Now that everyone can get their hands on the MADWORLD Soundtrack, we wanted to share something that we feel will make the experience just a bit more fun for you all.

MADWORLD OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK LYRICS (Contains explicit lyrics. PDF Format)

Sing along with all your favorite tales of Deathwatch, murder, and mayhem.

As this content contains explicit lyrics, please click more to verify your age before downloading.

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In the second installment of the Soundelux Sessions, PGTV is joined by special guest, comedian Greg Proops, as they discuss his role as MADWORLD announcer Howard “Buckshot” Holmes, his previous experiences in games and Hollywood, and the gander of chili lunches when working in small, enclosed rooms.

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You asked for it, and we made it happen. Along with SEGA and Sumthing Distribution, you will finally be able to get your hands on a copy of the MADWORLD Soundtrack!

On June 30, you can order your very own copy on CD for $15.99 USD. Digital Download will also be supported for those of you who are looking to load your music players without a physical disc.

Keep an eye on http://www.sumthing.com/ as orders should become available soon!

(Note: Sumthing allows mail orders from the U.S., its territories and possessions, military bases, Puerto Rico, Canada, United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Eire, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Liechtenstein, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. If you don’t live in these areas, go for the digital version.)

Click more to verify your age and check out a trailer for the MADWORLD SOUNDTRACK!

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In this episode of PGTV, we travel to Hollywood, CA and sit down with voice actor Steve Blum, better known to PlatinumGames fans as Jack Cayman from MADWORLD. Find out why Jack wasn’t what he expected, and how anime fans have threatened his life.

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MADWORLD Release Day Contest – And The Winners Are…

We were shocked and surprised by the creativity in all of the entries for our MADWORLD Release Day Contest. PlatinumGames always knew we had incredibly passionate fans, but to see you all put that passion to work was absolutely great.

Which is why picking winners for our contest was even more difficult.. Without further ado – The winners are:

JordanWhite – While we don’t encourage you to take powertools to video game retailers, we will laugh out loud when you do! Thanks, Jordan!

Andreas Kroon – The manga-style retelling of his 20^th of March at the local video game score earned Andreas a prize pack. Well done.

Our final prize pack winner is Sam Smith.

Sam not only made his own Caution sign, he took it to the store with him in this awesome short film. Great job, Sam!

You guys have earned yourselves the exclusive MADWORLD hoodie, as well as something special:

An original Jack sketch by lead character designer Masaki Yamanaka, as well as a thank you note from the entire team.

Finally, there was one picture so silly, we had to include it as an honorable mention.

Putting Dad’s head in the mailbox deserves something, so BGBW will be getting some swag as well.

You can check out all the great entries on our photoset on Flickr.

You can also check out the multimedia entries (from short films, to flash and DSi animations) below:

ROTH – http://ugomemo.hatena.ne.jp/0139AE304CD97FB8@DSi/movie/D97FB8_08A6191F7B3AC_002

AUDIO BEAR –

GREG OSBORNE – http://www.goingartistic.com/Madworld/MadWorld_Contest.html

SERPOO –

Thanks so much, and keep an eye out, as we plan to do more contests like these in the future!

Hey everyone. Are you hooked on MADWORLD yet? If you aren’t, come back and read this blog after you’ve cleared MADWORLD ten more times. MADWORLD is now available in Europe, so this blog is going introduce some replay goals that will make your MADWORLD experience ten times more fun.

If you’ve already driven yourself mad by playing the game too much, this blog post might not be up your alley; however, for those who are keen to keep chomping at the bit, definitely read this blog and have an even better time playing MADWORLD again.

• Five Sign Impale

MADWORLD’s most famous kill has to be shoving a sign post into an enemy’s head, but did you know that you can impale up to five signs into a single enemy? When I look at some of the gameplay video that users have uploaded to Youtube, it seems that everyone is stopping at a single sign post. That’s just an unbelievable waste. If you use multiple signs, you will earn more points and a higher rating for your attack. Not to mention an enemy with five signs in his head is incredibly funny!

• Impaling a Bull with a Sign Post

Big Bull Crocker is the overbearing guy wearing a bull helmet and charging at you with a double chainsaw. You guys are probably all trying to take him out with Jack’s chainsaw or punches. And I figure that you have all had a power struggle with Bull at least once. After winning that power struggle, Big Bull will stand there winded. That is when you can actually impale Big Bull Crocker with a sign post! He is only standing there for a moment, so your chance to pull this off is small, but you can impale up to 5 posts into Crocker.

I’ll share another tip for dealing with Big Bull Crocker! Get Bull in front of a Rose Bush (Spiked Wall) and attack him. Any attack will do, so give it a try. You can actually impale Big Bull Crocker onto the Rose Bush. Depending on his health, he will either die or be disabled by the spikes. When he is disabled, you can use your chainsaw to cut chunks out of him and send him to an early grave. Give it a try! I love this technique, so impale him with a sign post, plant him on a rose bush, and let the Bull know who is boss.

