Mad Max Review

The main way in which you will accumulate scrap is by taking over the larger camps that are scattered around the map. Each camp will have defenses, which you can usually eliminate by charging in and driving through them/dragging them down with your harpoon, or you can find a good vantage point at a safe distance and eliminate the threats with your harpoon. Eliminating perimeter defenses is good fun, however to take over the camp, you will need to go in on foot and fight a bunch of enemies and blow some stuff up. These camps vary in quality from interesting and atmospheric to tedious and frustrating. Some take place in neat locations like re-purposed grain silos or abandoned ship hulls, while others are just a hodge-podge of metal pieces thrown together.

The objectives in the camps vary from having to blow up some stuff or kill all of the fighters; each territory has a ‘Top Dog’ camp where there is a sort of boss-fight at the end. These mini-boss fights are all identical and pathetically easy, feeling like a missed opportunity to add some variety into the mix. Once you clear out a camp, it will be populated by workers from the nearest stronghold, and will supply you with steady shipments of scrap. This is the best way to reliably get a lot of the stuff, as each camp you take over increases the amount you get with each delivery. You can also capture scrap-transport vehicles or venture out during the seemingly endless storm to try and catch scrap-crates that suddenly appear as means of obtaining some quick resources, but these are situational and not as reliable.

An Avalanche game without explosions wouldn't be a Avalanche game at all

The main story missions are actually spread quite thin. After the initial stretch where you learn the game’s basics, you will either have to drive to a more difficult area of the map to start the next plot-progressing event, all but forcing you to get upgrades, or the game will explicitly tell you that you need to go do some of the side content before you can progress. The story missions are rather underwhelming for the first while, but they do pick up later in the game, bringing you to some memorable locations and even managing to build some tension at times.

If you get tired of repeating the same side activities over and over but aren’t yet good enough to tackle the next story mission, there are lots of optional side-quests that are provided by stronghold leaders. These are often more interesting than the story missions, requiring you to explore some interesting places like an abandoned subway network or a church that has been totally buried by the sand.

One thing that helps elevate these missions and offsets the repetition is the fact that Mad Max is one of the most visually stunning games to release this year. Even though the map is a wasteland, there is a surprising amount of visual variety to be found. Early areas of the game take place in a dried-up sea bed with huge freighter wrecks partially buried in the sand. As you explore, you’ll go through abandoned industrial areas, a huge desert that is great fun to drive around in, and a sort of Hot-spring/sulphur area reminiscent of Yellowstone Park in the States. An abandoned airport you drive through during one story mission brings the weird imagery of Spec Ops: The Line to mind. Excellent lighting and huge draw distances combined with a surprising amount of fine detail make Mad Max one of the best looking open worlds around.

Deep Friah appears to have come by his name honestly

To improve matters even further, the game runs like an absolute dream. I didn’t experience a single noticeable frame rate drop, stutter or crash in the twenty odd hours I spent with Mad Max, which is impressive given the amount of explosions that occur on a regular basis. And the explosions aren’t just any explosions, they are Avalanche Studios explosions, with a magical blend of visual and auditory feedback that makes them incredibly satisfying. The sound is satisfying in general, with the Opus’ engine roaring mightily as you tear across the wasteland, Max’s fists crunching meatily as they impact on a scavenger’s face, and the occasional electrical sandstorms that blow in sounding every bit as fierce as they are. I did experience some minor audio bugs in one area of the map, but generally things worked brilliantly.

It would be easy to nit-pick Mad Max to death for its repetitive design, flimsy plot, sometimes painfully slow upgrade progress, and Max’s pathetic little jump. However, when the chips are down you have a game that is just a lot of fun to play, even when you are doing the fairly mundane side tasks. The game plays well, runs well, and doesn’t make you worry about whether you should really be spending thirty minutes chasing down a convoy in place of going off to do the next story mission. Instead, it actively encourages you do deviate from the main path, and you will probably find yourself gleefully doing so, constantly getting distracted by scrap-transports, camps, convoys and scavenging locations; even when you tell yourself its finally time to drive to the next story quest marker.