Mad Max

Drive angry.

On his way to cross the Plains of Silence, Max is attacked by Lord Scrotus, a particularly sinister regent of the local wasteland.  Max loses his car and is forced to ally himself with a somewhat insane but talented mechanic in order to get his revenge.

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Recommended Age Minimum Age Available On 16 14 PC, PS4, Xbox One Overall Fun Length Frustration   Violence Sexuality Substances Gambling 7 8 3   8 1 1 0 Mods Religion Anti-Law Community Sports Magic Miscellaneous 0 4 0 0 8 0 1

1.     Gameplay

• Overall Fun - 7

Mad Max is a very straightforward, predictable, repetitive game.  If you don’t enjoy open world exploration and grinding, you will not like this game.  If you play a game just for the main missions and don’t like to spend time on sidequests and other activities, you will not like this game.  Mad Max is to video games what Transformers is to movies; it’s a shallow game with little plot but some great eye candy and simple action-based combat.

Driving a truck with four large fuel tanks into a pillar of flames doesn't seem smart.

The vehicular combat is the clear focus of this game, and it’s probably the one thing that the game does exceptionally.  I don’t think I have ever played a game that is able to replicate this sort of vehicle-based collision mechanics nearly as smoothly.  Fortunately for Mad Max, the vast majority of the player’s time will be spent behind the wheels of the Magnum Opus (Max’s new ride), so the less than stellar elements present in other parts of this game are much less of a factor.

But those less than stellar elements are present nonetheless.  The hand-to-hand combat in this game is easy but extremely repetitive.  The search for scrap and project parts is acceptable but ultimately fairly dull.  Taking down a fortress’ defenses is awesome, but once the defenses are down and you have to enter the fortress on foot it’s a much less interesting experience.  The story, while interesting (and at times awesome), is extremely short.

The vehicular gameplay is top-notch.

And the ending… I can’t even begin to describe how much I hated it.  Without going into any spoilers, there comes a point where the game tells me to do something that I found absolutely vile.  I refused.  For three full minutes I sat motionless waiting for another option to appear.  The game stared back, demanding that I perform the one and only action.  Ultimately, I blinked (I couldn’t finish the game otherwise), but it ruined the experience for me.

If you like open world games and are interested in the vehicular combat (which is spectacular), I recommend this game.  But if you are already short on time or you haven’t played Witcher 3 yet, hold off.

• Length - 8

The campaign of this game is fairly short, but there is plenty to do in the open world.  In total it took me around 36 hours to complete as much as I wanted to do in the game, but there was still plenty more.  If you’re the kind of person that only plays for the main missions, the amount of time you spend here will be fairly minimal.  However, if you enjoy exploring the open landscape and driving around in the cars, there’s easily dozens of hours of gameplay.

• Frustration Factor - 3

Patience is the key to the vehicular combat.  If you take your time and work with the grind, the Magnum Opus will be strong enough to take on almost every enemy.  The game is fairly kind with vehicular combat, but it can go south very quickly if you get hit by some of the higher level enemies.

The ground combat is a bit less predictable.  I always aimed for a 25-hit streak (one punch landed equals one hit), but I frequently fell just a few punches short.  Certain attacks and maneuvers couldn’t be cancelled, so if an enemy decided to attack me while I was hitting another enemy with one of these maneuvers, there was nothing I could do about it.  The trick is that you can’t control when these maneuvers happen, so it’s not like I could just avoid doing them.  It wasn’t game-breaking, but it was annoying.

2.     Parental Notices

• Violence - 8

Violence is by far the most prominent factor in this game, but it is mitigated by the fact that the vast majority of the player’s time will be spent behind the wheel of the Magnum Opus.  Vehicular combat involves plenty of bright explosions and shattered steel, but little blood and no noticeable gore.

Pretty colors.

There may be blood if the player destroys a car that has a driver or passengers onboard, but this is easily lost in the colorful explosions.  If the player hits an enemy, or if an enemy attempts to board the Magnum Opus but misses and hits the optional spikes that the player can equip, a small amount of blood will be briefly visible.  However, I never noticed any gore in any of these events.

The blood disappears quickly.

Violence on foot is less common but can be more graphic.  Punches and kicks, the most common form of attacking an enemy on foot, can result in a small amount of blood but this isn’t particularly obvious.

One more punch to the face.

The player can also shoot enemies with a shotgun, but I didn’t notice any blood from this attack.

Running headlong into a shotgun is not a smart plan.

