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.