On a bit of a whim I bought Mad Max. After a couple of hours playing these are my impressions.
Warner Bros games seem to have a bit of a formula with the controls very similar to the Batman Arkham games, and Shadow of Mordor. This sets it in good company as I found both to be good, enjoyable and in the case of the later, pretty brutal.
Max doesn’t feel quite as smooth or refined as either with it’s controls. Combat, early on at least, feels a little less controlled. It’s a bit of a half way between the free flowing mechanics of past titles and the sometimes frustrating Sleeping Dogs. That said, it is usable and the familiarity of it makes it relatively easy to jump into.
Outside of combat things are a bit hit and miss. General movment is fine, but Max has an inability to climb other than over specific climbale blocks. It feels more lazy than inhibiting. But in a world with little in terms of arcitecture, it’s passable.
Sprinting is marginally faster than general running. And right button (on xbox at least) feels the wrong way to trigger it somehow. At this stage, firing a gun is a stationary task too, but not in a good way like old Resident Evil games.
Your car – the Magnum Opus – has handling that leaves much to be desired. It lacks a handbrake – I think – and is just a little hard to control at speed. If it looks like you are going to crash, no amount of evasive action with prevent it. The side swipe, similar to that of the Batmobile in Arkham Knight, seemingly has no affect on foes.
You do get weapons on the car, so far I have a harpoon and a sniper rifle. The sniper does exactly as you’d expect; long range and deadly.
The harpoon has some nice touches, like dragging an enemy from their car or the lookout before towing them along like something from a Western.
The story thus far has felt a litle disjointed. So to was the case in Shadows of Mordor and once I’d figured out the side missions there it was a lot of fun. I’m hoping this turns out in a similar way.
The location feels sparse. Really sparse. Which is a good thing. Large sprawling wastelands hide pickups. Ammo is really limited at this stage making the decision to whip out your shotgun very much a last resort measure than a first choice attack.
There are lots of side missions, but so far they feel less side and more required as there are blockers to the story until you have collected enough scrap to attain certain upgrades.
It is, so far, a game that’ll go one of two ways. Either fluish into something I’ll enjoy, or become frustrating and be left on the shelf when something better comes along. If it’s not completed by the time Rise of the Tomb Raider or Star Wars Battlefront are released, I fear it never will be!