Mad World (Wii)
Boss fights and bonus rounds offer much needed variety to the game play.
Foremost amongst is Platinum Games (formerly Clover Studios) developed Mad World. Superficially it seems like everything the traditional gaming crowd has been demanding. A (primarily) black and white colour palette gives a stylish Frank Miller graphic novel vibe to the experience and a lavish splattering of blood and gore (I said primarily black and white) ensured it received a rating of ‘M’ for mature (which is the last thing I would label it). It is a visually arresting style and while in dire need of some anti-aliasing it manages to dodge most of the Wii technical limitations and function far better in motion than stills suggest.
And there’s blood.
Its outer appearance masks a simple old fashioned fighting game, updated for the 3D generation with a few waggle controls added for the Wii. You move through stylised levels, which for the most part merely amount to new skins over a single blood soaked skeleton, forcing you to repeat the same few mundane actions until you reach a stage’s unique bonus stage or boss fight. While Mad World’s intermissions are certainly more diverse than its forefathers the one hook that used to keep me enthralled is sorely lacking, co-op. This is a game that should be enjoyed and at laughed with friends, but when your friends can only sit and drink beer while watching the mayhem it loses something that used to make me replay Streets of Rage over and over again.
The black and white aesthetic is far clearer in motion.
Tags: Mad World, Platinum Games, Sega, Wii
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I think you’ve touched on a few problems with the whole issue of dividing games and gamers into arbitrary sub-sections. Is “hardcore” simply a matter of blood and guts? Do overall game length or intensity of play sessions determine whether a game is “casual” or not? Or are there in fact a lot more casual games out there than the “hardcore” crowd would like to believe?
The blood and guts make it laughably labeled mature. The hardcore element is a label I don’t agree with, but I think now an excepted evil in gaming. If I were to more carefully define the term for games (not relying on the article ‘the taxonomy of gaming’ which few have read) I would say it was more related to the intricacies of the controls, or more specifically familiarity with established skill sets. With difficulty of advancement also playing an important role.
This is not a description of gamers, but games you understand. Gamers are more usually self (or situationally) defined. I myself who play many games would not consider myself ‘hardcore’ on forums as I tend not to be competitive in the online space. But out with most of my friends that opinion would change.
Thats why I would consider this casual for the ‘hardcore’ (or skilled) gamers. But you are right I didn’t express that well here. My point was more aimed at the fact the game is forgiving, and the control set while not single mouse clicks is familiar to all who have played any game in a 3D environment (even casually).
To address your comment here there for, yes there are many more ‘casual’ (or as I have been saying recently ‘hardcore casual’) games currently on the market. They are the popcorn action movie of gaming, and often fun. And maybe that is how this was billed, but I was thinking there would be more depth to it. As I said, this was probably my mistake.
I think that everyone has their own definitions of “hardcore” and “casual”.
For instance, if a game is something that anyone can pick up and play for a good hour without spending half that time doing tutorials or requiring previously-acquired gaming skill, regardless of genre, and feel that they have had their money’s worth, then I would call that “casual”.
Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Raving Rabbids, Warioware, hell, even the first Super Mario Game – in my eyes, all casual.
Now, if a game requires skills only a long-term gamer has, has intricate controls, is something that takes more than an hour or so to play through, and offers reasons to replay it either on harder difficulties or by taking different in-game routes, then I call it “hardcore”.
Games that are a mixture of the two, I simply call “games” as they take traits from both styles.
But thats just me. No doubt the next poster would feel different. Although knowing my luck, the next poster will agree, thereby making me look like a liar. A LIAR I SAY!