The Let's Play Archive

Madworld

by ArclightBorealis

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Original Thread: We Gotta Get It Up In This Let's Play of Madworld

 

Introduction



Explain Madworld
Madworld was developed by Platinum Games and published by SEGA in early 2009 for the Wii. A hyper violent brawler with a distinct visual look and blood sport setup akin to the Running Man, it’s one of the better uses of motion controls on the system. There was quite a big deal made about it around the time when people doubted whether Nintendo’s then current system was worth owning by core gamers after the previous year and Sega was publishing games to appeal to those sets of people (House of the Dead Overkill released around the same time period for context). It was also the first released game by Platinum, who at the time had only formed not too long after the shutdown of Clover in 2006. The pedigree behind the studio was more than enough reason to give this game some attention regardless of its platform, and looking at shots of it in action you could tell that this was carrying on that same Clover feel.

The game was received fairly positively at release, but nowhere near that of their later output. It kinda gets overshadowed by titles like Bayonetta and Vanquish, and sometimes gets a bit harsher critique when compared to the aforementioned big titles. For what it’s worth, it’s still better than Korra or Ninja Turtles. Not amazing, but not mediocre.

Personally this game has a pretty big spot in my heart just because this was Platinum's first game and it oozes with amazing style and presentation. What this game may lack in gameplay variety and depth, it makes up for it with its black and white comic book aesthetic, its hip hop soundtrack, and an intriguing story written by Yasumi Matsuno of FF Tactics and Vagrant Story fame. And it’s really good! Like, literally better than every other story done by Platinum internal. Except maybe Wonderful 101, that was good too.

Doesn’t This Game Already Have Commentary Built In?
Yes, as this game’s basic premise is that you compete in a violent game show, there are play by play commentators that make banter about your performance during the game. These two commentators are voiced by Greg Proops and John DiMaggio, and their dynamic is pretty fantastic to say the least.

However, just like any play by play commentary in a video game, it is prone to the same common problem of there being only so much recorded dialogue, and while it is plentiful and played during the right situations, hearing the same gag repeated ad nauseam really does put a damper on things. Especially when this game’s sound channels tend to blend a lot and make things difficult to hear. Between the sound effects, music with vocals, and these two chucklefucks it can become something of a cacophony without adjusting the sound settings yourself.

That said, my approach for this LP is to take all the commentary tracks, recorded on a separate file with everything else turned down, and sync them up to gameplay to utilize their comedic qualities and avoid repeats. With this setup, hopefully you will be given the optimal viewing experience of this game with the sounds of thugs impaled ass first on a spike, rapping about murder, obscene comedic commentary about murder, and my own insight on how to best murder a poor motherfucker for big money. Yes, there’s gonna be a lot of murder, if you couldn’t tell. Stay tuned, DeathWatchers!

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