Mad Max

Last year I watched the Mad Max franchise revival in the theaters. And loved it. And it seems that world loved it too. The game was launched later, so it was surrounded by expectations. But the developers promptly affirmed that the game is not based on the movie, but in the universe in a broad sense. The protagonist is also Max, but like in the movies, it is a bit different Max from the original movies.

First, the visuals. The movie got a lot of notoriety mostly because its breathtaking visuals. The game… well, I will praise its graphics, however, they are not as impacting as, just as a disclaimer. The game uses a lot of post-processing effects to give a perfect look of a post apocalyptic world. The high speed camera and distortions are also very well employed. In general, the game have a good aesthetic.

It makes a reasonable good use of the franchise. The game have the same desolated atmosphere where the automobiles are essential part of living. However, it also brings a sense that that whole world is, in fact, empty. It’s good to traverse the map in a turbo’ed engine, but doing it often becomes repetitive and boring. It seems that they created the map but did not have enough ideas to fill it with.

The main plot, like most recent open-world games, are paper thin. Max is famous for being quite a guy, the same for most of the people that lives there. The ones that talk are, in fact, annoyingly talkative, like your sidekick master of the technicians. Nothing against him being playing ugly, but he is annoying and pretensions. He says all the time how good he is. He says all the time a lot of things.

In contrast, what could potentially be the major companion disappears after minutes of the gameplay. I’m talking about the dog. Just like the thematic cousin Fallout, there is a dog that we presume that will follow the protagonist all along. But it is not true here. He is put away and rarely shows up. Sad.

If the main story is ok, the same cannot be said about the side missions. The mission givers are super shallow and their tasks are generally repetitive. Not much fun. The collectible items and objectives are divided between the fun and achievable and the boring that you should let it go.

Reducing the threat level is really a nice concept. It reminds me of Shadow of Mordor. Not the same, but similar.

Overall, I had a good time playing it. It was a bit unremarkable, but fun.