Mad Max Review (XB1)

  Mad Max is a Max Rockastansky simulator. The game expects you to enjoy having to eat cans of dog food, search for precious water to fill your canteen, keep you car gassed up, and comb every inch of a gigantic wasteland looking for bits of scrap to trade. The world is violent, exceptionally hostile, and just looking at the sharp, rusty edges will make you want to get a tetanus shot. Your world is fire and blood, and Mad Max is indeed the Mad Max game I've wanted for the past twenty years.

  Your world is also massive. Make no pretensions; this is not a two hour, slam-bam retelling of Fury Road. It took me well over sixty hours to complete this game, clearing out the map entirely and doing all available side missions. It should be noted that I did not use any fast travel, and neither should anyone else because it would do a disservice to the pace and atmosphere this masterfully crafted environment presents. There are rolling sand dunes concealing a buried airport, the skeletons of city ruins, repurposed businesses, a trash dump hellscape that's reminiscent of Mordor, a dried ocean bed littered with dead coral... it's all fittingly depressing/beautiful, and it's some of the best environmental storytelling I've ever witnessed. It all blends together so naturally and convincingly that it's undeniably breathtaking as well. That's not even taking into consideration the gorgeous skyboxes and day/night cycle or the stress inducing storm effects, either...

  This is a damn good looking game. I was placated if not a bit underwhelmed at first (aside from the fire and smoke effects which are top notch), but once the scale of the game begins to hit you it's hard not to thank the Silicon Gods for finally delivering on current gen visuals and scope. Lighting, particle effects, the black smoke and liquid flame that shoots out of your roaring exhaust pipes all blend together to suck you into the game world and make it hard to come out until the credits roll.

  Everything about this game seems to be in service of the Mad Max mythos. Gameplay can best be described as as a jack-of-all-trades hodgepodge, much like the character himself. You may spend the majority of your time exploring the wasteland in your highly customizable Magnum Opus, but you'll also be cracking many, many skulls and solving workmanlike puzzles such as blowing up oil refineries or opening shortcuts to make life easier for other denizens of the world (and yourself... because you're Max). Melee combat is mechanically very close to the recent Batman games or Shadow of Mordor, but I found it more technically demanding than those offerings. You won't get very far just spamming attacks and jamming the counter button with abandon. All of Max's attacks carry weight, and once you've committed to an action you better hope it connects. Otherwise you're taking wrench to the back of the skull.

  Since Max is a wandering scavenger you'll spend a lot of time and effort doing just that. Unlike most games this never becomes inconsequential. Scrap is at a premium, and you basically need every upgrade you can acquire. And there are many of them. Mad Max is deep with upgrades and customization options; deeper than most modern RPGs, even. Remember how I warned about not expecting a short, mindless action game? Yep. Not to get confused, your basic action verbs don't change dramatically throughout the game, but getting stronger, faster, and more armored is a must. Again, your ability to role play as Max and get sucked into his world is going to correlate with how much enjoyment you will get out of the game.

  Bombing through the open wasteland is a joy, but when tasked with more precise control the driving mechanics can break down under scrutiny. Spinning out in the open desert usually isn't a big deal; it just makes a scrappy, impromptu car battle devolve into a demolition derby and it's still fun. When you transplant those same intentionally (?) sloppy, cinematic controls onto a race track or an enclosed environment is can be obnoxious. There a half dozen or so hubs around the world that allow you to participate in time trial races, unlocking a place to refuel and fast travel (but don't fast travel). These can be insanely frustrating, as you're usually asked to follow a set path while enemy vehicles slam you around allowing their AI buddies to take insurmountable leads. You can destroy these cars and kind of need to, but this may or may not help as the time taken to disable them can still slow you down enough to fuck you over. And fuck you if you so much as slightly rub a wall, hit a rock, or connect with a small incline at the wrong angle. The slightest mistake can easily spin you around and ruin your day, and these “mistakes” often seem like random acts of God thanks to a camera with a mind of it's own and unpredictable AI. Thankfully these are optional, with only one instance (though it's a ball buster) required for the main story. This is GTA-style nonsense. It may seem like a huge negative to concede to a Mad Max game having iffy driving controls, but I'll reiterate that it looks and feels great for the vast majority of the game.

  The story is half a step removed from being a full blown Fury Road prequel. The entire play area is what amounts to the suburbs of Gas Town, the main antagonist is one of Immortan Joe's sons, and Max visits a mystic Voodoo man for his upgrades as well as almost starts a new family, which goes a long way to explain some of the discrepancies Fury Road has with the established Mad Max lore. Of course the “Mad Max lore” is based on legends and each movie is only loosely tied to each other, so take from the game what you will. If you're a fan, however, searching for every historic relic and reading every bio entry will pay off in spades. And, yes, you can unlock “classic Max” after you finish the main game, including his iconic leather jacket (and leg brace), double barrel shotgun, and Interceptor. This is fan service at it's finest.

  Mad Max is fucking awesome. I fought a dude who wore dried, stitched together human flesh as a mask like Leatherface. I ate the maggots off of a corpse to stay alive. I collected relics of a long dead civilization and learned about the downfall of man. This is an interactive Mad Max museum that any fan of the film series absolutely needs to play. It's also a badass game where you murder a bunch of dudes and blow shit up. This is the Mad Max game I've always wanted.