Mad Max

Mad Max doesn’t break a new mold for open world games or feel like an epic cinematic experience, but it’s nowhere near being a cheap movie tie-in either.

It's a solid free roaming experience, and, in some ways, it is really faithful to the "Mad Max" typical style. It gets really repetitive quite soon, though, and the storyline looses momentum from halfway through.

Mad Max manages to translate the vibe of the movies perfectly, but, unfortunately, that makes for a monotonous game. A bit like last year’s Shadow of Mordor.

There’s a lot here – a lot of scrap to collect and cars to push off the side of the road – but nothing gluing it all together. [December 2015, p75]

Clunky car and melee combat, an often visually stunning wasteland, and a funny sidekick make this a solid open-world, albeit one that runs out of gas mid-journey. [Nov 2015, p.103]

An almost equal number of significant pros and cons make Mad Max an interesting and polarizing title. Ultimately, it's a game I would recommend, but with some due caution as described in the article.

Avalanche Studios is known for creating a series of games that are incredibly entertaining, but Mad Max doesn’t have that same kind of pull. It isn’t a bad game and there is entertainment to be had, but the lack of variety in this world and some drawn out moments keep it from greatness.

A fun open-world action title spoiled by its repetitive mechanics and some questionable game design choices.

Despite the mundane plot, there’s plenty to do and distract yourself with within the game world and any fan of the Mad Max franchise will definitely get the Mad Max experience they want from this game.

While it's a jack of all trades and master of none, there is a distinct charm inherent with Avalanche Studios' take on Mad Max and provided you can get it cheaper than its full price listing you could certainly do a lot worse.

While it mostly relies on a tried and tired Ubisoft-open-world formula, the exhilarating car combat, the gleeful punk-rock absurdity of its world and the characters that populate it, and its almost flawless presentation make it something more than the sum of its well worn parts.

Mad Max may be a bit of a mixed bag, but the faithful recreation of the film universe, the ridiculous car combat, and loads of content will keep players coming back to the desert for a long time.

Mad Max offers a lot, but ends up feeling somewhat rote, with little in the way of truly new and novel things to do. You've ultimately played the sum of its parts before.

Some of the best car chases in recent gaming memory and a stunning post-apocalyptic world, although when Max gets out of his car he becomes more mediocre than mad.

I did enjoy my time in the wasteland, even if it doesn't offer up a whole lot that we haven't seen before.

Mad Max runs well, has a lot of content and the vehicular combat is fun, but the overall story missions get repetitive fast and it’s easy to lose the drive to play through to completion. I would recommend Mad Max as a rental or wait for a price drop.

Game about building a great car in a post-apocalyptic future. Frenetic fights and great car battles save the game from dull story and repetitive missions. [Issue#256]

The game's highlights hint at a more interesting game that never quite materialises; in the end, Mad Max simply isn't crazy enough. [Nov 2015, p.108]

Mad Max’s inescapable, monotonous looting in a derivative open world can’t justify seeking the sparse instances of break-neck fun behind the wheel. Though there are moments that reach the level of Mad Max: Fury Road, they’re unfortunately too few and far between.

As you wander the desert on the lookout for pieces of scrap, your enjoyment will feel like it's on a downward trajectory the longer that you play. As a result, you'll try to spend as much time as you can racing across its beautifully realised wasteland, while avoiding anything that pulls you from behind the wheel.

Mad Max's greatest strength is in many ways the title's most significant weakness as well. It is immediately familiar, reminding of the Batman titles and Shadow of Mordor - games that I am very much a fan of. Unfortunately on the whole, Mad Max is not as good as those titles either, coming up short in its narrative, controls and combat to create a less engaging overall experience than those titles.

There's tons to do in Mad Max, but most of what you do are the same few things, over and over again. I did it because I felt like I was supposed to, because some piece of my weird brain told me what I was doing was fun.

Mad Max is at its best when you're hurling through the desert with a pack of murderous bandits on your tail, but the on-foot portion of the game feels derivative and largely uninspired.

Mad Max is too much of the one thing and too little of the other. The game does not need a lot of story, and that is exactly what you get; too little story. The action and the way you can cross the beautiful desert landscape are entertaining, but lots of it feels too easy and like work. Mad Max? We'll call this game Meh Max from now on.

Fury Road was a big, expensive, risky film that paid off because of the irrepressible will and talent of its director, George Miller. In video game form, Mad Max lacks that same kind of originality and danger. It’s familiar and formulaic, competent but rarely exceptional. This Max could have used a little more madness.

When it’s at its top, Mad Max is a action packed game, set in a beautiful post apocalyptic world. Unfortunately the combat mechanics, the mission design and the story aren't just there. Mad Max is overall an entertaining game, but it never reaches its full potential.

Mad Max has the basics right and looks great, but beyond the first few hours it's a monotonous grind.

Many missions are not quite interesting and you may encounter some issues with the odd controls, yet you'll probably enjoy driving in the Wasteland, chasing convoys and contemplating wonderful landscapes, thanks to an inspired level design.

An abundance of rough edges, and a weak story, mean that it doesn’t quite go the distance. Avalanche has tuned the engine of the open-world driving genre, but this is certainly no revolution.

Mad Max's combat system is too dumbed down to enjoy, and repetitive activities such as searching for scrap and invading small enemy camps gets old fast. Mad Max offers some great experiences, but for a game that tries to impose the realities of survival on you, it does a poor job of following up on this pressure.

It delivers a vast, meticulously rendered desert with nothing special to see.

If it were released five years ago, Mad Max could have been revolutionary. But it was released in 2015, so Mad Max will be just another open-world adventure lost in the dust.

The best open world games nowadays are an expansion of the form, but Mad Max is highly regressive in far too many areas to be meaningful.

It feels like a game-by-numbers: the straight-to-video spiritual successor to what Shadow Of Mordor did last year.

The game asks one to buy Mad Max as a wasteland messiah whose life, as related by the History Men and Women, consists of spending his best, most sane years playing fetch.

Surviving in a real post-apocalyptic wasteland would be a miserable existence. Mad Max nails that feeling of just wanting to crawl under a rock wait for the end. It's a miserably dull grind, occasionally made bearable by the vehicular carnage once you've suffered through the first half.