Finally rolled credits on the 2005 video game Mad Max. It got mixed reviews at the time and it's definitely a game of highs and lows. Mild plot spoilers follow.
Good:
- The visuals are absolutely great. It's heavily based on Fury Road, and the vehicle designs, landscapes, and the skybox - holy shit the skybox - all look fantastic and spot-on.
- The vehicle combat is exciting and cinematic. The convoy missions are by far my favourite activity - racing alongside a group of speeding bad guys, throwing up huge clouds of dust, blowing them up or ramming them off cliffs. It feels most like the movies here.
- The occasional dust storms are very atmospheric and dangerous (while unfortunately also being a bit of a pointless obstacle).
- The pre-apocalypse relics you find scattered around are interesting and better world building than most of the main plot.
Bad:
- Anything where Max is on foot is usually pretty mid. There's more hand-to-hand combat required in the game than vehicle combat, which is a shame because the latter is Mad Max. How many times does Max even get into fisticuffs in 4 whole films? Exploring dark areas with a flashlight is a pain.
- Max's family is dead, he rescues a woman and her child and they immediately die anyway, and then the mechanic who's been your staunch ally dies at the end! Because of Max! Max as a character is dull and the plot is really unengaging.
- The finale is almost incredible - a convoy mission where the final boss is in a giant war rig - but only lasts about 5 minutes if you have a fully-upgraded car.
- Speaking of war rigs, almost every vehicle in the game is a car or small truck - in the films there are frequently huge lorries or monster truck-sized vehicles but the only time you see a proper war rig is at the finale. There's like 20 kinds of enemy car but they're very interchangeable. You can drive them and even collect them for later use... but there's zero need to do that. Your own upgradable car is way better than any of them.
- I was aiming to 100% the game until I realised, right near the end, that a lot of the in-game challenges (required for the last cheevo) would be a real grind because I had been too good at clearing out enemy bases. Oops.
It really feels like a missed opportunity for a very fun game focussed on vehicle combat, exciting battles against war rigs, and fantastic visuals. It only succeeds at the last one. Maybe one day we'll have a sequel where the gameplay lives up to the potential of the source material.