Gore is present in this game but, for the most part, was far less common than the rest of the violent content.  If an enemy was caught too close to an explosion, it would gib them.  The pieces would disappear quickly, but it was noticeable.  It was especially obvious if the player stuck an enemy with a thunderstick, which could sometimes be found in the combat area.

The limbs are visible in the explosion.

Cutscenes could sometimes feature more gruesome depictions of blood and violence, but these were relatively rare considering their brevity compared to the rest of the content in the game.  By far the most obvious example is in the beginning of the game when Max drives a chainsaw through the skull of Lord Scrotus.

Spoiler alert: Lord Scrotus survives this.

• Sexuality - 1

Sexuality is present in this game but it’s not particularly overt.  The main antagonist, Lord Scrotus, wears a giant fake rhino horn over his crotch, but never makes any obviously sexual remarks or comments.  Similarly, one of the few female characters is described as a “concubine” (in this case they meant as a profession, not as a slur), but they never go into any more detail about this side of her life.

She's more appealing than anyone else in this world, but that isn't saying much.

Sexuality, or really the discussion of sexuality, is just another part of the characters’ insanity.  Boss enemies will occasionally tell Max that they are going to pleasure themselves with his head after they kill him, but they never actually do this.  If it weren’t for elements like this, sexuality would be completely absent from the game.

• Substances - 1

Substances are absent from this game with one exception.  For a few specific missions the player will have to recruit a fighter for a competition.  This fighter is heavily addicted to some sort of vaporous substance and must sober up before the event.

Could be nitrous? Or it could be fuel vapors. In this world it doesn't matter.

Max can eat some revolting things for health.  Dog food, rats, and lizards are some of the more “normal” things.  But eating the maggots out of a corpse?  This doesn’t add to the substances rating, since technically none of them are substances, but still…

Eating maggots out of a dead body? No thanks.

• Gambling - 0

Gambling is not a factor in this game.

3.     Other Factors

• Mods - 0

There are no modding tools available for this game.

• Religion - 4

Chumbucket, Max’ loyal mechanic companion in this game, is obsessed with Max and the Magnum Opus (Max’s car) to the point of religious zeal.  He refers to Max as “The Saint”, the car as “The Angel”, and plans/schematics like they’re verses.  These religious references are repeated numerous times as the player is driving around, so it’s impossible to miss.  However, Chumbucket is the only person that subscribes to this belief, so it’s not organized in any way.

There is at least one organized cult though.  There may be more, but the most obvious one is the Cult of the Eternal Flame, which the player can find towards the end of the game.  Since they occupy one of the four strongholds in this game, they’ll be impossible to miss.  Their leader is dressed in what seems to be religious garb and the followers pray before an altar at one end of the stronghold.  Their religion is briefly discussed in some cutscenes and conversations, but it isn’t a prominent factor outside of the stronghold.

Surprisingly, this guy is not an enemy.

• Anti-Law - 0

Anti-law is not a factor in this game.

• Online Community - 0

Other than the racing leaderboards, there are no multiplayer components to this game.

• Extreme Sports - 8

Extreme sports is an obvious factor in this game.  The player will drive the Magnum Opus with complete and utter disregard for the laws of physics.  In real life, driving over rocks, hitting large boulders, or side-slamming another car would quickly leave the vehicle in a crumpled heap on the side of the road.  But in Mad Max this is done every few feet.

Don't worry, the Magnum Opus will be fine.

This doesn’t even begin to cover the races, gigantic jumps, and other stunts the player can perform.  The Magnum Opus can fly hundreds of feet into the air, land on the ground with an earth-shattering thud, and continue driving as if it were nothing.

Blasting off into orbit!

On foot Max is much more grounded.  The only time when the player can perform anything extreme is when Max uses his shotgun, a metal fuel tank, or other similar objects to slide down a zipline.

Ziplining with a fuel tank? Unsafe and very likely impossible.

• Magic - 0

I debated whether or not to include the mystic Griffa in this category, but since he never does anything distinctly magical, magic is not a factor in this game.

• Miscellaneous - 1

Torture

Towards the end of the game, Max’s loyal companion Chumbucket is captured by Lord Scrotus and tortured for information.  The torture itself is never seen, but Max finds Chumbucket bloodied and on the ground.

Poor old faithful Chumbucket.

In general, the more insane enemies were heavily disfigured.  The disfigurements could range from as innocuous as Chumbucket's hunchbacked and somewhat scarred appearance to Stank Gum's pierced and mutilated face.

I'd say that probably isn't healthy, but I don't think health is his top priority.