You probably saw that, there are reviews on opposing ends but on the *same* curve: it's either bad or good, but somehow enjoyable. I myself cannot point out exactly the reason I enjoy the game, but I can enumerate some of them, as follows: - it expands on its predecessor's map, both aesthetically and size, and, at the same time, keeping it familiar, so, if you've played the first one, you will feel right at home; - there's always something to do and there's time limit for it, so, if you feel the need of urgency to do something, not a dull moment; - cleverly written dialogue that encompasses a variety range of emotions that fit the situation, including jokes that are really funny and don't feel out of place; - in the vast emptiness of the zone, there is value, meaning that the atmosphere is well built, albeit empty, in the sense of "life" (literally), but there's always a feeling of a dread intrusion that something bad happened there, and something is going to happen, I quite like it, it has that New Vegas vibe of the desert; - do you like cross over of important characters of another story? Well, this one has it. This no spoiler, you know it right at the start that you are after (in)famous Strelok. The best part is, is that, you backtrack his steps and his crew's, and you know that you are dealing with veterans; - although mostly broken, when not patched with third party mods, the faction system is very interesting, and it pulls me in, making me choose one every play-through; Some problems: - BUGS: yep, can't live without them, and make no mistake, there ARE many game breaking bugs in this one, so be forewarned, and remedy this by installing mods that address these issues, but don't change the core of the game (looking at you Complete mod, no offence); - weapon upgrade system: good but, not good enough, sometimes you have to choose between your bad ass gun, upgraded to its fullest, and a new better gun, that you have to upgrade once again, leaving you rubleless.
The game is quite good, but it still suffers from some problem's of this predecessors, for instance: - overly long battles: fighting the goons makes you feel wary, and doesn't make too much sense to have one small character (Nadine) to have an entire army behind her, I just don't buy it; - not enough enemy variance: foes variation is lacking, and they get repetitive quickly; - sometimes, it feels unfair/unbalanced: foes have an incredible aim, and even after staggering, they still shoot up with precision, it's frustrating, even worse in the hardest mode, you are showered with grenades and you're to adapt to the environment (I feel like); - clunky climbing mechanics: not much to say about it, the control feels stiff and hard to manage some times; For the port aspect of it, it runs fine, it's well optimized, which is uncommon for a PS game port, but I have to point out that I found a funny visual bug with the water: it became yellow and pink, but it was in a small scale and didn't break the game, fortunately. And finally, the good parts: - good story: in *my opinion*, not as good as the first ones, but it keeps you entertained enough to continue; - superb graphics: as I've said, it runs well enough, and enabling F-Sync to quality boosted the experience; - great voice acting; And one that I don't know where to put it: the linearity of it. I like games that are linear better, I don't feel overwhelmed with things to do, and Uncharted (the series, in general) hit a sweet spot; although, they tried to go a bit "Tomb Raid-ey" with this one, specially with the climbing tool.
Good tactical game, the A. I. is polished and feels authentic, there are some issues here and there with it, it's not perfect. I used Heroic Games Launcher to play on Linux. Although it's a good mod, there's no need to install Last Resort, nor its fixes; just follow this: Wine configuration set to Windows XP. Winetricks was used to add in: icodecs, directplay, directshow [amstream, qasf, qcap, qdvd, qedit, quartz automatically selected after install]. These additions fix the reported problem where the avi's cause the game to crash, including during the intro. - extracted from "SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle - Wine Application Database"
It is not a game for some, for instance: - you have to take your time to get to places; - AI is not amazing, some times it is frustating, because of the clear advantage they have when driving; - repetitive missions, although finite; - absolute frustating camera in close quaters; - immersion breaking habilities; - frustating drive handling with some vehicles, it becomes both a challenge and hassle to drive, if you lose control it gets to you; - the story is superficial, it is... just there. I have encountered some minor game breaking bugs. I say minor, because all the missions in general have a failsafe quicksave that is out of your controll, and when/if you encounter one of theses bugs, again few and minor, you can easily repeat your task/mission. Now, for its highlights: - amazing landscape, gorgeous art design; - the driving fights/battles FEEL GOOD, that is what Mad Max is about, basically; - the hand-to-hand fights are very well done, it would be perfect if it wasn't for the aforementioned camera's pitfall, Batman Arkham-style; - although the story is superficial, they do not force some mindless story with epic proportions, and they threw a few interesting dialogues here and there to fill some gaps; - Max is not a talker and his character has justice in this game, very well interpreted, but nothing amazing; - Max's actions are appreciated and you can see and hear in-world game progress of his legend; - soundtrack is good! What hooked me in this game was the combination of landscape roam and gameplay loop, specially the convoys. Overall, a good game.
