This is an oldie, and it came as a surprise here at the ZRC – I had intended to purchase this game specifically to get *away* from Zombie games, or more precisely, Anti-Zombie games, for a bit; that, and the fact that it was cheap, and that it’s a spiritual successor to the massively underrated PS2 sleeper ‘God Hand‘.

So what is Madworld about? Well, if you have played God Hand, you’ll notice quite a few similiarities. Madworld is a comedic action brawler with elaborate boss fights and over the top comedic violence; however, whereas God Hand is a PG-13 sort of a game (despite the ESRB giving it a Mature rating), Madworld is soaked in violence and adult humor, thoroughly earning its Mature. Madworld’s controls are also obviously based around the Wii-mote from the very beginning, and the combination of excessive violence on-screen with controls that deliberately force you to use violent motions in the real world can be very.. immersive, not to mention occasionally cathartic.

At least, I found it cathartic.

What does this have to do with the ZRC? Well, Madworld has an entire multistage level built around.. Zombies.

Of a sort.

These Zombies, visually, look a lot more like Mummies, and they aren’t reanimated people per se; rather, they seem to be ghost-like entities that haunt a castle imported from ‘Zombigistan’ or some such place. They are, however, flesh and blood, and so you as a player brutally maim them for points and a better score.

Which doesn’t sound so different from your typical Anti-Zombie game, right? Fortunately, however, that’s not the case; Madworld isn’t Anti-Zombie at all.

Let me explain: In this game, you inflict horrible, bizarrely creative violence upon the Differently Animated. However, you inflict similar violence on all sorts of other people, of widely varying backgrounds. Yes, Madworld encourages you to virtually slaughter men and women, Caucasians and African and Asian-Americans, Zombies and giant Mutants, Aliens, Robots and more.

It’s a diverse rainbow of tolerance and inclusivity, although perhaps the only one that pushes you to impale virtual people on traffic signs and then throw them into jet engines to be turned into a bloody paste while still screaming.

Given that, even the legitimately hilarious announcers can be forgiven for the taunting and mockery of the Undead they engage in during this stage, since again, Zombies are just being treated like everyone else the main character Jack runs into (or runs through) in the game: very badly.

Isn’t Undead Equality our goal?

On the other hand, it wouldn’t quite be proper to say the game is Zombie Friendly either; slicing those you disagree with in half with a chainsaw isn’t the model of civic engagement the ZRC has in mind. Therefore we’re awarding Madworld a Zombie Neutral rating, as leaked in my earlier post on the new ZRC ratings system.

For such a blood-soaked videogame, that’s shockingly positive.

(Behind the cut is a sample video from Madworld, showing the gameplay; unfortunately as of this writing I haven’t located a good video of the Zombie stage, but this footage from the Asian Town levels should illustrate how broadly and comedically offensive Madworld strives to be to, well, all sentient peoples everywhere)

Tags: Videogames, ZRC Reviews

This entry was posted by John Sears on Sunday, November 14th, 2010 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.