If you’re the type who is turned off by the Wii’s extremely casual-friendly attitude then you’ll likely be interested in MadWorld. The title, an action game presented in black-and-white in the style of a graphic novel, is exceptionally violent, and is meant to appeal to a hardcore fanbase only. The game is actually so violent that Sega is considering not even releasing it in censorship heavy countries like Germany and Australia, and perhaps not even in the company’s home country of Japan.

Currently, Sega is putting all their resources towards ensuring that the game receives an M rating in the US, and have stated that they are not even concerned with getting the game released in any other region until it makes its debut in America in March. The company would then "evaluate" the possibility of releasing the game in other regions, but it likely wouldn’t come out for months after its US counterpart, if at all.

Sega’s decision is interesting for a couple reasons, firstly because it signals at least one publisher saying that they are fed up with the varying standards of decency across regions, and would rather just make the game they want and then release it wherever they can get approval. The second issue is a more social one, and speaks towards America’s acceptance of violence. MadWorld is admittedly over-the-top, with violence for the sake of violence and blood by the truckload. Yet most Americans likely won’t even blink when they see this game, and any "moral outrage" will be relegated to a few extreme groups no one listens to anyway. So we really need to ask are other countries backward when it comes to this sort of thing, or are Americans so accustomed to blood and gore that things most humans would find extreme just don’t effect us anymore? There’s a deep social commentary issue to examine there, but I’m not going to do it, I just write about video games.