While I enjoyed my time with MadWorld immensely, I hope that the retail game offers enough gameplay variations between levels to keep it interesting. I realize that jamming a thug’s face into a spike will never get old, but having to clear out armies of hooligans on every stage in similar ways may. The game breaks up the action by throwing “Bloodbath Challenges” at you mid-level. After triggering one in the demo, I was taken to a room with a pit and told to throw as many enemies in there as possible before the spikes smashed down from the ceiling. I was then assaulted by oncoming brawlers as I quickly tried to crush as many of them as I could to get the best score multiplier.

Unfortunately, the demo was short and really didn’t give me a clear indication as to whether or not there would be enough variety to sustain the title. As long as they infuse plenty of diversity into the design, the ever-fun mechanics and inventive death-traps should keep this disk spinning in your Wii for awhile. Sega has also promised that several minigames will make it into the final version, including a game called “ManDarts” that has you hurling foes at a giant dart board to rack up points. This almost sounds like reason enough to pick up MadWorld, and I hope that the other minigames are as interesting and hilarious as that one.

Overall, despite only being able to demo it for a short time, I walked away very impressed with what I had seen of MadWorld and am eager to jump back onto the streets of black and white mayhem upon its release. The game is constantly creative with its weaponry and is often as funny as it is violent. Wii fans who can stomach over-the-top gore and are looking for something more mature than Pikmin should consider picking up MadWorld when it ships on March 10, as you aren’t likely to find a more unique action title on any console this season.