at its best, when sparks are flying and the audio fills with sounds of crashing metal and fiery explosions, mad max is, for a moment, the perfect snapshot of any of Fury Road's breathtaking action scenes.

that memed "this licensed game really makes you feel like that licensed character" critique is sincerely relevant here because this does make you feel like you're inside a mad max action scene. i feel like the game even goes to great lengths to paint each equally barren but distinct desert biome with a colour grading fitting each and any of the four mad max movies (there are areas where the desert looks more desaturated and akin to the early mad max movies, to areas that are as proudly and vibrantly orange as fury road). it's a beautiful and very unique game world where with the addition of random brutal car combat encounters creates a thrilling tension of disorganised chaos. any simple trip from point a to point b in mad max can turn into a spectacle potentially worthy of its own scene in fury road.

where the game really falls flat on its arse is in how tied all this natural freedom and chaos is to such a banal and ubiquitous modern open world game formula. the actual game is never truly as untethered and unbounded as it appears. it locks a lot of story progression behind level systems and upgrade paths that are like concrete to breakthrough. the map is littered with junk (literal junk, that you collect as currency). i can see a argument for how this is reinforcing theme, e.g. this is a game set in a harsh, cruel, unapologetically post-apocalyptic environment where survival is not a given, it's something each and every occupant of mad max world is fighting for 24/7. but at a certain point the game where you crash a car fitted with flamethrowers and spikes into other cars, trucks and through gates and steel structures at high speeds should feel like more than work, and after only just a few hours they really manage to turn a mad max game into work. and it's not like this is an RPG that's demanding you think your place in these environment, the whole game is designed to be a simulated mad max playground. it just kinda sucks it isn't more fun to actually progress. i ended up putting this down for two years for this reason.

and maybe i don't rewatch the early mad max films as much as fury road, but i also think it's disappointing that for a game released seemingly in unison with 2015's fury road - a movie famously celebrated for the feminist themes underpinning its entire narrative - that this is would be game seemingly written in a room with "women?" circled around it on a whiteboard. forgetting how rote and tiresome "save this damsel in distress" is as a plot device, where it ultimately goes with it (and it's only major female character) is so lazy and thoughtless it's like a cold slap in the face. the ending of this game is only somewhat redeemable to my eyes because for how ultimately committed it is to Max's nihilistic surrender to living in the past and how dreamlike the whole game is.

enough colour and personality in the world and gameplay here shines through for it to be a nicer alternative to any number of similarly boring modern games, imo.

GTA in a desert wasteland? Sign me up!

Mad Max does a ton of things right. Driving feels great, especially once you have a few upgrades installed. Cornering feels weighty but responsive, and the boost meter fills up fast enough so that your thumb never gets too bored before it has another chance to hit A. Combat is also fun, playing similarly to Rocksteady's Batman games. It's not particularly deep and there are only a handful of enemy types, but it was plenty to keep me engaged and coming back for more.

While the fundamentals are strong, the other bits are hit or miss. One big sticking point is the in-game economy. Upgrades are purchased with scrap, which you find littered around the wasteland. You can pick up a handful of scrap from certain defeated enemies, and also travel to marked locations on your map to salvage it. The problem is that these marked locations often only yield scrap in single-digit quantities. When you need 2000 scrap to upgrade your engine, driving around the map and collecting 2 or 3 or 11 pieces of scrap at each location just feels weird. Ultimately, most of my scrap came from my strongholds, which when upgraded can collect scrap from wrecked enemy vehicles automatically and also make occasional scrap deliveries. Why drive all over the map gathering scrap when your base will deliver 500 pieces every 10 or 20 minutes? Thanks to these deliveries gathering scrap never felt like a grind, but it nonetheless felt poorly balanced.

There are plenty of other issues, too. While the desert is beautiful, character models -- especially the roadside NPCs -- look like they were ripped straight from the PS3/360 era. The story is neither here nor there -- it's not great but it also moves at a brisk pace with mercifully short cutscenes. Finally, the game is also notable for its lack of verticality, which is particularly strange given that this is the team that developed the Just Cause games. Then again, the driving and combat are so entertaining that I never felt like I needed to go mountain climbing.

