MadWorld Sucks?

I spoke too soon about MadWorld "deserving to be a top seller".... the big problem I have with this game is that like too many Wii games, it's really clunky. Your character, Jack, controls like a lumbering tank--which is what he and most of the characters look like; they're very bulky. They're built to be kinda slow but pack a wallop. Fine enough.... but because of this, the control scheme seems a bit too ambitious to be playable in such a setting as this game.

I've talked about how I wasn't really getting a handle on the controls during the first part of the game. See, I was making lots of kills, but it really felt kinda random... a lot of the time it was like a "Oh, I did? Okay.... I guess..." type of feeling. The game weighted it so much in the players favour that you kinda get through it no matter what. Hmmm.


Now I'm into the second half of the game, and the lack of precise controls is proving to be the games downfall. For some reason the quick-time gestures aren't registering. And now there are enemies that can kill you in ONE STROKE if you fail the quick-time gestures... yeah, those ones that suddenly stopped working for some reason. The devs want to up the difficulty, but they broke the gameplay in doing so.

I suspect there's something that most developers for Wii games have completely overlooked-- that there can be MASSIVE VARIATION in the sensitivity of EVERY individual Wii control (both Wiimotes & nunchuks)... they just aren't as consistent as a regular console controller. Pretty much every Xbox controller works the same, whenever I used my friends Xbox controllers, or played using controllers other than my own, they all worked reasonably consistently like one another. But with Wii controls, I guess because of the cheapness of the motion sensors, there's tons of deviation between other controllers and my own. What may work with mine doesn't work with a friends. What works with a friends Wii controllers doesn't work with the random store display Wii controllers. All developers of Wii games should have at least a dozen if not more Wii controllers (both types) and use EVERY one of them to test their controls. I bet most/probably all of them use only one or two sets of controllers, because they assume they all work exactly the same.

Maybe that's where MadWorld has gone wrong... I don't know. All I know is I hate having the control of a game taken out of my hands. That's completely against what a game should be-- the player needs to have control of their actions. If I die because I made the wrong move, that's fine. But dying because of outside forces literally beyond my control is NOT fine, nor fun.

I'm going to keep trying MadWorld, but I can't see it getting any better from here on out. It's such a massive shame, because the look and tone of the game is so excellent. I really love it, but if I can't PLAY it, then what good is it....



later
don