Hands On: MadWorld

MadWorld is a game that I've been wanting to play ever since I saw the first trailer. The "Sin City" comic book style is jawdroppingly cool, I wasn't sure what it'd be like in the flesh but it looks great.

Having read other previews I'd heard of people complaining about the fact that the majority of the scene is in black and white and therefore difficult to tell what's going on - personally I didn't really have this problem, so I'm officially disagreeing with those people.

Even I'm guilty of concentrating on MadWorld's visuals, so let's look at what the game is actually about and how it plays. I guess the closest genre would be "Beat em up". Running around environments you need to take on opponents, beat them and move on to the next area.

What's special about MadWorld, apart from it's fantastic style, is the interactivity. There is a huge emphasis on killing your opponents with whatever you can find around you. You can also combine your actions, grab a tire, slam it over your foe rendering him helpless, stab a sign post into is neck, then picking him up and holding him against a moving train before throwing him into a dumpster with the closing lid cutting them in half, bloody fantastic.

The control scheme is pretty simple, you've got standard punch attack and then chainsaw attack (for the Jack character) by holding and motioning a cutting action with the Wiimote, to jump and to center camera. Once you've beaten your bad guy enough you'll see a "Finish Him" prompt on screen, these are triggered from a selection of different finishing moves that often involve some kind of Wiimote/Nunchuck gesture, all designed to make you "feel" like your part of the action.

MadWorld plays really nicely and it looks great too - the interesting thing will be if the game has enough of a story and/or variety to keep the gameplay interesting, however pulling off the finishing moves won't tire easily.

The game is due out next month in the US and still might see a March release in Europe, if your lucky.