Things get even more interesting when you get your hands on the harpoon, which lets you rip panels, wheels, and even the driver from a car, while also tearing down weaker enemy structures. Racing around in your supercharged death machine, drifting all over the place while smashing your rivals up, is very satisfying, and with Chumbucket riding in the back of your car, always on hand to provide some much needed repairs, it helps to keep you in the action for quite a while. This is a real shame as the game's core mechanics are actually pretty good. This can be anything from collecting an amount of scrap to lowering the threat level in a certain region, and can be quite annoying if you just want to move the story forward. This would be fine if you could choose whether you wanted to engage with the side content or not, but at various stages in the game your progress in the main story missions becomes blocked until you've satisfied certain criteria. The trouble is that most of the side activities become very repetitive, and after a few hours none of these tasks will offer much of a surprise, with only the convoys – with their breakneck vehicular battles – keeping you coming back for more.
As such, it's worthwhile spending some time building them up.Īs you explore the map, the sheer volume of quests, activities, and locations becomes quickly apparent, and your early impressions are likely to be good, as you'll have fun visiting scavenging locations to collect scrap, using balloons – the game's equivalent of climbing towers – to survey points of interests, and destroying enemy camps and watch towers, which have the added bonus of lowering the presence of enemy war parties in a region. These projects are a big help, whether they're for the previously mentioned clean-up crew to automatically pick up scrap or for replenishing your limited supplies of ammunition, water, and fuel. These factions also offer their own missions, as well as the chance to find parts littered around the wasteland that complete projects at each of these bases. While you can also steal cars from the war parties you battle, you'll be spending most of your time in your own personal ride, as you'll have invested a significant amount of time in making it more like a car Mad Max would drive by adding weapons and modifications.Īs you work your way through the main story missions, you'll start to unlock access to strongholds run by some friendly factions, who are happy to see someone standing up to Scabrous Scrotus.
As a result, there's a decent level of customisation available, and you can go whichever upgrade route you want, whether you're after a fast, lightly armoured car or the four wheeled equivalent of a tank, that's a beast to try and keep on the road.įortunately, you're never locked into one type of car, and can switch out individual parts easily depending on the situation, even changing your whole ride between different unlockable car templates – known as 'archangels' – if you fancy big change. Starting with a basic chassis, most of the game is spent working to add more and more parts to your increasingly powerful ride. It wouldn't be much of a Mad Max game if you spent it running around on foot, so it's not long before you come across Chumbucket – an exiled mechanic from nearby Gastown – who sees Max as a saint who'll help him build his 'Magnum Opus', a car that'll be the best the wasteland has ever seen. Never one to take this sort of thing lying down, Max must work to rebuild his car and get the V8 engine he needs to continue his journey. Unfortunately, the brakes are put on his search when his car's stolen, and he's left for dead following a run in with the unfortunately named Scabrous Scrotus. This isn't a journey of hope but one of survival, as for this unhinged hero, driving in search of the plains – which may or may not exist - is all that he has left. Haunted by the loss of his family as the world fell, Max travels the wasteland searching for the Plains of Silence. Not directly based on the recent film, the game tells its own tale, while still borrowing the odd detail from its cinematic sibling.
With Avalanche Studios – the masters of mayhem behind the Just Cause series – handling development duties for this PlayStation 4 title, confidence was high that this mix of source material and talent would result in an experience that was much more than the usual licensed game – or identikit open world. With the recent cinematic success of Mad Max: Fury Road, there has never been a better time for a game based on Max Rockatansky's particular brand of vehicular chaos. Republished on Wednesday 28th March 2018: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of April's PlayStation Plus lineup.