I must also say that I love how my car always lands on its wheels. Realistic? No. But flipped cars are no fun.

Is Mad Max a great game? No, but it's still a good spot of fun. Check it out if you're looking for a mindless open-world game that mostly respects your time.

Demorei muito para real ter coragem de começar esse jogo, pois já pelos trailers e vídeos dele eu já não ia muito com a cara.

O jogo só é completamente chato, o mundo dele não da vontade de explorar, os comandos são horrendos, a história é confusa e ruim, esse combate a lá estilo Arkham é todo torto, quase nada se salva.

Demorei 3 semanas para terminar, pois eu sequer tinha vontade de abrir. Uma pena, pois gosto dos filmes.

I really wanted to love Mad Max. Fury Road is one of my favourite films of all time and the Mad Max universe seems like the perfect setting for a videogame. While Avalanche games does prove this, their execution leaves me wanting more. The gameplay itself is fantastic. Cars drive like a dream and the over the top car combat is fun and utter carnage. The drip feed of car upgrades you get throughout the game keeps things fresh, though I wish some of the better ones were dished out sooner. Hand to hand combat is decent, with an adaptation of the Arkham style combat system that doesn’t feel nearly as fluid but compensates for this with satisfyingly brutal animations and finishers. The wasteland is the perfect location to try out these systems, and it is stunning even by todays standards. The desolate nature of the world is captured perfectly. The cherry on top would’ve been a bit more visual variety with more diverse landmarks.

Unfortunately, Mad Max’s story is unengaging and forgettable. Max himself is very lifeless and the vibrant cast of misfits that surround him do little to make things more interesting thanks to poor voice acting and storytelling. On top of this, quest design is pretty average with everything you’d expect from this sort of game and nothing more. Side quests are a particular let down, leaning into the trap of open world syndrome where they value quantity over quality. And that sums up a lot of the game for me. As much fun as I found the individual gameplay elements, eventually the repetition became too much and I decided to stop playing before completing the campaign. Ultimately, Mad Max is fun for a bit, but once the initial novelty of the gameplay and setting wear off, the bland story and repetitive gameplay loop drag the whole experience down. When there’s so many better open world games available, as fun as some elements are, this one isn’t worth your time.

A bit biased here but this is the 1st game I buy on PS4 and the reason I got my 1st PS console, but all that aside this is one of the most unique open world experience ever, imagine making a desert open world fun what a difficult task pulled so gracefully, the gameplay loop is phenomenal, H2H combat is crunchy raw, the car combat is freaking phenomenal the story reasonably good but man that open world the feeling of driving in open world combating other cars, raiding whole caravan it's just peak gaming IMO I had so much fun with this game hands down one of my fav of all time.

Mad Max é um jogo totalmente genérico e derivativo de franquias conhecidas nesse meio de jogos de mundo aberto. Por trás de toda a bagagem que carrega da icônica série de filmes do George Miller, o jogo entregue pela Avalanche Studios sofre com problemas notáveis de falta de inspiração e de diversidade de elementos para nutrir essa campanha. Após cerca de 5 horas explorando ruínas, saqueando acampamentos inimigos e explodindo comboios, o tédio toma conta e muito das tarefas deixam de ser prazerosas, tornando-se apenas em obstáculos para impedir o avanço do jogador. Obviamente que, considerando o valor que você consegue encontrar para esse jogo atualmente, pagar R$ 4,50 por 15 a 20 horas de jogatina é algo razoavelmente positivo mesmo para quem acabe não gostando tanto do jogo, como foi o meu caso. Entretanto, falando de um ponto de vista mais analítico, Mad Max não valeu meu tempo investido em praticamente nenhum sentido. Olhando como alguém que adorou o que foi apresentado naquele filme lá em 2015, esse jogo é uma decepção um tanto que inesperada.

