Back when it was announced that Avalanche will be developing a Mad Max I started to get really excited. Just Cause 2 is one of the most fun games of the last generation and I'm happy to say that Mad Max is a ton of fun as well. In fact, it is the single most fun game I have played all year.
The hand-to-hand combat is very similar to that of games like Batman, Sleeping Dogs and Shadows of Mordor, but not as fluid as in these games. This is not a bad thing, Max is no Wei Shen or Batman. He is not as skilled a martial artist and he can't move about as quickly, but his hits feel much harder than that of the other games. The combat has a really crunchy, brutal feel to it and you can feel the impact of each hit.
The car combat in this game truly is something special. It really is a great deal of fun to take on a convoy of about 5 - 7 cars and start taking them out one by one with all the weapons at your disposal. There is the harpoon, which can be used in various ways such as pulling doors or wheels of the cars or pulling a driver straight out of his car. Then you also have sideburners, which go through enemy armour like a hot knife through butter, thunderpoon, which is basically an explosive spear, and Max's iconic shotgun,, which can be used to kill drivers, take out tires or gas tanks, etc. No encounter feels the same and the impact when you hit another car is awesome. The explosions also look and feel really awesome, the game enters slow motion for a few moments when you hit something which makes it feel even better.
The game also has a pretty robust upgrade system for both Max and the Magnum Opus (the car). Almost everything you do gives you scrap which can then be used to upgrade both Max and Opus. For Max you unlock things like knuckle dusters, extra ammo capacity, new outfits (which mean better armour), etc. For the Opus it is things like new engine parts, new weapons, more armour, paint jobs, nitrous etc. There is also a legend system for Max which provides additional upgrades. While you're playing, the game is constantly tracking your progress with behind the scenes challenges and each time you complete a challenge you gain a legend rank as well as an upgrade token, which can be used at a special vendor you can find in the world who will then give you upgrades such as more health, more melee damage, extra healing from food, etc. in exchange for the tokens.
The game is not without it's problems though. Side content can become repetitive and while this is an issue for some, I'm having so much fun with the game that I really don't mind the repetitive nature of the side content. Looting scavenging locations and taking out enemy camps is still as fun as it was the first time I did it. I also encountered one or two technical issues such as frame rate drops and other glitches/bugs. It's also really strange that you take more damage from being hit by enemy than being hit by car.
I enjoyed the game so much on PS4 that I decided to buy a copy on PC as well, and I'm very happy to report that the game runs at an almost solid 60FPS (drops to between 45 - 55 at points), on my crappy PC that doesn't even meet the minimum requirements. This is definitely one of the better PC ports in recent history.
TL;DR If you like having fun in a massive open world, get this game now. 9/10
