Introduction
The year 2015 was really good for open world games. We got Arkham Knight, Fallout Four, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Dying Light, The Witcher Three, Metal Gear Solid Five, it was a banner year for the genre with some of the most revered games of all time coming out in very close proximity.
It was almost too much of a good thing and certain games obviously were gonna get lost in the shuffle. All those games I just listed were great, but there was one game that came out that year at the same time as Metal Gear Solid five, literally on the same day that really deserves to be revisited. At the time, it got some fairly decent reviews, but I think that this game is a lot better than a lot of people give it credit for.
It took a lot of inspiration from a lot of different places but managed to forge a unique identity that still hasn't quite been matched. When it came out, people assumed it was just like a half ass cash grab and going in, I thought it would be, but it managed to win me over in a big way.
And while it's probably not my favorite game of 2015, look at the slate of releases that year, that said, I am always gonna remember this one fondly. Hi folks, it's Zaid Ikram, and today, on Gamix, we're gonna talk about Avalanche Studios' Mad Max. Yes, I'm talking about the tie-in game for Mad Max Fury Road.
Origins and Development of Mad Max Game
Now, that movie is fantastic. I cannot recommend it enough. It is really put together in probably the most cinematic and beautiful way something like that can and what's interesting is that this game never actually started as a tie-in for that movie. Originally, it was meant to not have any connections with the movie universe.
It was just basically a stand-alone thing. It's just that both the game and the movie kind of went through development hell and kind of came out of it at about the same time. Mad Max is unique among movie games. For one, it's good, which is worth some praise because seriously, so many movie games are just bad and it's because of its reverence for the source material while retaining the ability to tell its own stand-alone story.
But pain will come, much more pain before this purpose to you is made manifest. Probably the easiest way to describe the game is post-apocalyptic Red Dead Redemption. The world is barren and desolate in a way few open world games are because most of the time, they're supposed to be vibrant and dense, you know? Usually they don't want people to go, "Man, this is empty," but Mad Max's is harsh and very empty.
Visual and Artistic Design
It's made up of gray rock, brown and tanned desert, the occasional shock of red from rusted metal, all highlighted by this very vibrant, colorful sky. At times, it feels more like a cowboy game than a post apocalyptic game, but you got a car instead of a horse. The visual contrast and a lot of the distinct landmarks dotting the otherwise desolate environments creates some of the most surprisingly striking images I have ever seen from an open world game.
Art-wise, one of the most interesting open world games I've seen because it's so unafraid of the emptiness and embraces it and in doing so, it makes all of the things that are there stand out so much more. It really just has to be seen 'cause there's so many times the game just looks flat out washed out and empty.
But the moments where you see something silhouetted against this vibrant evening sky, stand out in a way where it's just different from other stuff you've seen. (car engine roars) - Scrap it! - Just like the visuals, the story, like also other Mad Max stuff, is pretty simple. The world that we know is over, people fight tooth and nail for resources on a slowly dying planet.
The interesting thing about the Mad Max series is they never say what caused the end of the world. It's implied to be a nuclear war like yeah, the standard apocalypse scenario, but there's this layer of mysticism and mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a fantasy movie or video game.
Unique Character Accents and Dialogue
I'm talking about all of the properties in the Mad Max franchise, but they feel as fantasy as they do post-apocalyptic. Like look at Fury Road. It's pretty much a fairy tale with an evil king and a hero's journey and all that. There's also this strange, almost alien way that characters talk.
As far as the game's concerned, especially with Chum Bucket. He gives you this otherworldly feel. - How tough? How fast? - Very faster than fear, tougher than an iguana's gonads. (Chum Bucket grunts) - As an American, the many Australian accents used for the game make it stand out. Like you really don't hear a whole lot of people that talk like this in games.
Like it feels really unique. Like the standard, "Oh, it's a different accent," accent is typically British of some kind, but in the world of Mad Max it's not enough. This is a knife. I'm sorry, I had to do that. Like you understand the impulse. It's definitely a stereotypical, not correct Australian accent but I'm not gonna not do that.
