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So, Mad Max is a game that feels like it was made by committee to me. The combat feels quite a bit like Batman's free-flowing combat system. Open world and traveling feels like it's based on GTA to some degree. Environment is much like many post-apocalyptic games. It even has elements of base-building that's becoming prevalent in a lot of games as of late. Trouble is, it doesn't really do anything that well.
The combat system feels like a major step down from Batman. One of the major problems I have with the combat system is that you can easily be blindsided by enemies. There've been many times where I'm beating down an enemy, and I don't see an enemy about to attack me just besides the camera view. When you go into Rage mode, it's possible to be hit without being able to block too. More than one combo was broken due to not seeing an enemy about to attacking me when Max goes into some sort of sidewalk slam animation.
The trouble is that there isn't a ton of content beyond the battle system, in my opinion. Driving around the world is fine. I'd even say it's quite fun with the vehicle combat. But beyond a number of convoys that you have to deal with, there's not a ton of battles to do in the Magnum Opus. You can tear down snipers and towers. But they generally just involve using the harpoon to pull them down, or slamming into them and make them collapse. The multitude of camps you come across are basically either 'fight through camp to blow stuff up' or 'fight through camp to kill big boss.' Sometimes you just fight through the camp to fight through the camp.
There is one other thing to do to clear out a region. Minefields. I hate minefields. They're barely worth anything in terms of liberating a region. You're forced to take an entirely different vehicle to drive to them. Then, you have to follow vague directions to find the hidden mines. And when you do find them? All you do is get out of the car, hold A, get back in the car, and continue. These are required to unlock a non-insignificant number of upgrades too. It honestly just felt like a waste of time.
Death Races are a thing, and range from fun to frustrating. One of my main issues is that one of the two big modes does not allow you to use your customized vehicle. You're forced to use the normal cars enemies use. And, to be honest, they just aren't as fun to drive most of the time. The only way to drive the Magnum Opus is by driving an 'Archangel.' Pre-determined versions of the archangel that you can build if you have access to the specific parts required. Which, to me, takes away from the fun of customizing your vehicle at all.
So what about the world itself? It's... fine. There's not a ton to see or do beyond just driving around. You can have some nice little encounters. But, overall, it's just getting from point A to B. They try to expand on it a bit with some mementos from the old world. But the trouble is that the mementos don't tell you a ton. A lot of them don't really say anything, really. Basically 'people got sick. Shit got fucked.' The normal kind of thing for the this setting.
What about the base building? It's... eh. There are four bases. They all have the same upgrades. They more or less all improve as you get the upgrades. It all feels very basic to me. There's no real building and more just upgrading. It's honestly fine if it wasn't such a pain in the dick to get all of the pieces to upgrade. But overall the mechanic is fine.
One thing that really bothered me is the number of pointless stuff that just fills the world. A lot of scavenging locations that give you about 10 scrap, generally. A lot of, again not very interesting to me, artifacts of the old world. And some have pieces of projects. When you're going through camps, you can destroy the utterly pointless Scrotus symbols that I've seen literally no reason to exist other than to be a collectable. There's also a bunch of scrap to find. Though again, there generally isn't much in any given place. As a completionist, they drive me mad. Sometimes this stuff is hidden in tiny cracks that you just have to luck into seeing. I've searched camps for about 20 minutes, looking for the last collectable, just to fulfill my need to finish everything. All for absolutely no gain.
As for the story... there's not much to say. It's not really that interesting, in my opinion. Max isn't a great character. The zealous ally character isn't interesting to me. It's just... eh. This isn't a Fury Road type of tale. There are bits of interesting things to find. The beliefs of some groups, the needs of some characters, their desires. But they all just feel very insignificant to the main story.
The biggest issue with everything is that the game feels like it's just more and more of the same. Hour 2 felt a lot like hour 20 in terms of gameplay. Just more and more of the same. All things are destroyed in basically the same ways with slight variation (sometimes you shoot a rocket at them!). But generally, you just pull them with your line or shoot them with your gun.
The combat system feels like a major step down from Batman. One of the major problems I have with the combat system is that you can easily be blindsided by enemies. There've been many times where I'm beating down an enemy, and I don't see an enemy about to attack me just besides the camera view. When you go into Rage mode, it's possible to be hit without being able to block too. More than one combo was broken due to not seeing an enemy about to attacking me when Max goes into some sort of sidewalk slam animation.
The trouble is that there isn't a ton of content beyond the battle system, in my opinion. Driving around the world is fine. I'd even say it's quite fun with the vehicle combat. But beyond a number of convoys that you have to deal with, there's not a ton of battles to do in the Magnum Opus. You can tear down snipers and towers. But they generally just involve using the harpoon to pull them down, or slamming into them and make them collapse. The multitude of camps you come across are basically either 'fight through camp to blow stuff up' or 'fight through camp to kill big boss.' Sometimes you just fight through the camp to fight through the camp.
There is one other thing to do to clear out a region. Minefields. I hate minefields. They're barely worth anything in terms of liberating a region. You're forced to take an entirely different vehicle to drive to them. Then, you have to follow vague directions to find the hidden mines. And when you do find them? All you do is get out of the car, hold A, get back in the car, and continue. These are required to unlock a non-insignificant number of upgrades too. It honestly just felt like a waste of time.
Death Races are a thing, and range from fun to frustrating. One of my main issues is that one of the two big modes does not allow you to use your customized vehicle. You're forced to use the normal cars enemies use. And, to be honest, they just aren't as fun to drive most of the time. The only way to drive the Magnum Opus is by driving an 'Archangel.' Pre-determined versions of the archangel that you can build if you have access to the specific parts required. Which, to me, takes away from the fun of customizing your vehicle at all.
So what about the world itself? It's... fine. There's not a ton to see or do beyond just driving around. You can have some nice little encounters. But, overall, it's just getting from point A to B. They try to expand on it a bit with some mementos from the old world. But the trouble is that the mementos don't tell you a ton. A lot of them don't really say anything, really. Basically 'people got sick. Shit got fucked.' The normal kind of thing for the this setting.
What about the base building? It's... eh. There are four bases. They all have the same upgrades. They more or less all improve as you get the upgrades. It all feels very basic to me. There's no real building and more just upgrading. It's honestly fine if it wasn't such a pain in the dick to get all of the pieces to upgrade. But overall the mechanic is fine.
One thing that really bothered me is the number of pointless stuff that just fills the world. A lot of scavenging locations that give you about 10 scrap, generally. A lot of, again not very interesting to me, artifacts of the old world. And some have pieces of projects. When you're going through camps, you can destroy the utterly pointless Scrotus symbols that I've seen literally no reason to exist other than to be a collectable. There's also a bunch of scrap to find. Though again, there generally isn't much in any given place. As a completionist, they drive me mad. Sometimes this stuff is hidden in tiny cracks that you just have to luck into seeing. I've searched camps for about 20 minutes, looking for the last collectable, just to fulfill my need to finish everything. All for absolutely no gain.
As for the story... there's not much to say. It's not really that interesting, in my opinion. Max isn't a great character. The zealous ally character isn't interesting to me. It's just... eh. This isn't a Fury Road type of tale. There are bits of interesting things to find. The beliefs of some groups, the needs of some characters, their desires. But they all just feel very insignificant to the main story.
The biggest issue with everything is that the game feels like it's just more and more of the same. Hour 2 felt a lot like hour 20 in terms of gameplay. Just more and more of the same. All things are destroyed in basically the same ways with slight variation (sometimes you shoot a rocket at them!). But generally, you just pull them with your line or shoot them with your gun.
TL;DR: It's fine. But repetitive.
