After yesterdays disappointment when trying out Surviving Mars I'm still looking for a game to play. I decided to start working on my huge backlog instead of trying to find games elsewhere. I probably won't have to look for new games in years if I would just start actually working on my backlog.
One of the games that has been on my backlog for a while is Mad Max. I remember buying this during a new years sale a while back so that i could play it "later". Little did I know that later would mean 3-4 years in the future. The full price of the game at $20 now is probably less than I spent on it during that sale. Quite ironic.
Mad Max is a franchise that I really like. I've watched all of the movies, and especially the last one Mad Max: Fury Road which I've watched several times since it was released. I just can't get enough of that guitar player. There's so much flavor and awesome details in that movie. I think I might have to watch it again just from writing this.
What is Mad Max?
Mad max is an open-world third person action game set in a post-apocalyptic world. When I say post-apocalyptic I mean a total wasteland. Everything is just sand, dust and destruction. This world is all about cars. If you don't have a car you're not surviving. The goal of the game is to build the perfect car; the Magnum Opus. With the help of the Magnum Opus Max is hoping to be able to leave the wasteland behind and find solace in the Plains of Silence.
The game was released in 2015, the same year as the aforementioned movie. It was developed by Avalanche Studios who are well known for the Just Cause series and the 2019 title Rage 2. The game is published by Warner Bros. Games who has released games like Hitman and several Lego games.
Entering the Wasteland
The game throws you right into a high octane car chase cut scene. The world is very recognizable from the latest movie. It's a dead and dusty wasteland with crazy over the top doomsday cars. It's awesome!
We're introduced to the BBEG (big bad evil guy) straight away through the same cut scene. Scrotus, as he's called, is actually the son of Immortan Joe from the movie. I had no idea that they were tying it that closely into the movie so that was a surprise. If you take a close look at his crotch area you might notice where his name comes from.
In the cut scene we end up losing our car which is basically the well known Interceptor from the movies. Without a car Max is reduced to nothing. Luckily we end up meeting Chumbucket which immediately recognized Max as a saint and savior and offers to build him a car. The Magnum Opus. The perfect wasteland car that can help us get to Gastown and take down Scrotus.
The mechanics
It's clear from the get go that the game isn't anything groundbreaking. Apart from being set in the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max it's not in any way unique. That's not a bad thing though. The open-world formula works. You're free to roam and explore as you wish or you can choose to just follow the pre-determined path to complete the main missions if that's what you want.
Combat is great fun but it's quite easy. At least early on. Ground combat as it's called, which is just melee combat, reminds me quite a bit of Arkham Asylum, just a wee bit less fluent. Mad Max doesn't have the wild reach of Batman but he can take on scores of enemies just the same. You can mash the melee button and changing targets with every hit. You can easily parry enemy attacks and this is part of what makes combat so easy. The window for timing a parry is so big that it almost can't be missed. If you please you can choose to blast enemies with your shotgun instead.
Then there's vehicular combat. This consists mostly of ramming and/or shooting weak spots on the enemy vehicle like gas tanks. Vehicular combat might even be easier than melee combat. If you aim with your gun the time slows down so much that it almost stops. This makes it incredibly easy to get a perfect shot on those gas tanks and see the enemy cars blow up instantly. This is all early game complaints though so the difficulty might still ramp up as I progress.
Upgrades galore
Upgrades are an awesome addition to any game. They give a sense of progression and make you feel like you become stronger as you progress. Mad Max has a ton of upgrades. Both for the car and for Max himself. These are unlocked as you progress the story, complete different kind of challenges and level up the so called "legend" levels of Max.
Max's upgrades give him stuff like increased health, more damage, makes him scavenge more scrap and so on. Pretty standard stuff that you would expect from an upgrade tree. The car can be upgraded with all the standard stuff to. Increased speed, increased armor, better acceleration and so on. Things that you would expect to see. It can also be outfitted with hood ornaments of which I've unlocked none yet. That's pretty cool.
Photo Mode!
Anyone who has read some of my earlier first impressions and review posts might know that I love a good photo mode. It's often one of the very first things I check for in a game these days and lo and behold, Mad Max has one! That means this playthrough is gonna last way longer than necessary just because I'm trying to photograph the scenery. I tend to get so lost in these and I just love it. Expect to see a lot of these as I come back at a later time for my full review of the game.
The Verdict
Contrary to Surviving Mars which I wrote about yesterday I'm actually gonna continue playing this. I had a great time for the first few hours of it and I'm far from finished. There's a huge map to discover and a lot of bad guys to be smashed. There's a lot of loot and collectibles to find as well which I tend to enjoy running around looking for. Mad Max seems like a solid title and I'm gonna continue on and hopefully finish it! Expect a follow up post to this one sometime in the future.
All images in this post are ingame screenshots taken by me unless sourced otherwise.