Mad Max Review

 Black-on-Black.

There's something to be said about the science of release dates. The time of year and week can all greatly influence those ever important day one sales, and so can making sure not to release the game in the same few days as the next big Metal Gear. Yeah, trying to go toe-to-toe with Hideo Kojima tends to be a recipe for disaster. Such was the case for the long-doomed Mad Max game which collapsed spectacularly in the face of staunch competition that absolutely buried this little game and relegated it to the realms of 'lost gem' forever more. I'd put off finally getting around to the game, which actually showed considerable promise during it's marketing stages with impressive set-piece vehicular combat and eye-popping ravenous storms, until finishing Days Gone. Now with that out the way I seem to have smoothly transitioned over to another post-apocalyptic anti-hero led open world game prominently revolving around a central vehicle and fuel management, who'd have thought?

Mad Max marks the debut of one of the most influential post-apocalyptic franchises of all time to the video game space, not counting some Atari mess-of-a-game I'm sure exists out there. (Yep, 1990 release on the 2600.) The visual of desert strewn Australia has become the goto marquee for practically every franchise of this genre, and Fallout still retained it's 'Leather armour' as a nod to the Road Warrior Max all the way up until Fallout 4 which ruined that tradition along with all the others it squandered. (Still bitter I see.) Following the resurgence of interest in the franchise with the release of Fury Road (2015)- this game was conjured up as something of a sequel leveraging the newly realised myth-like take on the story of Max in an open world action adventure game.

Max is thrust into the dunes of a long-dried ocean, deprived of all of his iconic tools from his armour to his shotgun to his car, the legendary black-on-black; as he is left for dead following a brutal battle with the son of Immortan Joe (From Fury Road). Mad Max achieves what very few RPGs can by marrying together the progression of the narrative to the RPG progression of the character, as the game presents the slow building of a replacement car, alongside cobbling together new armour and a makeshift gun- as necessary steps on Max's journey to travel into the 'Plains of Silence' where Max hopes to finally escape the guilt of letting his family die all the way back in the first Mad Max movie that hardly anyone actually remembers.

This means that the core of the gameplay loop, even as it is expressed through the story missions, is based around scavenging either specific new parts or miscellaneous scrap that can be turned into upgrades- and it is the freedom through which the player finds these items that Mad Max settles on it's greatest structural strengths. Pretty much everything you engage with in the open world, from picking through small camps to fighting through enemy strongholds, to taking out convoys, to braving insane dust storms- rewards the player with the universal currency of 'scrap'- meaning you're never really pigeon-holed into a certain type of open world activity in order to advance- with the exception of the rare specific part that needs to be grabbed from one particular part of the map.

The Magnum Opus, Max's replacement car, is constructed from a literal frame on wheels into a powerhouse with an impressive level of internal and external customisation to make this vehicle really feel like the player's own. Whilst at the beginning of the game you're simply happy to have a car that moves faster than walking- with time you'll be able to settle in certain builds that prioritise speed or basing power, and invest in really fantastic upgrades that make the game's genuinely impressive car combat stand out. All whilst not worrying too much about fuel because, thank god, the rate of fuel leakage is sensible. (Take note, Days Gone!)

Given the legacy of the franchise in question: the car really was what Mad Max needed to get right most of all, and with a weighty-powerful handling, wide open spaces to let rip and an impressively cinematic flair to car crashes- Avalanche certainly delivered! Bashing into raider's death karts is satisfying enough, but shooting a hook onto specific parts and then ripping them off with a working physics-enabled cable? That's sick. Ripping a driver out their windscreen or tearing a wheel off it's hinges and watching the car barrel out of control never gets old. But that's just the base gear. By the end of the game you'll be hurling exploding 'lightning rods' and shooting flamethrowers out of your side exhausts- this is the kind of car-combat a Mad Max game demanded to have.

