. When certain special attacks are possible, the player is prompted to press a button or move the controllers in a specific fashion to complete the action. In boss fights, the player must trigger special finishing moves that engage their foe in a series of quick time events in order to weaken, dismember attached weapons or defeat the boss, called Power Struggles. These are also possible against certain normal enemies.

The game features extreme, over-the-top violence, but designer Shigenori Nishikawa intends it to be seen in a comical light despite the dark tone of the game. For example, in a minigame called "Man Darts", players must hit enemies onto a giant dart board with a baseball bat to score points.

MadWorld features highly stylized graphics that use a limited color palette of high contrast black and white with red, partially inspired by Frank Miller's Sin City graphic novels

Development
MadWorld was created by Platinum Games in their attempt to make a game that would be "fun and attractive" for the Wii, but that would also have a high level of violence that would make it unique among other games. Their aim was to make use of a simpler and more elegant art style, leading them to develop the black-and-white scheme. The black-and-white motif ultimately lead to the graphic novel-type approach used in them; both Inaba and Shigenori Nishikawa acknowledged the influence of Frank Miller's Sin City into the work, but also noted they borrowed from both Western and Japanese comic book styles to create a unique style.

The game was developed using Softimage for creation of the game's art, and a custom engine built to handle the art aesthetic and limitations of the Wii's memory. The game's sets are completely modeled with complex lighting features, but only normal maps are used to draw the game, avoiding the high-processing costs of light maps or layered textures. Explosions and other effects, normally created in other games using particle effects to achieve a factor of realism, were also modeled with particles in MadWorld, but using specially-designed images to retain the comic book style

To overcome the lighting issues, the main character of Jack was modeled with two different textures, one used when he was in a bright area, and second used in dark areas that highlighted the main lines of the character's face. Jack and other principal characters from the game were redesigned with the black-and-white features adjusted numerous times to make sure they did not simply blend into the background as the lesser enemies in the game.

Other characters were drawn and modeled to be as destructible as possible, with numerous versions of each character having missing limbs or other bodily harm. These were put together in 2000-frame animations that were then motion-captured; movement from one animation to another was blended out with the use of Hermite interpolation. Blood spurts from each of the methods that Jack could use to kill a foe were each uniquely modeled to capture the appropriate trajectory for the type of injury, and often increasing the realistic amount of blood in order to make it stand out in the world.

The spatters of blood on the walls, floor, and other characters was also modeled within the game using a collision detection system and a complex system for how the blood would interact with Jack's clothing. Early builds of the game resulted in disorientation and eye strain due to the lack of colors. To avoid this, the developers limited the amount of on-screen movement and adjusted the game's textures to include more gradual changes from black to white. While some of MadWorld relies on the Havok engine for modeling physical interactions in the game, the developers found they had to resort to their own programs to capture some of the reactions and behaviors of the enemies for many of the unique killing methods.

Comparisons have also been drawn between the game and Inaba's last project, God Hand, a comedy beat 'em up for the PlayStation 2. However, Inaba claims that while God Hand was developed for "hardcore" gamers, MadWorld is "a lot easier to pick up." The game's use of over-the-top violence was intentional to add humor to it.

The game's story was written by Yasumi Matsuno, famous for his design in the Ogre Battle series and a number of Square Enix titles. Matsuno was given two opposing guidelines to writing the scenario. While the development team ruled that violence should acceptable in the game's world, Inaba expressed his desire for violence to be "denied in the end" due to current views of violence in the video game industry. Matsuno combined the ideas for MadWorld's DeathWatch gameshow environment: violence is both accepted and required within the show, but not outside of it.

Reception/Controversy
MadWorld generally received positive reviews often praising the style, gameplay, and music, but criticizing the camera and short length, though it mentions that the hard difficulty level lengthens the game and increases the challenge considerably.

The controversy appears mainly in the UK. Its been discussed as "distasteful" due to its violent nature and focus on "maiming and killing people", it was not rated therefore it was banned. MadWorld was also not released in Germany. Nintendo ultimately sought the Western Markets for the game.

Main Article
For more information please view the MadWorld Wiki: MadWorld