É bem interessante como exploram o Max e seu subconsciente, apesar dele não falar muito você sente seu sofrimento, a história do jogo é bem como as dos primeiros filmes(Tirando o 3), não existem finais felizes...

Tanto o combate de carro quanto corpo a corpo são muito gratificantes e bem feitos, é bem legal ficar dirigindo pelo vazio e detonando os inimigos por ai. Infelizmente o jogo erra bastante no seu conteúdo de mundo aberto, sério, são uns 200 pontos no mapa pra explorar, mas variam apenas entre umas 8 coisas diferentes(E ainda assim platinei ele 2 vezes kkkkkk). Também poderiam ter trabalhado melhor a história, ela é boa sim mas demora muito a engatar, praticamente você fica 70% do jogo atrás de um motor V8, mas depois disso fica ótimo.

Acho que esse jogo foi mais importante pra mim pois conheci e me tornei fã dos filmes através dele, então ainda gosto bastante apesar dos muitos erros.

Quase sempre esses jogos que se baseiam em filmes, ou filmes que se baseiam em jogos tem uma tendência no melhor dos casos a mediocridade, e são extremamente conhecidos por carregarem essa terrível e famosa maldição, mas digo como alguém que viu toda a franquia de filmes que não foi o caso desse jogo, que vou além, se todo filme da franquia de Mad Max fosse igual ou similar à história e construção desse daqui, seria uma franquia melhor do que ela é, que o que ela tem de conceituada devido ao último filme lançado ("Estrada da Fúria") ela tem de filmes fracos/péssimos em literalmente toda a franquia, onde só o "Estrada da Fúria" se salva, na minha opinião. Enfim, se compara bem ao "Mad Max: Estrada da Fúria" em termos de qualidade e imersão, mas é meio que uma recriação/reimaginação da história do "Mad Max 2: A Caçada Continua" que consegue ser bem melhor que ele, por parecer mais crível e por claro conectar mais o jogador com esse universo de areia e motores V6 e V8 e ser uma boa ponte para o Fury Road, que mesmo lançando em conjunto com o "Mad Max: Estrada da Fúria" na época, os dois são histórias isoladas que esse parece contar uma história que pode ter acontecido antes dos tais acontecimentos do "Estrada da Fúria".

    A Jogabilidade não tem segredo, é basicamente um Batman: Arkham nesse sentido, só que com coisinhas sutis em sua gameplay, seja ela em relação ao uso da arma de fogo do Max (caso tenha munição que é bem "escasso") que é muito legal só do nada atirar com a espingarda no meio do combate em um inimigo de surpresa, que por ser uma espingarda serrada/"sawn-off", não deixa o jogo desequilibrado e continua sendo desafiador até mesmo para puxar a arma e atirar em algum inimigo na sua frente. Aqui continua bem equilibrado como é nos Batman: Arkham na questão de pegar os golpes nos inimigos, que o Batman em si se jogava às vezes no jogo para pegar o golpe com o seu pé e aqui não, que como você é uma pessoa com mais idade e sem tanta agilidade não irá literalmente "deslizar" o personagem para cima de algum inimigo ou no caso dar esse tal chute, te forçando sempre a se aproximar para acertar os golpes, que agrega sempre na imersão. 

   Falando em imersão também, se tratando de um jogo pós-apocalíptico nesse lugar devastado, o jogo ainda adiciona um leve sistema de sobrevivência, que não se compara exatamente a um jogo especializado nisso de sobreviver, mas que tem algumas mecânicas sutis dentro da trajetória do game, por exemplo, para aumentar o HP você terá que procurar por água ou ração enlatada de cachorro no jogo, além de procurar gasolina para os veículos do game em galões de gasolina, tudo isso em locais de acampamento ou ruínas dessa antiga civilização nos locais do mapa, o que agrega muito ao valor de entrar literalmente dentro da ideia e proposta do game, uma pena que pelo menos no Modo Normal você mal usa esses recursos e quase não vai precisar ficar pegando gasolina, mas é aquilo, poderia ser uma faca de dois gumes que ficaria insuportável tal qual era no Far Cry 2 para ter que parar a aventura e ficar procurando o remédio da Malária que eu odiava fazer isso naquele game, e nesse caso não é, achava legal quando eu fazia isso e me prendia dentro do game, mas na minha visão, poderia ser um pouquinho mais necessário de coletar e encher o tanque, etc, que não pede tanto para você ficar pegando gasolina, mas enfim né, proposta do jogo é outra então faz sentido não terem deixado tão escasso quanto seria.

