Mad Max (PS4) review

A still from the game

From the developers of a brilliant third person action game “Just Cause” comes a post-apocalyptic movie based third person survival cum action game filled with annoying (and downright time-consuming) QTE’s, collectables and side missions with a pinch of story here and there. Mad Max is a game which seems confused in itself. It lacks focus and because of that it ends up doing all the things the “wrong way” (most of the time anyways).

It’s not a bad game overall, but it’s just one of those game that tend to define the word “mediocre”.

The story of Mad Max revolves around Max (duh), a man who has lost everything in the apocalypse. To find peace from all the bad dreams that torment him, He sets off for a journey to the plains of silence. Things don’t really work out his way and he quickly finds himself stranded in the wasteland with no clothes, supplies, weapons or even his car. He quickly finds a mechanic called “chum bucket” who helps him in building the perfect car for his purpose called the “Magnum Opus”.

The prologue of the game is brutally amazing. My major disappointment with the story is that the rest of the story fails to live up to the game’s amazing prologue. Most of the characters lack personality as well as purpose, the plot remains flat and the story only gets interesting towards the end section of the game. For a game that depends too much on the universe it tries to create, it’s a bit disappointing to see such uninteresting cast of character.

Even though the rest of the characters fall short, the main lead Max and his companion Chum bucket shine throughout the game. The relationship between Max & Chum bucket, Max & Magnum Opus, Chum bucket & Magnum Opus are very interesting as well as thought provoking. All of these lead to a satisfying conclusion to Max’s journey (even though it sort of kills the main motive).

Gameplay wise, mad max is what you would expect from WB games these days. Just like Shadow of Mordor, The game borrows its combat mechanics from the Batman games. You punch with one button and counter with another. Though the universe of mad max does not have any “no killing rule” (EVIL LAUGH). It’s violent, gory, bloody and immensely satisfying. The finishing moves are a treat to watch and the feeling of overcoming dozens of enemies with just your fist never gets old. The hit detection is not always accurate and the controls are not as responsive as they should be, it’s annoying to say the leastbut that’s not the main problem with the combat. The main problem is the lack of options the game offers to approach a fight. You can either use an overpowered shotgun to kill almost half the guys, or you can throw random punches till you get your “fury” mode. This is really disappointing considering how engaging the combat could have been if they managed to add a bit more variety in it.

The game’s integral feature is its focus on vehicles. Just like in the movies, the game focuses heavily on vehicular combat. The game features some deep customization for your ride as well as your main character. The customization options are the best part of this game. Some of the upgrade options for your car are downright awesome. You can add flames to your car to make sure no one damages your beautiful side skirts. I won’t spoil the rest of the upgrades but know this, the game features heavy customization.

The customization also plays a major role in giving the players a purpose to do all the uninteresting, repetitive side missions/activities in the game. After I opened the customization column in the game, I no longer cared about the story. I quickly jumped in my magnum opus and went on to do all the side missions present in that area just to get the bloody v8 engine for my ride, but the game manages to disappoint me here as well. The game is super easy to beat, like really easy. The game never challenges you at any level and because of that all the upgrades feel like a waste. Towards the latter half of the game, I realized that all my efforts to upgrade my magnum opus were meaningless.

For a game that relies so heavily on upgrades, it’s disappointing to see how useless they actually are.

The game also features some survival elements such as a scarcity of water, food, fuel. I really liked these elements and they gave me a purpose in exploring and mak sure my canteen is filled or my ride is packing enough juice. But the game manages to screw this up as well. After 3 or 4 hours into the game, I no longer cared about my canteen or my fuel tank as they get refilled every time I fast travelled to stronghold (provided you complete the assignments of course). This is where I felt that the developers were confused on how to proceed with this game.

Apart from the 15 story missions, the game boasts tons of activities for you to do. Activities such as raiding camps, beating top dogs, death races are all fun to do, but they quickly become quite repetitive. All of these require you to do the same thing over and over, and since the locations are identical most of the times, one can’t help but realize how empty this game really is. My biggest complaint with the game is the fact that the game poses no challenge and when it does try to ramp up the difficulty, the game quickly pops out a hint or two to help you out of it.

This spoon-feeding nature of Mad Max is extremely annoying. On one hand, the game tries to be a survival post-apocalyptic action game and on the other hand, it constantly reminds you drink the freaking water from your canteen.

But hey! Not everything is bad in the game. The graphics of the game are a treat to watch. The wasteland is gorgeous which encourages you to just hope into your vehicle and admire the beauty. The characters, locations, environments, as well as the weather effects, are all neat as well as pretty. The sound design is amazing as well. The voice acting injects a little personality into the otherwise dead characters, and the sound of vehicles never gets old.

CONCLUSION

Mad Max is a game which doesn’t really know what it wants to be, and this affects the game big time. Some stupid survival elements which disappear after 3 or 4 hours of gameplay along with the game’s super easy difficulty making the customization nothing but useless makes this game mediocre to say the least. It could have been an epic game, but it’s a shame that developers failed to take right decisions for it.

+Graphics+Customization+Combat

-Too Easy-Repetitive-Flat Story

Overall Rating 6/10