Mad Max manages to present itself as a fun, well-made game despite its ties to its film counterpart. Usually games which are based on film franchises tend to be boring, badly-made clones of the film’s plot coupled with subpar gameplay and are seen as a way to generate extra revenue from the hype surrounding the film. Thankfully, Mad Max does not fall into that category and performs well enough to sell on its own merit.
Mad Max involves a quest for revenge upon the raiders who destroyed Max’s car. Soon after its destruction, he meets Chumbucket, the fun hunchback who provides a new vehicle for Max to drive, the Magnum Opus. Chumbucket ends up becoming Max’s sidekick for the remainder of the game and is part of the joint effort to upgrade and improve the Magnum Opus. The advancement of this vehicle hence becomes a key element of the game.
This, in turn, becomes very useful as the Magnum Opus is extremely useful for traversing the huge open-world of Mad Max. The game takes its time to present you with fast-travel points, so, you will spend quite a lot of time simply exploring the landscape of Mad Max and destroying enemies with your vehicle along the way. You will also encounter many enemies with vehicles in the world of Mad Max and so you will need to employ your sharpshooting and vehicle-driving skills to dispatch them. The game helpfully goes into slow motion while simultaneously shooting and driving, so, it is possible to execute your foes without leaving the car! Eventually you will unlock weapons for the Magnum Opus, such as the hook launcher which pulls enemies from their car, introducing many ways of approaching vehicle-based combat in Mad Max.
Mad Max delivers a large number of side missions alongside the main campaign. In a similar style to Far Cry 4, many of the side missions involve capturing bases, clearing sniper lookouts and destroying enemy vehicles to gain control over portions of the map. However, in Mad Max, each base has its own difficulty level (as the game doesn’t have any of its own) and this will affect the number of enemies present in the base and the possible presence of a boss enemy. Unfortunately, most of the bases are quite similar and can be dealt with in the same way, so, this aspect of the game can become tiring quickly. After completing the main campaign, you will quickly become tired of the similar looking bases across the boring, barren landscape, however, you still get quite a bit of value out of Mad Max before this happens.
Of course, physical combat also plays a large role in Mad Max. The combat system is implemented in a manner which is extremely similar to that of the Batman Arkham series in that it is based on rapidly pressing button combos and countering enemy attacks. Additionally, Max can use a range of melee weaponry or his shotgun during the game, however, you will find that these weapons degrade quickly and ammo for the shotgun is often very limited, so, fist-based attacking is the go-to combat option in Mad Max.
The upgrade and customisation options in Mad Max are diverse and plentiful; you could easily spend a vast number of hours trying to find customisation items and collecting scraps to upgrade the car, gear and Max’s skills. Apart from this, the game doesn’t offer much else in the way of replay value. As you go forward, the enemies become tougher however the scenery and quests remain the same and you will quickly become tired of the repetitive, tedious missions. Thankfully, Mad Max has a huge amount of content so you will likely get your money’s worth from the game before it becomes too repetitive.
Overall, Mad Max is an fun, enjoyable game which offers several hours of entertainment before becoming tiring. If you like action games based around vehicle and melee combat in open-world settings, then I would certainly recommend picking up Mad Max.