Por fim, é um jogo divertido que às vezes no meio dessa aventura por se manter na mesma sequência de uma gameplay de Batman: Arkham se torna um tanto repetitivo e isso não tem como discordar, mas como a construção da jornada é boa e me senti apegado com a história por mais que seja clichê, o mapa desse game é incrivelmente imersivo e o sistema levíssimo de sobrevivência também é bem agradável, eu adorei ter jogado ele e adorava parar em lugares diversos e totalmente devastados como as Dunas no deserto, o tal Metrô ou Aeroporto abandonado e etc, porque dava gosto de explorar o próprio mapa e sair pegando as tais peças naturalmente pelo game para evoluir características do Max ou da própria Magnum Ops (veículo do Max no game), tudo isso, toda essa ambientação de Mad Max foi uma maravilha de me aventurar como um jogador e recomendo a quem quiser e gostar de um jogo desse gênero, que pelo preço que esse jogo hoje é vendido vale a pena.

Australia really is the worse place to live.

Looking at the game at face value it really is just like any other generic waypoint-based open-world game, where you raid camps, and liberate large areas that allow you to unlock more stuff to use to liberate more areas, and I won't lie to you, after like the 17th hour it got repetitive, and I put 57 hours into this game; but the reason I'm not giving this game as low as say a Ubisoft game is because it does something very few licensed games do with their IP's; make the game feel like you're taking part of the story and world of this character.

Max as a character is nothing more than a broken person just coasting through life waiting for the die where he either dies of old age or someone comes along who's big enough to finally put him out of his misery. As a character, he's nothing special but as a video game protagonist, he's perfect.
He has enough of a blank slate to have players easily understand him, the state he's in, and empathize with Max and see what kind of adventures he goes on, but he has enough wiggle room for more development of the story needs it.

Along with Max being a great protagonist for a video game the world of Mad Max has just as much potential for a video game. Everything from the wild characters to the crazy-looking cars, to the stupid amount of BDSM-wearing lunatics; it's like this world was made just for some big dumb action game to be played.

The game we actually got was kinda what the movies were but not to the outstanding craziness of Road Warrior or Thunderdome. It still looks like Mad Max and the way the open world looks just irradiates the feeling and taste of a dried-up world where everything is dead and nothing can survive. The skyboxes look drop-dead gorgeous at times and the graphics still hold up for a game released in 2015.

The most common complete I see thrown at this game is the story is uninteresting and I get it 100%, but to me the story is the glue that puts literally everything together and
if you take a sec to just look back at all the events that happen in it, I think it fits perfectly as a Mad Max story.