• Use Enemy Lures

When you are in the Station portion of the first stage, there is an attache case in the area. The one that says “CASH” on the front. If you pick that up and throw it, all the money inside will fly up into the air when it hits the ground. The enemies who see that will lose all interest in Jack and head straight for the cash to gather it up, forming a pack of enemies all in one spot.

Throw the cash onto the train tracks and get all the enemies to gather there! A few moments later, a train will come blasting through the station and smash through the cash loving horde, wiping them all out.

There are the sorts of ways you can use the attache case cash to raise your kill efficiency and take out lots of enemies. In every stage there is a lure item, so once you find them make sure to take advantage of them.

• New DeathWatch Challenges!

Everyone is interested in the story, so they clear an area and move on to the next to see what will happen. However, MADWORLD may be a linear game, but you can revisit areas that you have completed.

Sure, playing the same stage the exact same way is OK, but it won’t stay fresh for long, so we’ve included extra missions. Each area has a different mission, with up to four missions added in one stage. As the missions change, it will give you a different sense of urgency in each area to complete the mission, so you really should give those stages another shot!

There are other things I’d like to add, but for now, I suggest checking out the MADWORLD strategy guide that is on sale in stores now. There is lots of great art featuring Jack and the enemies from MADWORLD, so everyone should own their own copy!

So here is your last bit of INSIDER INFORMATION!

In the 2nd stage area known as Bistro La Lusty Geisha, go to the tempura area and try to place as much tempura as you can on the plate in a single go, then ring the bell. You will find something well worth your efforts!

Remember, today is the last day to enter the MADWORLD Release Day contest.

Up for grabs are three of the exclusive MADWORLD hoodies, and other cool, autographed bonus items!

Here are the rules in case you forgot:

So, what is this release day contest you ask? Simple… Take your camera with you when you go buy MADWORLD. Take a picture or a video of you with the game, either in the act of purchasing or after you have purchased. Just like kills in MADWORLD, the more elaborate the picture, the better your chances of winning. Multiple people in the photo is a good start. Making it black, white, and red – even better. Get creative, get original. Once you are done, post a link to the photo or video here in the comments. Make sure to fill in the email address field or we can’t contact you if you win.

Once MADWORLD is available worldwide, the team will check all the pictures and videos, select some winners and dole out some prizes. What we are giving out isn’t decided, but I can guarantee two things – 1) It will be cool. 2) It will be signed.

Now here is the fine print – You need to have your entries in by the March 28. By posting your link, you give us permission to use your photo or video on this site. We will probably add it to Flickr, and we might even use it in a podcast. You also give permission to SEGA to use these photos as well. Winners will be notified by email and announced via this very blog.

Post your entries in the comments of the original post.

Good luck!

Now that MADWORLD is released, I can focus this blog on things like difficult periods during development, or how to get the most out of your MADWORLD experience. I’m also going to do something new at the end of the blog – Insider Information! If you read my blog and then play MADWORLD, it will be 10 times as fun as it was before! (I think…)

With that out of the way, let’s get to the topic at hand. Controls!

But since this is a Wii game, that automatically translates into how you use gesture controls in gameplay. Right!? I think we ended up with absolutely awesome Wii Controls, but it was definitely one of the biggest challenges during development. It was a long hard road to arrive at the final product.

At the start, once we decided to make MADWORLD a Wii game, we began to think about how we would use the Wii Remote. What we initially ran up against was that gesture controls and MADWORLD didn’t seem to match tempo-wise. The more and more you swung the Wii Remote around, the slower the game tempo became, and that feeling of visceral fun that comes with an action game fell by the wayside.

But you can’t just eliminate gesture controls entirely, so we would try various control schemes, and iterate upon them again and again. For instance, we tried things like using only the Wii Remote (no nunchuk) turned sideways (like Mario Kart)… Of course, all of these attempts were thrown out pretty quickly.

Amongst all these efforts, I found an answer. We needed to make the buttons the center of our scheme. Up until that point, we had been focused on how we would swing the Wii Remote, but we switched things up and focused on a button-based control scheme that maintained the tempo of “existing action games.” But that doesn’t mean that we abandoned gestures entirely. We turned it over to members of our team, the Bayonetta team, and Mikami-san’s team and listened to their opinions on where they would like us to introduce gesture controls, whittling down the possibilities.

Basically, we moved all of the player movement to the nunchuk, and let the Wii Remote handle all the player actions. The only gesture used in movement is the Backflip, which you execute by yanking the nunchuk towards you. With the chainsaw, you hold down the B button to activate it, and then swing it sideways or up and down. The chainsaw responds to that and cuts horizontally or vertically. We also added specific gestures for the finishing moves. There are also specific gestures for attacks used during the boss fights.

