MAX MAX VIDEO REVIEW - SCRIPT (Patreon)

Hola. I know not everyone enjoys the Digi2000 YouTube channel - and that's fine. As I've said, and as you've hopefully noticed, the written content isn't going anywhere. But I'm going to carry on doing the odd little video here and there - partly to see if/hope I can get better at it, and partly because I enjoy the editing.

But anyhow... as a bonus... here's a text version of the above Mad Max Video Review what I done this week.

MAD MAX REVIEW – A TALE OF TWO GAMES

Once upon a time licensed video games were something we just had to suffer through. They were games made for idiots, who didn’t think anything was worth playing unless it was somehow familiar to them.

“Duh huh wha? Me no want to play dis game. Me no know who dese characters are.”

Nowadays things are slightly different.

Admittedly, not every game based upon a major license is a classic, but for

every Star Trek there is an Arkham Asylum. For gamers life is no longer the

minefield it once was, unless you happen to live in a log cabin in the former

Yugoslavia.

Now let’s talk about Mad Max. Based upon what

is arguably the best movie of 2015 so far, it had a lot to live up to.

Unfortunately for developer Avalanche Studios it wasn’t only competing with its

own brand. Mad Max was released the same week as Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom

Pain… arguably the best game of 2015 so far.

What makes the comparison so acute here is that – superficially – Mad Max and The Phantom Pain share a number of similarities. It’s as if somebody released a painting of a sullen, eyebrow-less woman called the Bona Lisa the same day Da Vinci unveiled his most famous work.

Both games feature sprawling, open world desert environments. Both look great. Both have a cast of extreme characters with stupid names. Both feature elements of customisation, and give the player the option to play aggressively or stealthily when assaulting enemy outposts.

Both boast a dog sidkick, and both require a fair degree of faffying around

with binoculars.

But where The Phantom Pain feels like a sandbox filled with the best toys in the world – like unwrapping a massive present full of drones, and remote controlled cars, and action figures, and spud guns, and whoopee cushions - Mad Max feels like it wants to restrict your fun, like there’s a strict parent standing over you with his arms folded, tapping his watch, and shaking his head.

All the elements are there for Mad Max to be every bit as fun and over-the-top as The Phantom Pain. A post-apocalyptic, car-based combat game, featuring a character called Scabrous Scrotus should be a massive laugh, not a massive chore.

Missions lack the scope of approach that Phantom Pain enjoys – too often you’re funnelled towards using the tactics that the game demands. But what really cripples things is how sluggish it feels to play. Controls lack the sort of slickness and intuitiveness that allows you to forget about them. Everything feels like a grind, whether it’s trying to punch a war boy in the neck, or getting in and out of vehicles, or picking up yet another fuel can – which you’ll be doing a lot of.

Because Mad Max is a slave to its parent movie franchise, it exists in a world that is falling apart. You’ll spend much of the game working to gather scrap, and fuel, and ammo, or… stuff, or waiting for your car to be fixed, when all you want to do is be out enjoying yourself.

If they wanted to make a game that reflects our life then hats off to them. But

we have enough of that already. We want to play a macho, gung-ho, over-the-top

power fantasy in whatever way takes our fancy. Basically, we want to play The

Phantom Pain.

And that’s proabbyl the biggest problem with Mad Max. It’s not that it’s bad – it’s just okay. But being released in a week, in an era, where The Phantom Pain has managed to redefine these sort of increasingly humungous, open-world, non-linear romps. What we don’t want is the exactly same sort of thing… but cuffed by its ankle to a burning car.

Consequently, however much work has gone into this – and it is a lovely looking game, make no mistake – Mad Max is utterly redundant.