Mad Max review
Mad Max: Fury Road has bought the Mel Gibson classic to a new age of cinemagoers, and it has done it right. However, usually video game tie-ins to movies always end up in certain disaster. To avert that fate for Mad Max, the game was given to Avalanche Studios, the game studio behind Just Cause games to create the post-apocalyptic classic to life. Let's find out if they've succeeded..
Welcome to the end of the world. A huge network of roads left after the great waters of the world known as seas and oceans receded into nothing. All that's left are warring clans of humans and one lone warrior that wanders the wastes, aimless and quite mad. Max has lost his family and is constantly on the run, when a warlord Scrotus takes away his car -- the mighty black-on-black Interceptor -- and has left him for dead. When all seems almost lost, Max comes across a hunchback mechanic who worships cars, and aids him in building an ultimate vehicle known as Magnum Opus.
The story of Mad Max is pretty normal, filled with people with their mundane quests to do. The best part of it all is the beautiful end of the world, the endless wastes, which inject awe. Your starting few areas and beyond for a while is actually what used to be a sea bed, a realization that slowly dawns on you as you drive through white shell strewn sand, which is a large graveyard of monstrous ships. Such awe abounds in the wastes, as well as lots of people driven to madness with the lack of water and the power of too much "Guzzoline."
Gameplay
The premise is simple, you drive around the wastes to find parts to build your Magnum Opus. A car capable of crossing the suicidal Plains of Silence, except that the hordes of Scrotus want your head. So you have to align with various allied strongholds, to dismantle Scotus's Guzzoline camps to reduce his hold on the region as well as take down the convoys.
The wasteland has hours and hours of fun to lose yourself into. You can take part in various races, scavenge for scrap and parts to get by. Build up your Strongholds to earn the trust of the leaders as well as find hidden spots, collect oil and precious water and a lot more.
As a whole, the gameplay is very repetitive, especially the scavenging for scrap, where each location has 2 to 15 units of scrap. It's annoying to hold the action button every time to pick up scrap. Of course with precious scrap you can upgrade Max and the Opus.
The combat is brutal, employing hand to hand fighting, very much like that of Batman Arkham series. One button to parry, and one button to retaliate. While the hand to hand fighting is great, the car combat more than makes up for everything. A fully loaded Magnum Opus is fun to boost into enemy cars, watching them erupt into a fireball of parts. You can spend hours just driving around discovering the wasteland and destroying enemy vehicles.
The vehicle designs are straight out of the movies, with weathered battle tanks of popular vehicle shapes you go up against. However, having a harpoon helps, yanking off tires off cars at high speeds or yanking drivers directly out of the seats makes for some amazing gaming memories.
Taking down convoys is extremely fun, except there are very few around the world. You actually have to plan your route of attack. Hide on heights sometimes and then surprise attack cars. With a well placed Thunderpoon hits and clever boosting you can actually get a multicar pileup leaving the head car ripe for your picking. Convoys are the high point of the gameplay in an otherwise repetitive but oddly addictive game.
Camps can get repetitive, but as a whole, every camp is different, almost like a puzzle. You can either disable the defenses using your Harpoon or Thunderpoon or you can find Wastelanders, that give you intel on secret back entrances.
Once you enter you have objectives to fulfill. Camps are usually teeming with enemies and if there's a War Crier, the enemies get buffed. Interestingly, killing all enemies but the Crier yields some interesting quotes of the War Crier, who moments earlier was screaming for your blood, now tries to buddy up and convince you not to kill him. Try it, you won't be disappointed.
As you tear across the landscape, you will encounter massive sandstorm hurricanes, like those from the movie. Truly fearsome forces of nature, that are part electric storms and part whipping winds, which will send you cowering for cover. However, for those brave enough, you can venture out into these storms and you can hunt down valuable scrap cases that carry big rewards. Risk and reward.
It helps that Chumbucket, the mechanic, is a very cool guy. Always ready to chime in with funny quips as well as paranoia infused warnings. Through the game he slowly becomes your indispensable friend, who refers to his devotion to a deity called Angel Combustion. Not to mention very covert sexual excuses he gives to spend time with Magnum Opus.
