This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
The idea behind the Bitmob Backlog Brigade is all about support. Fellow gamers support each other in their attempt to dwindle down that giant pile of shame on their shelves. The BBB flies in and drops a "time bubble" over each participant. All of a sudden, it is the week of that poor forgotten game's release all over again. Other people are talking about it and you feel motivated to keep playing and join in.
For the second ever BBB, we tackled the hyper-violent, Wii-exclusive Madworld. Seven gamers stepped in, and as of this writing only two stepped out victorious. Still, after I plowed my way through to the end, I helped coach Brian Shirk through the place he was having trouble with, which got him to the finish line as well. And two more Bitmobbers are still in the fight (I think), so don't count them out yet.
Curious what we thought of the game? I've collected several conversations between participants that took place throughout our playtime. Read on for talk of the gameplay, the over-the-top sense of humor, and a smattering of tweets, as well as each participants final thoughts. And then stay tuned to the Backlog Brigade tag for future editions.
BCGlynn17 I'm about an hour into MadWorld, and I'm a bit worried that "repetitive" is going to be a word that I frequent.
acronkyoung *Gasp*! The only person that could conceivably provide a twist, PROVIDED A TWIST! #MadWorld
chopkickblock The waggle controls in Madworld are really starting to bug me. Had to restart a level because I couldn't move my hands together properly.
acronkyoung Agent 13 looks like the Penguin. #MadWorld
Alex R. Cronk-Young and Brian Shirk, via Gmail Chat:
me: So, what'd you think of the gameplay? Too repetitive, I'm sure?
brianesu: Initially, I was surprised by the wealth of techniques available, but the gameplay grew repetitive due to the lack of character growth. Killing enemies in gruesome ways by hurling them into objects — no matter what they are — gets old after awhile. Did you feel there were enough ways to murder your opponents?
me: All the little environmental killing devices helped, but ultimately the game rewarded you for doing the same things over and over. I got more points if I stuck a tire or barrel over the guy, a signpost through his head, and THEN killed him via whatever spinning blades were available. I would have liked them to reward variation instead, because just running around and killing in random ways was pretty entertaining. Much more than tire, sign, spikes, repeat.
brianesu: Agreed. The points awarded for such deaths were practically useless. It would have been nice if you were granted additional equipment or modes for achieving a high score. Platinum Games could have taken a page from Dead Rising and awarded us with lawn mowers, glass shards, and other tools of destruction.
me: I seem to remember a game that rewarded me for varying my mode of killing. Was it God of War? It must have been something else, as I don't know what God of War would have rewarded me with.
brianesu: God of War awarded players with new moves and weapons for trading in orbs obtained from enemy corpses. Such a system is essential in action games where the basic mechanics grow tiresome after awhile. Instead of granting players new abilities, MadWorld added mini-games to keep it from growing stale, but they didn't hold my interest. Did you find any of them enjoyable?
me: Meh, they were alright. I certainly enjoyed them more than just having to kill more enemies to get more points. You know that game where you had to jam bottles of soda into peoples faces before you threw them? I guess the idea was that it'd carbonate their blood and make them lighter to throw? A game that has something that ridiculous is obviously focused primarily on having fun, so it seems weird that they wouldn't have tried to vary the combat more. Really, I think MadWorld's greatest strength was that it was short enough that I didn't tear my hair out from the repetition. I had fun with it, but if I'd had to play it another few hours, I'd have cursed Platinum's name.
brianesu: I felt that five or six hours was plenty, too. There just wasn't much variation with mini-games that involved throwing opponents and not-so-epic Final Fantasy 7 inspired motorcycle chases.
acronkyoung MadWorld is off the backlog. Alright game, it was pretty fun.
acronkyoung Hmm, the announcers are mocking the people in the credits — all japanese. Wonder if someone translated these insults to them. #MadWorld
BrianEsu @acronkyoung MadWorld's credits are insane. I wonder if the developers knew as well.
acronkyoung @BrianEsu The Producer line actually made me smirk though. That he just brought a pizza once and asked how things were going.
