What the Nintendo Wii is missing: violent video games

Madworld for Wii

(Credit: Sega Platinum Games)

Finally, someone is wising up to the fact that the Nintendo Wii doesn't address the bloodlust of most gamers.

Fortunately, Sega is stepping up with a new game that brings a comic-book sense of ultra-violence to the Wii's motion control functionality. Madworld is a new game scheduled for 2009 that brings blood and gore into your Wii-world.

Why is this cool? Because the Wii offers a whole new way to engage with games and other humans, unlike traditional console games. The notion of grabbing things in the virtual world and using them as part of the game is really cool as you can literally control the action of the game.

Often times, brutality is expressed in a spiteful nature. There are already plenty of games out there that hit this mark; however, we decided that MADWORLD's brutality should be aimed at providing the user with a sense of exhilaration during play.

To give you an example from gameplay, we have a scene where you can pull a street sign from the ground and shove it into a enemy's head. However, I thought that it is much more fun to stab someone with a sign that actually has some sort of meaning as opposed to a knife. We tried the idea out, and the reaction amongst the team was so positive, I knew this was the way to proceed.

While one type of action is already fun, one of MadWorld's most innovative points is the ability to link and layer these actions together. For instance, you can grab that enemy with the street sign through his head and throw him against a spiked wall.

I've gone up and down on video games as both a consumer and as someone who wonders how they really work. In general my big complaint is that video games are such an incredible walled garden that it's next to impossible to step outside the big studio domination.

The Wii has been a surprising success for Nintendo and all signs point to future innovation, all of it hidden from plain sight, even going as far as banning their creative leader from talking about his hobbies.

It would be great to see the big console makers open up to more (any?) third parties vendors to get content onto their machines.

[dascha1]

Does a lack of Graphic Power mean anything to Uss?

[mtroutma]

Resident Evil 4? Umbrella Chronicles? Manhunt? Violent Wii games have been on the console for some time now. The Wii controls add a layer of realism, when you are stabbing a zombie or shaking one off as he bites you.

[Leftovervictimnight]

Yea man, stabbing zombies and shaking a zombie off of yourself is totally realistic! Idiot.. In modern age, fantasy violence is not at all considered as realism violence. Also, Manhunt was totally "PG-13d" for the WII, look it up. As apposed to other consoles, the WII really has no "REALISTIC" violent games yet.

[OwenMeaney0]

I thought the title of the article was a joke at first but then I realized the author's intent was genuine.

I think the last thing that's needed in gaming, particularly in a system that has expanded playability to new users, are games with ever-increasingly realistic ways to kill people, zombies or 'enemies.'

[man_w_balls]

RE: lack of Graphic Power

For the average gamer, who does not have an HD TV, the Wii's graphics are quite nice. Also, at the $250 price range, there's a lot in that little box - it's basically a flash-based PPC minicomputer, running proprietary linux software.

When all the new- gen consoles came out, I personally would have only bought the PS3. But now I have a Wii in the house because my girlfriend bought it for us, and I have come to see its greatness in simplicity. Add to that a Homebrew Channel and customizable software installs, and it's pretty sweet.
So basically, the Wii is better than most Wii-bashers realize. That's why it dominates the market, not simply price alone.

[techman21]

This is sad. The Wii was the one last gaming haven against the madness of ever-increasing violence and gore in gaming, which is desensitizing our youth to the horrors of evil and death and destruction. We see the results in the news almost every day.

[punterjoe]

Woo Hoo - Super Mario Slaughterspree at last! :P
How soon until I can buy a Wiimachete?
...seriously, was the world really pining for this?

[daverosenberg]

I don't think the world is pining for this (like so many other things we don't need) but I do think that gamers are looking for new ways to crush, kill and destroy.

[leeshka]

No More Heroes. Violence Galore. LOVED IT.