And when you're out of the car? What then? Well, then you actually get to enjoy a decently built Arkham clone fit with a basic move-set and counters. There's nowhere near the level of complexity and flow of a Rocksteady Arkham game; but there's enough to scratch that free-flow itch with genuinely crunchy strikes and satisfyingly painful finisher animations brought to life with some great sound design work. There's even some parrying timed button prompts at later levels, nudging the player's skill-bone; and once you start getting a reliable source of ammo the makeshift sawn-off is a great combo diversifier of it's own. Altogether Max's combat suite is a damn-sight more meaty and put-together than one would expect from a game like this, and I don't hate it one bit at all.

Enemy variety is a bit lacking on the actual 'challenge' level; although visually the team put together an absolutely wacky cast of post-world psychos. Colourful and lanky, crazed and unpredictable- it's a bit of shame that pretty much everyone goes down to the same basic combos because these guys look positively freaky. I think it really does speak to the strength of the combat development team, in style and content, that I still find something satisfying about crushing these guys- even if there are only two or three archetypes that really make me change up my game. If there were literally two more tactically-challenging enemies, I'd consider this suite entirely serviceable for the game as it is. They're that close to satisfying! As it is, outposts can start to feel repetitive after a while once you've started to figure out how combat works and there's far too many of them to clear throughout the whole game- as there is going to always be when we're talking about an open world.

Of course as this is an open world game, it is in the story that Mad Max falters a little, not because the narrative is bad but simply because it's largely static- as is the nature of the character himself. An Iconic character like Max can't really embark on a proper arc, and that is a bit of the charm of him. Always knowing that Max is out for himself, and never quite knowing who he can open up to, is satisfying in it's own way- but it can be frustrating to have the promise of an arc dangled in front of the player before being regressed before our eyes. I accept that as a totally legitimate narrative tool to keep an Iconic character where they are, mind you- but that doesn't mean I don't find it annoying. Max leaves this narrative exactly the same as how he came into it, and it's not through lack of trying to change.

The larger world around Max is memorable in it's own way, crazed and larger than life and populated with more Australian accents than you can shake a didgeridoo at- but there is a ethereal impermanence to it. Perhaps Days Gone has just left a mark on how I see these sorts of 'barren worlds' but I never found myself caring about any of the settlements I worked alongside or the people I met therein, because I never really see the reality in them- although that in itself is part of the style of Mad Max. It's almost supposed to feel like aspects of a fairy tale. Which makes me at odds with my own feelings on the overall characterisation of the world. There's a cartoon-edge which both undercuts and outlines the tragedy around the character of Max making moments when he is clearly confronted- which are pretty much exclusively during the optional conversations with the Level-up merchant- feel both out-of-place and strangely apropos.  

Visually, at least, I really loved the world. The wide open wastes of the drained sea bed littered with the hulks of old ships and towering lighthouses- there's a solid personality dotted about the place which makes the world more than just another 'barren post-apocalyptic desert' setting. Of course, the world is at it's most stark when wrecked by the breathtaking storm walls that swallow up the world, turning the whole world in a whirlwind of chaos. Battling a convoy that gets drowned in a sea of storms is a dynamic shift worth living through for the experience of it all alone, and Avalanche brought that moment to the forefront of it's liveliness. There is certainly a case to be made for 'brown world is brown', but the colour of the various paint-strewn bandits, and the brilliant glare of the sun, offset by the deep blue of night- on a primary spectrum this game can be a stark work of empty art. Then again, I'm a sucker for empty worlds that fill space with their enormous magnificence, aren't I?

Conclusion

Mad Max is a game borne from a dozen influences manned and cared for by a team that really knew how and why those influences worked. When I see all that Mad Max achieved, I can't see a single fault in direction but simply in the resources the team had available to them. Individually I don't think there is a single element that Mad Max pulls off to a fantastic degree beyond the car combat, which I genuinely think should be an example to others, but the bringing together of these elements in a cohesive manner is in itself an above average feat. I have to recommend this game, and probably even go a bit further to knock its score perhaps a grade or so higher than it deserves. In that light, given the entire game on offer, Mad Max probably rightly earns it's spot to a solid B grade on the arbitrary scaling just by being solidly better than average titles; sliding out of the C's for those great vehicular battle moments. I won't call this a must buy, but if you're looking for a little something between your Far Cry's and your Day's Gones- both in length and style- you can't go wrong with Avalanche's Mad Max.