Main Character and Plot Setup
You play as the titular Max, a man looking to reach a place called the Plains of Silence, which he believes will make him finally free of the ghosts that haunt his mind. Like Fury Road, the whole thing starts with a sort of ambush. Max is minding his own business but a vicious gang led by the amazingly named Scabrous Scrotus, like scrotum, and his war dogs attack, steal his car, and leave him for dead.
The game starts slow with Max befriending a dog and meeting this bizarre hunchback named Chum Bucket that I mentioned earlier who believes Max is some kind of wasteland saint. Chum Bucket agrees to help Max fix his car and together they ride out to find the necessary parts to do just that. The majority of the plot is just about Max's search for a V8 engine, which will make his car powerful enough to reach The Plains of Silence.
The fact that Scabrous stands in your way is almost secondary to that, at least in Max's mind. It's not 'til the end of the game that he finally decides to get vengeance against the warlord. To call the plot of this game bleak would be a pretty big understatement. Like Fury Road, in comparison, is relatively upbeat.
Desperate World and Anti-Hero
All the friendly territory he visits is falling apart, people are starving, the enemy war dogs are shown to be the most vicious bastards at every turn. The world just looks so dead and like there's not even a chance of getting better in any way. Like even Fallout has a shrub or two, but this game's atmosphere is post apocalyptic.
I had to say it that way for it to make sense. Max has always been, at best, an anti-hero but in this game he's barely even that, at least at first. He starts off totally indifferent to the people's plights and it's only near the end of the game that he really seems to care at all. And that's after a series of betrayals and tragedies.
Grim Tone and Unique Simulation Elements
The game's tone is right up there with the original 1979 Mad Max. Very grim, very serious, and in a way that mostly works. And what really makes this game unique among its peers is that it incorporates a lot more simulation elements into the gameplay compared to what you would see in other open world games.
Most of the time these games are about creating and entertaining a power fantasy but that's not the case here. Max moves slower, much more deliberate, car handling isn't as responsive as it could be, intentionally so though. And handling can be kind of tricky compared to a lot of open world games. The car feels a lot more like a real vehicle with a lot of weight behind it.
And in practice it's not just a way to get from point A to point B, it's your lifeline. Not unlike the horse from Red Dead. Like a horse, you gotta keep this thing alive or you're screwed. The car's got a health bar and crucially, a gas tank, and early on, it can and will run out if you don't plan your excursions carefully.
Vehicle Upgrades and Combat
The car starts off really weak and vulnerable. But as you go through the game, you can upgrade it with weapons and tools that eventually turn it into a rolling machine of death. It's a series that's famous for its vehicular combat and this game lives up to it. At first, you really do have to be careful about avoiding enemies and not taking on bigger convoys, but as the magnum opus, as Chum Bucket calls it, it gets stronger and it becomes easier to take on War Boy vehicles.
Once you're strong enough it's so satisfying to smash an enemy vehicle into pieces because you can really feel it with the car's unusually heavy controls. On foot, things are a little more formulaic. It works well enough. Max is primarily a brawler, so when you take on enemies, it's kind of a variation on Arkham asylum.
Both games come from Warner Brothers, so at least that lines up in some ways. It's not quite as fast and responsive as the Arkham games, but it's probably intentional 'cause it serves a specific purpose and feels really satisfyingly brutal. I mean it's kind of desperate, the combat at times.
On-Foot Combat and Strategy
Max doesn't get regenerating health and while he does come equipped with a gun, you really never have more than like a bullet or two on you. You do eventually get a sniper rifle, but it's only usable from the car which is another way the game anchors you to the vehicle. Speaking of sniping, one of the most interesting additions to the open world formula is scouting out an enemy base before attacking it. Bases tend to have multiple points of entry and defenses that can be bypassed or disabled. If you take time to scout 'em out beforehand, sometimes it actually lets you skip big chunks of the area by sneaking around the back, pulling open a gate with your harpoon, or something. For larger bases, scouting is basically necessary too because if you take too long when approaching them they'll go into lockdown and you won't be able to access them for a while.