[peaceinyourday]

I have been considering becoming a Wii patron because it is the ONLY system that offers non-violent games in the proper proportions. If this is where things are headed, count me out.
I will not become a lemming to companies that choose to make violence a commodity and our children the target audience of their efforts.

[OwenMeaney0]

Couldn't agree more. The only way we can influence this is through economics.

[EFtWorth]

The author is a moron. What is the necessity for even more violent games? Because we are losing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Because our country has been neutered by the current administration? Now we need more violent games to show how big and mean we are? Puh-leeze!

[this1!]

and what, linking video games to current events make you a genius? Puh-leeze!

[forbol]

If you don't like violent games then don't play them. You will not be forced to do so. The fact is there is a market for these sort of games and many people enjoy them. Violent game do not make the people who play them or the game platform on which they are played evil. If you are a parent, and your child is exhibiting aberrant behavior don't blame the game, take a good long look in the mirror.

[OwenMeaney0]

I think this is an extremely naive view of the gaming market. Agreed, that as a parent, you shouldn't blame the gaming community for your child's behavior. But when such violence is glorified and promoted by a gaming system, is there no responsibility that should be attributed to the system in general. The glorification via gaming of violence DOES lead to increased violence in our society. You can deflect as much as you like but that is a fact.

[DigitalFrog]

Sorry, I have to agree with EFTWorth. We bought a Wii specifically because of the high ratio of non-violent games. Furbol, you're the one that needs to take a good long look at yourself while playing these games. I have played some of them, and stopped because I could feel the agression building rather than being released (which is what I play games to do). To rephrase your statement, If you are a parent, and your child is exhibiting abberant behavior - and you allow them to play heavily violent games then you need to take a look at what you are doing. The games may not initiate behavioral problems, but I strongly feel that they strengthen tendencies that may already exist, as does any type of repetitive conditioning process.

[forbol]

I congratulate you for exercising your freedom to choose, you chose not to play, that is your right. Perhaps you discouraged your child from playing a game of which you did not approve, this too is your right. However, your response implies that because you were in some way disturbed by the violent nature of whatever game you were playing, that I am a bad person because, unlike you I happen to enjoy such games. I have a right to choose to play violent games, the companies that develop these games have a right to produce them. This does not make me the game developer or the game platform inherently evil.

[asozasis]

I wouldn't say Mr Rosenberg is a moron. He is ignorant, ill-informed, unfeeling, neanderthalic, misanthropic and so narrow-minded he is almost certainly suffering from Asperger's Syndrome.
He should never have children and, if he already has spawned, they should be removed from his influence immediately.
No, he is not a moron. He is neo-liberalism gone disturbingly awry.

[daverosenberg]

@asozasis Nice same comment on both posts which you clearly haven't read. I am going to send my army of children to your house with cookies and copies of Grand Theft Auto.

[tedbear4420]

Like the title said, finally someone is addressing the bloodlust or what I would say is the mature game genre that nintento has virtually ignored since the launch of the Wii video game console. I have been a big fan of nintendo over the years but I have to say that as usual the nintento games on the Wii are fun and challenging but lack that kick ass, get scared out of your pants, ohhh my god feeling that you get playing mature games. hopefully the release of the video game Madworld will bring some much needed blood and cuts to the gamers of the Wii video console.

[JadedGamer]

To Leftovervictimnight; the article is about exactly that: the "fantasy violence" game Madworld, and hence the examples like Resident Evil 4 and Umbrella Chronicles are good examples. As are No More Heroes and Red Steel (and for that matter: Call of Duty 3).

[NoVista]

Looks like many people have never heard of 'catharsis' ... if you get aggro from violent games, you should certainly steer clear -- you're in that minority group, according to a recent study on gaming. A larger set of the subjects found the activity relaxing.

I remember back in the 50s, some wowser wrote a book on how comics were the ruination of youth. And, on a slight tangent, there's an inscription in an Egyptian tomb that roughly translates, "The youth of today are going to the dogs."