The quintissential LA simulator, and also a great vampire game. Throws you back to the days of 2004 and the classic World of Darkness. Delightfully janky models and animations, subopar gunplay, but an absolute masterclass in roleplaying.
When this came out it was most comparable to Arkham Knight, with its high octane vehicular combat and its somehow higher octane beat em' up game play where you brutalize crowds of mooks like Bat-man. No those comparisons never stop, but I don't mean it as a denigration. Mad Max takes the Arkham style of fighting and tunes up the punchiness of combat, with more clearly violent and bloody punches with the intent to kill. It looks and plays the same as Arkham, but feels like you are hitting much harder. You're main gadget isn't sticky grenade flips or batarangs/freeze ray/taser blasts or any other quick stun, its shooting the pain in the ass enemy in front of you with a shotgun and blasting his face off into a spray that mists his buddies. The car combat is a brutal mix of racing, aiming, ramming, and explosions as you use a mix of harpoons, explosives, and guns to rip up an enemies ride, tear their gunners/drivers out of their seats, and ram their car to hell without being blasted to it yourself. The story is mildly lacking, but in your explorations of the waste you hit setpieces and characters that perfectly fit the world of Mad Max. Story isn't the point, its wandering the salt flats of an endless desert and finding a massive battleship perched in the clips above you, laughing at the absurdity as the desert leeches your moisture out of you. Its the insane and desperate people you meet, terrified at how much more dangerous Max proves to be than them. The feeling of finding the Shaman and having Max grow through out his journey is a more moving plot point, than even the main final confrontation where you rekill a man with a chainsaw seperating the lobes of his brain. This game is a vibe, it is gorgeous with vistas stretching beyond the miles of road you traverse. it is vast and always full of something to find. It's gameplay is polished to a fine shine, and has all the intensity you would want from beating a man bloody into the dry dirt. 5/5
Most reviews make this out to be a failure of a shooter mocking it as a relic of a bygone age of emulating better games. While this game has not aged outstandingly well I'd say a fair number of small issues have been glaringly over nitpicked by the community. The games runs surprisingly decent with few bugs on my end, and while the sound design isnt great it is still quite servicable. The guns are mixed bag but I'd still say the shooting is still satisfying, with the imperial guard being fun to fight against. Is this Halo quality? No, not by a longlas shot. But its better than its made out to be and should be given a fair shake.
Enemies have rdiculous attack rates and constantly spasticlly dart around out of view with zero movement frames, step movment barely works and picking up things or interacting with the world is difficult sense each click can move the character wiht an innocous click. This game is simply a hassle to play. However, the graphics though old, are quite nice for the time, characters are generally well animated and npcs are very well voiced. But gameplay is what matters, and sadly this game is just broken.