By doing this, we placed the basic controls on the buttons, but were able to get a good balance by accenting these controls with gestures. That’s when we knew MADWORLD’s controls were set. Controls are absolutely critical, and can affect the quality of a game, especially action games, and even more so action games on the Wii. Starting with our lead programmer, Tarukado-san, we were able to pull through thanks to our numerous talented staff. I’m not sure if the controls will please everyone, but I think that we are using the best points of the Wii and integrating them into the controls. I’m quite satisfied with the result.

Insider Information!

When you swing the Wii remote, are you swinging the Wii Remote with all you might? To make sure we maintained the tempo of the game, and also to make sure you arm does get tired, we adjusted the way we detected swing strength. So you don’t have to flail your arms around, please just flick your wrist and destroy all the enemies in your path! Of course, if you get into the Jack state of mind and want to swing for the fences, you are more than welcome to! However, just make sure you don’t destroy the room you are in by the time you are done…

The soundtracks have finally arrived at the office!

Hi, I’m Shuhei Rokumoto. I was primarily in charge of programming the environmental kills and Bloodbath Challenges for MADWORLD.

By the time this blog post gets translated and posted, MADWORLD should be in everyone’s hands. Have you gotten a chance to put the game through its paces yet?

If you have, you already know, but there is an incredibly number of items you can use to kill enemies in MADWORLD. While the sign post and the rose bush may get the most attention, there are also things like the human garbage dumpsters among other implements of mayhem. (I don’t want to spoil too many of them!) Many of you may be wondering how we made these different items. Let me give you an inside glimpse.

One day, the environmental kills team were stressed out trying to think up a new Bloodbath Challenge. Well, actually, we were stressed because the challenge that we wanted to go with had been rejected by Nishikawa-san. It would have been a Bloodbath Challenge where you would have fired at enemies with a giant slingshot. It had great Wii Remote controls, and we were almost done programming it; however, unfortunately it was deemed to be too run-of-the mill, and didn’t get the kind of reaction we were shooting for with the challenges. Thus, we didn’t use it. The team’s conversation went like this:

“Nishikawa-san, what should we do about the new Bloodbath Challenge?”
“Hmmm…”
“I’ve actually got an idea…”
“Hey… What if we shoved soda into an enemy and shot them off into the distance?”
“HUH!?”
“And the enemies that you shoot off will hit huge billboards of women.”
“I see.”
“And then the girl will go ‘Ahhhh…’”
“Ahhhhh….”
“(Excitedly) Yeah. Ahhhhhh….”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”
“(Happily) C’mon, that’s funny, right!?”
“Uh… (Is this guy OK in the head?)”
“(Proudly) Hey, Rokumoto. You ever seen a game like that before?”
“No. Not that I’m aware of!? (Of course I haven’t seen something like that! There is nothing like that!)”

While our beloved director Nishikawa may normally be an incredibly intelligent guy, now and then he thinks of something so weird that we find ourselves in trouble. You want to do what with soda!? Send people flying!? How are we supposed to make that a game!? It is easy to think things up, but actually being that staff who has to make it is no easy thing to do.

“OK. So what is the gameplay going to be like?”
“(Disinterested) Just do it however you want to…”

This requires a bit of commentary:

A) “Just do it however you want to…”
This statement is not just used by Nishikawa-san, but tends to be how all directions in the company tend to end – “Just do it however you want to…” There are never really any directions for the little details or the rules of how things work. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fully fleshed out design document for anything here! But taking that to mean “Just do it however YOU want to…” usually gets met with disapproving looks. It actually means that you have to just figure out what the person is looking for but can’t put into words. If you don’t understand that, everything you put out will get rejected, people will say “that guy has no idea what he is doing,” and there is a good shot that people may even impugn your character. (OK. I might be exaggerating a bit…) That is what it is like working in our wonderful little design studio.

But back to the topic at hand, Nishikawa-san’s direction ended right there, with a “Just do it however you want to…” Before long, the game designer and I were in the corner of the empty studio putting our heads together.

“So what about that cider thing…”
“Yeah…”
“What should we do about that?”
“Hmm…”
“Hmm…”

So how did it all end up? You’re just going to have to play the game to find out! (Sorry I teased you!!) I’ll be really happy if you enjoy it.

Oh yeah. I am sure some of you are thinking, “Hey! I want to work at PlatinumGames!” Of course, we would be happy to have you if you are up to the task!

A funny aside: When we made the Bloodbath Challenge, Nishikawa-san didn’t like the “Ahhhhhhh…” voice that we put in the game. His bitter tears of disappointment… Oh man… Anyway, we adjusted the voice, and ended up with something that got an OK.

The picture above is of the Bloodbath Challenge that didn’t make it into the game. This is the one where you would have used the Wii Remote to control the enormous slingshot.