Mad Max

I’ve had Mad Max since release and although I’ve not fully immersed myself into it (I’m just not that type of gamer) I have played enough to give you my views so far.

First off it is incredibly pretty with the scoured desert wasteland and its outposts, fortresses, and instillations at times taking your breath away. In this age however I expect all games at minimum to be very pretty. I will say that I think this one is a notch above most though.

It is set in the world of the recent movie Fury Road although like almost all movie tie in games nowadays it doesn’t follow any of the movie story making no reference to it. So if you have seen the movie you will recognise the gangs and the like but it will have no bearing on the actual game. Like the movie the game does retain the over the top mentalness that served it well so the vehicles, costumes, language, buildings etc all have a large amount of weird wonder attached to them.

Although it is set in the movie world and you play Max you are not Tom Hardy Max. You’re more a generic Max with your beard and gruff (very good) voice acting. I guess Tom wanted lots and lots of dollars to lend his face and voice to the show. Again it doesn’t detract from the game unless you are a really really big Tom Hardy fan.

The main crux of the game is survival in this barren land which requires you to have a decent car in order to raid and protect yourself. You start off with a battered shell and as the game progresses you acquire the usual type of things like better shielding, weaponry, speed etc. This is done via scavenging and stealing. Not the most exciting part of the game play (in fact it quickly gets boring) but something the developers deemed necessary.

The combat is both firearm and hand to hand resembling something similar to that in Uncharted and Batman (the hand to hand part) but it doesn’t quite have the same flow of either making it feel like a watered down version. I suspect this was to make it easier as so far I haven’t really encountered any difficulties fighting.

There is also car to car combat which involves a lot of ramming (snigger) and some harpoon, sniper rifle, and / or cannon action.

As well as the car Max himself can be upgraded and as well as the usual combat / strength attributes there are others such as the ability to find water, scrap, and petrol. A mysterious desert nomad with what seems like a big cup of peyote is the key to increasing these.

There are a number of gangs that control the different parts of the wasteland, some good(ish), some bad and some very bad. This means you can make alliances giving you somewhere to repair your vehicle and also sell on the loot you have stolen and also give you back up in certain fights. As the game progresses you learn the trade routes meaning you can execute raids on convoys, one of the most exciting and satisfying parts of the game.

I was asked a while back if it was any good and I replied it is a lot of fun but it isn’t going to win any Game of the Year awards and I’ll stick by that. It does get repetitive (which the pro reviews mention a lot) but it is fun repetitive. Speaking of the pro reviews I have seen scored between 5 and 8.4 (although the 8.4 is from the very generous IGN). My preferred review site Gamespot gave it a 6 which I think is a little harsh. Personally I would give it a very solid 7 and if we are doing decimal places then a 7.5 is about right.

One final point is that I pre-ordered it and paid £42. On Amazon it is now £34 and with the Christmas game releases just starting to kick off I can see it dip even further before too long. So if you don’t mind waiting it out I wouldn’t be surprised to see it at £25 tops within a few weeks.