BrianEsu @acronkyoung Heh. Some of them were pretty amusing. Their voices remind me of the announcers in Star Wars Eps 1's podracing scene.
BrianEsu @acronkyoung That fight with the vampire chick was crazy. Spanks her and throws her through the window.
acronkyoung @BrianEsu Haha, yeah. And everytime you do the QTE you have your face shoved in her boobs. Nothing sexist about that fight whatsoever.
BrianEsu @acronkyoung With all its controversial subject matter, extreme gore, language, and stereotypes, I can't believe it didn't get any attention from the media or Jack Thompson.
acronkyoung @BrianEsu Yeah, it always surprises me when a game like that doesn't get a second thought. Not big enough I suppose.
Alex R. Cronk-Young and Bill Feldhaus, via AIM:
chopkickblock: Alright, leftover pizza and diet coke for breakfast. Now, you've mentioned the announcers a number of times. Did you enjoy them?
magitekblood85: I think I enjoyed the idea more than the delivery. If their dialogue had been cut down by 50% I might have laughed at some of the lines.
chopkickblock: I can agree with that. Lines repeat often enough and the reliance on cussing for humor just made me ignore them after a point.
magitekblood85: You think that they just mistook what gamers would find funny, or is that just an inherent flaw in having humor in a video game? The repetition, I mean.
chopkickblock: It's not a flaw with having humor in a video game. The commentators aren't interactive in any way, I just don't enjoy the vulgar for vulgarity's sake. The repetition? Yeah, you can't record endless material so you should always expect some repetition. But bad jokes and repetition make it stand out more.
magitekblood85: But if they had only made that barrel of monkeys joke the first time I stuffed a guy into a barrel, wouldn't it either be dead silent or a huge undertaking for them to provide enough content?
chopkickblock: True. If their aim was to create a constant running commentary (which is what they did effectively), always providing unique lines would be near impossible. I don't recall that joke specifically, and now that I think about it, I don't recall many contextual jokes; which may just bring home the fact that I tuned them out after a point. I do really enjoy the running gag with the Black Baron introducing challenges and his assistant demonstrating.
magitekblood85: Yeah, that's another situation because I think that gag kind of neuters something later in the game, but I won't get into it since you haven't finished.
chopkickblock: Yeah, I think I'm only now finished with World 2 as of about thirty minutes ago.
magitekblood85: I am glad that they attempted to make it humorous though, since so many games are way too serious. And not everything fell flat.
chopkickblock: The style and ultra-violence alone is humorous to me.
magitekblood85: I smirked a number of times. Though, I think I would have more if I wasn't beaten over the head by the announcers early on. They made me sort of instantly assume that I wouldn't find the game funny.
chopkickblock: Was it worse in the beginning? I don't remember.
magitekblood85: Eh, I think it was just getting used to the fact that it was so constant. It was sort of like going into a movie with lowered expectations. I was so quickly barraged with repetitive jokes that I just assumed they were all terrible and it made the actually funny ones only kind of funny. I think, "Those happy pills are much stronger if you grind them up and inject them into the folds of your scrotum. But what isn't better if you grind it up and inject it into the folds of your scrotum?", would have been much funnier if it weren't surrounded by much less funny "WE'RE EDGY" jokes.
chopkickblock: I do remember that. And I did laugh, even on repeated deliveries. That goes back to the question: How would you create a running commentary without repeating lines?
magitekblood85: Yeah, in a game that is based around "You get more points if you stick a sign post through the head of and a tire around the body of every single guy before you kill him", it's sort of hard to not repeat the same joke each time that's done.
chopkickblock: Exactly. I'm just happy I can tune it out.
Check out more of my writing on music, movies, and more — as well as articles from Bitmob regulars like Chris Whitehead and Chris "Cosmo" Ross — at Cerebral Pop.