Mad Max, like the movie, is a very beautiful game. Not to mention, it runs smooth as butter on any PC. With all effects turned up. The wasteland is so serene, you will at times go to a high vantage point, stop and admire the view. Best seen on a big screen TV. Listen to the wind rustle by across the dry landscape. Jaw dropping, when you drive by old ruins of ships and bridges. Right up to the belching smokestacks of GasTown.
Conclusion
Mad Max has quite a few flaws as well as it can be repetitive. However, in short bursts, the game is addictive fun, not to mention quite therapeutic. Letting you forget your bad day at work, by losing yourself in a worst situation of survival in a dry waste.
Gameplay
The premise is simple, you drive around the wastes to find parts to build your Magnum Opus. A car capable of crossing the suicidal Plains of Silence, except that the hordes of Scrotus want your head. So you have to align with various allied strongholds, to dismantle Scotus's Guzzoline camps to reduce his hold on the region as well as take down the convoys.
The wasteland has hours and hours of fun to lose yourself into. You can take part in various races, scavenge for scrap and parts to get by. Build up your Strongholds to earn the trust of the leaders as well as find hidden spots, collect oil and precious water and a lot more.
As a whole, the gameplay is very repetitive, especially the scavenging for scrap, where each location has 2 to 15 units of scrap. It's annoying to hold the action button every time to pick up scrap. Of course with precious scrap you can upgrade Max and the Opus.
The combat is brutal, employing hand to hand fighting, very much like that of Batman Arkham series. One button to parry, and one button to retaliate. While the hand to hand fighting is great, the car combat more than makes up for everything. A fully loaded Magnum Opus is fun to boost into enemy cars, watching them erupt into a fireball of parts. You can spend hours just driving around discovering the wasteland and destroying enemy vehicles.
The vehicle designs are straight out of the movies, with weathered battle tanks of popular vehicle shapes you go up against. However, having a harpoon helps, yanking off tires off cars at high speeds or yanking drivers directly out of the seats makes for some amazing gaming memories.
Taking down convoys is extremely fun, except there are very few around the world. You actually have to plan your route of attack. Hide on heights sometimes and then surprise attack cars. With a well placed Thunderpoon hits and clever boosting you can actually get a multicar pileup leaving the head car ripe for your picking. Convoys are the high point of the gameplay in an otherwise repetitive but oddly addictive game.
Camps can get repetitive, but as a whole, every camp is different, almost like a puzzle. You can either disable the defenses using your Harpoon or Thunderpoon or you can find Wastelanders, that give you intel on secret back entrances.
Once you enter you have objectives to fulfill. Camps are usually teeming with enemies and if there's a War Crier, the enemies get buffed. Interestingly, killing all enemies but the Crier yields some interesting quotes of the War Crier, who moments earlier was screaming for your blood, now tries to buddy up and convince you not to kill him. Try it, you won't be disappointed.
As you tear across the landscape, you will encounter massive sandstorm hurricanes, like those from the movie. Truly fearsome forces of nature, that are part electric storms and part whipping winds, which will send you cowering for cover. However, for those brave enough, you can venture out into these storms and you can hunt down valuable scrap cases that carry big rewards. Risk and reward.
It helps that Chumbucket, the mechanic, is a very cool guy. Always ready to chime in with funny quips as well as paranoia infused warnings. Through the game he slowly becomes your indispensable friend, who refers to his devotion to a deity called Angel Combustion. Not to mention very covert sexual excuses he gives to spend time with Magnum Opus.
Mad Max, like the movie, is a very beautiful game. Not to mention, it runs smooth as butter on any PC. With all effects turned up. The wasteland is so serene, you will at times go to a high vantage point, stop and admire the view. Best seen on a big screen TV. Listen to the wind rustle by across the dry landscape. Jaw dropping, when you drive by old ruins of ships and bridges. Right up to the belching smokestacks of GasTown.
Conclusion
Mad Max has quite a few flaws as well as it can be repetitive. However, in short bursts, the game is addictive fun, not to mention quite therapeutic. Letting you forget your bad day at work, by losing yourself in a worst situation of survival in a dry waste.
Source : The Times Of India - Tech
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