This mechanic adds a layer of danger to the normally standard active base clearing you really don't usually see in other open world games. And I don't just mean in 2015, I mean still. Like a lot of stuff in Mad Max kind of slows things down, but in a good way. This game doesn't have the nonstop bombastic action of a Far Cry game.
Deliberate Pacing and Survival Mechanics
It's very deliberate. It's focused on atmosphere rather than excitement and that makes it more like Red Dead redemption than anything else, even though it's not really a lot like Red Dead redemption beyond a few of the basic building blocks. Max is heavy, slow, a lot of the time you're not even fighting enemies you're just looking around and scavenging items.
There's scrap to collect, a few drops of water to drink from rain collectors, and sometimes you'll get lucky and find some gas tanks with some gas you can use to refill your tank. The process isn't simple either. You have to grab a spare jerrycan from your car, fill it up, and then use that to fill up your gas tank.
The same goes for collecting scavenge from destroyed enemy vehicles. They're just not automatically collected. You gotta go out on foot to the middle of the desert and pick up what you need off the ground. I really like the slower pace. It could be a disaster, but this is so context-perfect. Like survival or post apocalypse shouldn't be easy.
And in this specific game, it just never feels tedious, to me at least. I'm sure to somebody out there it does. But I think the slowness really adds to the experience here. It's almost encouraging you to stop and take in your environment and surroundings even at their most desolate. It's a game that really wants you to feel like a survivor, not a superhero.
You're just a dude who is barely scraping by. Like by the end of it, yes, you will have basically single-handedly dismantled an entire evil army, but even as you get stronger, the feeling of desperation really never goes away. That whole experience itself doesn't feel like a power fantasy. It feels like white knuckling it the whole time.
Embracing Tediousness and Immersion
And I wanna stress that I don't think that it's never not tedious. It does sometimes feel tedious, but I mean there's a lot of open world games that are paced much faster that feel significantly more tedious. They like run out of quote--unquote new content pretty quick. But here, it's not so much like that.
You end up spending a lot of time in this game wandering through ruins, clearing out enemies, taking out convoys. There's some other activities like races and bomb disarming, but your main goal is always taking out the top dogs in each area by going through their strongholds and killing them in combat.
One really standout feature of these randomly occurring wasteland storms which knock your car around and hurl large chunks of debris, and if they hit your car, that can really be a problem. There's a reason to go into them though because you find crates in the middle of the storm and if you grab one and get out, you can take it back to your stronghold and they can have some pretty big rewards in them.
Risk-Reward System with Wasteland Storms
So there's actually a kind of cool little risk-reward system for going in there. It's rare that the weather ever really matters in an open world game, but these storms are legit dangerous and really cool looking. So for a lot of the game, when you see one coming, you wanna look, but you're also probably going to book it for the nearest safe house.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
All in all, Mad Max is a game that's really more than the sum of its parts. Gameplay wise, it can be slow and appear kind of formulaic. The actual content of the story, like I said, are kind of basic. It's not stuff we haven't seen before, but the world design carries it. Somehow, they manage to take a map that's mostly empty desert and make it feel varied and unique in a way that not a lot of games manage.
The grim story, the haunting presentation, and the very deliberate gameplay, might not be everyone's cup of tea, but man, in my opinion, and for those of us who like a good post-apocalyptic game, this one is a standout. It's also kind of crazy. Avalanche put out two open world games in one year, Mad Max and Just Cause Three, and somehow the forgotten movie tie-in is the better game of the two.
It's this game that's just fun to come back to and drive around, take in sights, experience the vibes for a little bit. At the end of the day, it's neither the game play or the story that really make it stick for me, it's the setting. The best open world games really make you feel like you're part of the world and this game accomplishes that with this desolate beauty.
And of course I think that's totally warranted. And that's all for today. Leave us a comment, let us know what you think. And as always, we thank you very much for reading this blog. We'll see you next time right here on Gamix.
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