It starts with Max just driving around without any purpose when he finds himself in a place called 'The Great White' controller but random BDSM villain of the week this one by the name of Lord Scrotus, the first thing he does is try to take Max's car and shotgun, Max in return kills half his men and shoves a Chainsaw right into Lord Scrotus's head "supposedly" killing him. Max is left with nothing but soon finds himself being helped by a crazy hunchback named Chumbucket who sees him as a messiah but for cars, Chumbucket then gives Max a new car that you'll be upgrading as the game goes on.
For about 50% of the game Max's only goal is to get to Gastown (the place where the worse of the worse reside) so he can get a v8 engine so he can make his car more powerful and leave The Great White.
Now yeah that sounds boring, having 50% of your 30 or 40 hour-long game be just focused on getting a better engine for your car just feels like it's not really interesting in telling a story, and that's the part that feels so Mad Max to me. Max is a character that has no interest in literally anyone in The Great White, and anyone he does meet along the way he has to help he only does it to further his own goals of getting the new engine. It's not until Max meets this woman and her daughter which brings back long suppress thoughts about his dead wife and daughter does he start doing thing a more traditional hero would do. Like saving the woman from slavery; or rescuing the woman's daughter from a group of crazy cannibals. We watch as Max starts to open himself up just a little bit to where we can see a glimpse of humanity left inside of him.
This is later dashed as Lord Scrotus who is still very much alive and still has a chainsaw in his skill finds out Max is also still alive, and decides that instead of killing Max; he kills this new family he's made to "brake him", this has the complete opposite effect where instead of breaking Max this just reverts Max to his previously broken state only this time he's furious and out for blood. After he find their dead body the first thing he does is get in his car find Lord Scrotus, and then destroys his entire convoy and then sacrifices the car you've been working on for the entire game just to make sure he does. he then rockets out of the exploding convey with Max's old car and tries to run Max down to make sure he dies. Max then throws a spear into his chest and kills him "for real this time". Max gets his old car back, forgets about the woman and her daughter, and goes back on to the empty road, where he'll never find true peace or love, not for a broke and sadistic man like Max.

Even if most of the story is a bit generic and doesn't really do a good enough job at telling itself; it still does a fantastic job at being a Mad Max story.
The tale of a wandering man finding himself in a strange new town, fighting for his life, hoping he'll find some sort of meaning or purpose, only for reality to come crashing down on him.

It's not as deep as Mad Max 1, or as well crafted as Road Warrior or Fury Road, but it is a good Mad Max story, mixed with visuals and scenery that puts you directly into the dried and dead world, and really that's all you can ask for in a Mad Max video game.

After not having much luck getting into ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ on PS5 due to the low FOV I thought I'd give ‘Mad Max’ a try due to the Xbox Series X enhanced features and the high praise the game received.

Unfortunately I couldn’t see myself what people loved about this game. The open world all seemed the exact same, desolate, bleak and lifeless. YES I know that’s the point but this style just didn’t make me want to explore. The exploration I did started to feel very much like a collectathon. I followed the main story as well as looting locations, toppling scarecrows and attacking camps when I could but despite doing all the side missions I could find I found the difficulty ramped up quite quickly as I was being easily killed by enemies. Even when I could fight them it didn’t feel satisfying, it felt like more of a chore.

The award for collecting everything in the world is upgrades for your car of Max himself but all of this seemed confusing to me, not that it was a deep and difficult to understand system, I think I was more caught up with the terminology and the method behind it all.

Another thing I found frustrating was not being able to pause the cutscenes, this meant I often missed out on crucial story information if there was a distraction.

I tried my very best to enjoy the game and give it a chance but nothing I did gave me any excitement for satisfaction. This made the times when I was overwhelmed by enemies much more frustrating as I didn’t feel the game was worth my time so I gave up.

I’m saddened that a game that many people loved and on paper sounds right up my street. Unfortunately though it wasn’t meant to be.

Mad Max is the best comfort food open-world game in the sense that the template is nothing special, but uses that familiarity to make the moment-to-moment gameplay so addictive due to satisfying combat on foot or using your vehicle that makes taking down camps or convoys so gratifying and chipping these down gets you scraps or tokens to upgrade either Max, tools, or vehicle.

The core gameplay loop of Mad Max from start to finish always motivates me to clean up stuff not only because of the rewards but also fun to do so. I haven’t had that dopamine feeling since Far Cry 4 or Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

Unfortunately, it is bogged down by some side missions not being all that fun. Initially, taking down scarecrows or snipers is fun, but it quickly becomes monotonous. It doesn't help that the game loves plastering these more than the camps or convoys. However, these pale in comparison to the mind-numbingly minefield missions. They epitomize the concept of "Stop having fun" and bring down the game more than the forgettable story that I honestly forgot about (although Chumbucket & Griffa are cool).

Nonetheless, the core gameplay loop still holds well together enough that these few stumbles don’t sour the entire package for me. I still mostly had a great time playing this game and can confidently recommend if you aren’t sick of open worlds at this point.