YMMV / MadWorld

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• Anti-Climax Boss: Martin gets a lot of flack for being a very lame Rank #2 and finisher to Area 66. The concept of fighting an alien piloting a Humongous Mecha sounds like it'd be cool Pre-Final Boss material, but in practice, Martin is such a colossal close-range beast that the only viable strategy is to use rocket launcher pickups and shoot at him from afar, which is simply not as fun or satisfying as slicing him to pieces with your chainsaw (unlike every other boss in the game, there's virtually no blood whatsoever, not even for the finisher). While he's not a particularly hard or even "unfair" boss, it falls glaringly short in spectacle as many other bosses in the game.
• Awesome Music: MadWorld is one of the few games with an indie hip-hop soundtrack and it sounds really good.
  • Death and Honor, which multiplies the awesomeness of the boss fights it plays over. It fits especially well for the Kojack battle.
  • The final boss battle features Sick YG's "Look Pimpin!". The track is a smooth and upbeat hip-hop "boast song", which switches to Ox's "So Cold" midway, keeping the same style, albeit somewhat more intense. Both are a welcome aversion to the usual "Final Boss" theme: After being a Butt-Monkey through the course of the game, such a tired theme would feel too forced for the Black Baron . "Look Pimpin!" is sung from his opening cocky perspective, while "So Cold" reflects his angered reaction upon losing half his health.
• Complete Monster: Bloody Hilarious and line-crossing as the game may be, these two manage to stand out as being completely greedy monsters:
  • Noa is the CEO of DeathWatch, and Leo Fallmont's second-in-command. Cutting off all access to roads and technology in Jefferson Island, Noa unleashes a deadly virus that will kill everyone within 24 hours, promising a vaccine to those who kill—even suggesting starting with family members and neighbors—with the last one standing winning $100 million. Turning the DeathWatch games—having previously been created for nations to engage in less bloody wars—into a violent reality show where the wealthy bid on contestants, Noa reaps most of the profits for himself, doing whatever he can to keep sponsors funding the games.
  • Leonardo "Leo" Fallmont, first seen as a random survivor, is the true villain of the game, the creator of the deadly virus, and Noa's boss. Following his father's pharmaceutical company going bankrupt after the last presidential election, Leo and his father decide to create a virus in order to sell a vaccine. Partnering with Noa to spread the virus across Jefferson Island, before ultimately killing Noa to cover his tracks, he plans on using DeathWatch as a way to spread publicity about the vaccine, blackmailing various countries with his virus unless they buy it, while also participating in the games for the thrill of killing.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Not only does the gameplay revolve around subjecting your victims to horrific, torturous deaths, but the dialogue stretches the limits of Black Comedy, with multiple jokes centered around drug abuse, rape and genocide.
  • The revelation that the Black Baron isn't actually black. Surprisingly, it comes off as less racist and more over-the-top like the rest of the game. Especially considering the Baron acted like a stereotype, so the blackface subverts the stereotype. Made even funnier by the fact that his voice actor, Reno Wilson, is a black guy himself.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The game itself was supposed to deconstruct power fantasies and how horrifying it would really be. It shows how messed up it is to be in a situation where you have to fight and gruesomely kill people for the amusement of a psychotic crowd. Instead, the game makes it very entertaining to kill others and the anti-violence message is lost among the body count and the awesome soundtrack.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The announcers are some of the most popular characters in the game for their twisted, yet hilarious jokes.
  • Von TwirlenKiller is one of the most well-liked bosses in the game partially due to his cool design and abilities during his fight.
• Friendly Fandoms: Audiences of this game widely overlap with fans of No More Heroes, which fits into almost the exact same niche as MadWorld, both being incredibly violent and bloody hack 'n' slashers with emphasis on Black Comedy and awesome boss fights, both curiously placed on the Wii.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Kojack's appearance is strikingly similar to Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and he even possesses a bionic arm, much like he does. His resemblance to Venom Snake is even more hilarious, considering that Venom Snake is actually a "clone" produced by using a combination of plastic surgery and hypnotherapy on the surgeon who was with Big Boss and Paz when the latter exploded in a helicopter, much like how Kojack is a clone of Jack himself.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A common criticism towards the game is it's short length, the main story being able to be beaten in less than 5 hours.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Jack Cayman is a sardonic, mysterious Chaser tasked with finding the mayor's daughter by competing in the Deathwatch games. Armed with nothing but his wits, fists, and a chainsaw wrist, Jack, originally a three-time Deathwatch champion who faked his death and changed his identity, actually agreed to the mission just to take the games down himself. Upon entering, Jack easily wins the sponsor XIII over by proving his skills as a killer. Making his way through the games by killing his opponents in a variety of creative ways using everything at his disposal, Jack refuses to harm innocents, even tricking XIII to make it so that he won't have to hurt them. Willing to go against Amala and basic protocol just to get even with his opponents, Jack has the mayor arrested upon finding out his mission was a fraud, and manages to win the games and triumph over its mastermind Leonardo Fallmont, exposing his vile plans and killing him.
