Madness Interactive (2003)

Anyone rmember those 'stickman fight' flash videos? I figure it's worth a review with the new game coming out sometime. This is a fun and funny little series that at times almost feels like a mix of south park or tarantino in it's deranged kind of humor. MI is the original and at times it can be sluggy due to being in flash. It's kind of like a mashup between double dragon but mostly with guns. you can hit people with fists swing a nightstick around. grab knives and stab them by whipping your mouse (the velocity of your swing matters in this game) or click to release and throw. This gives the game a kind of almost Elastomania kind of loose control that makes things interesting. The game also came with a fun sandbox mode where you can spawn enemies and weapons to practice, or just mess around. There was also a survival/challenge mode where zombie jesus raises an endless army of smith agents.

In any case. I really look forward to Project Nexus 2. it really looks good. a 2.5D beat em up shooter. Project Nexus was pretty impressive and I was amazed that the original game had developed so much since the time i played it.

Another thing that is interesting (or notable perhaps) about the Madness series is that it's based on the flash videos made by the same person/people (not sure which) that makes it a series based on flash videos/machnima (the videos themselves look like machinima essentially) that became turned into games roughly simultaneously.. by same creators. This simulatenous video/game development by same creator seems to be unique. It would be like Valve releasing a Garry's mod inspired Machinima series and creating a franchise alongisde it.

There is also 'lore' in this universe, if you watch the videos. my favorite one is this one: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/172771