  • "XIII", real name Lord Gesser, is a sponsor for Deathwatch who secretly plots to tear the games down. Having viewed the games as deviating from their history as honorable gladiator matches, XIII pits Jack and the game's director Noa against each other, taking advantage of Jack's prior experience in the games to not only make himself money, but to also fight his way through Noa's defenses. Getting Noa to uncover Jack's true past, XIII afterwards informs Jack about Leo Fallmont's involvement, setting him up as champion to kill both Noa and Leo, thus ending the games for good.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Noa crossed it in the game's intro, cutting off Jefferson Island from the outside world, releasing a virus into the city and making people kill each other for the cure, all so he could set up a massive Death Watch arena to make money off of it.
  • Leo crosses it by being the real mastermind of the games.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The scene depicting the start of the Death Watch game is not Played for Laughs. After Jefferson Island is cut off from the outside world, an airborne virus is spread across the populace, causing some victims to start vomiting blood. The terrorists then instruct the infected to start murdering each other as part of their "game", with the cure being delivered only to those who racked up the biggest body counts.
  • The death of Jude the Dude. Take his giant revolvers, shoot him until only his skeleton is left standing. He lets out a single scream despite having no vocal cords at this point and is then finished off with one more shot with the camera lingering on his skull (pretty much all that's left of him).
  • The mooks scream in agony when you shock them to death or impale them.
  • RinRin's death scene, where she is violently swung around by Jack at full force before being tossed into a screen so hard that it shatters, electrocuting, but not killing her, the real bad part is when the giant Yee Fung animatronic picks her up with it's chopsticks and it crushes her to death.
  • The 2nd boss in Asiantown (the Shogun) suddenly busts through a rice paper screen with a chainsaw Naginata.
  • Frank's execution cutscene, in which he is electrocuted until his head explodes.
• Quirky Work: The game takes the violent gameplay and Black Humour from No More Heroes and mixes it with the black and white artstyle from Sin City and the dystopian plot of The Running Man, creating a universe that is as wacky and surreal as it is disturbing.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • Given the black-and-white art-style, Crapsack World setting, over-the-top violence, scantily-clad women and Anti-Hero protagonist, this is the closest anyone will get to a video game adaptation of Frank Miller's Sin City.
  • It also makes for a good Running Man game, complete with a satirical tone that deconstructs the concept of reality TV in the form of a deadly game show.
• That One Attack:
  • Death Blade's insta-kill Power Struggle, anyone? He basically has the zombie mooks hold you in place while he dramatically rises from an abyss to slice your sorry head off (or bisect you, whichever way works). And you have very, very little time to shove the zombie into his body before that happens. No wonder he wasn't allowed into the Tower.
  • The wheel attack utilized by The Shamans, which has a large hitbox that makes it tough to avoid, even when you think you're in the clear.
  • The Final Boss has the Black Hole. Not only is it one of the hardest attacks to avoid unless you are far enough to spam backflips, it's also extremely damaging and takes more than half of your health.
• That One Boss:
  • Frank garners more message board complaints than any other boss in the game, by far. The timing for dodging his moves and counterattacking is tricky to get down, and he can also regain health at least twice (once after each Power Struggle) and more than that if the player takes too long to kill him. It's possible to attack while he's recovering to prevent too much progress from being lost, albeit at the expense of vulnerability to his electrical attacks when he finishes.
  • The Shamans aren't regarded very warmly. The fact that the Alpha bum-rushes you with smaller mooks is bad enough, but the Power Struggle is really quite difficult to pull off, with Jack more often than not getting hit because of it. And that's not detailing the Werewolf-wheel that can miss you completely and still hit you.
• That One Level:
  • The Castle Dungeon forces you to battle zombies and gardeners in a tight confined series of tunnels with few unique ways to kill them and little room to escape. Plus, the level's challenge (stick the Giant Mook with five candlesticks) is a pain to pull off. And Big Long Driller is constantly appearing out of nowhere to give you pain (And he takes a lot of punishment). And it ends with Frank.
  • The Castle's Courtyard. The layout is fairly easy, and the regular enemies are too. However, the miniboss, Death Blade, is incredibly frustrating with an instant kill attack, which the regular enemies hold you in place for. The Elite Mooks are the same gardeners as in the dungeon, and the boss has a frustrating attack that could best be described as a werewolf circular saw of pain.

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