Movie-tie[en.wikipedia.org] in video games are a dime a dozen, so when a question arises in 2013 if Mad Max is considered one, a senior game designer Emil Krafting told Joystiq.

"It is a standalone experience," followed by “From the get-go that's how we wanted it, because movie tie-in games tend to be quite bad, and we really want to be wary of heading there. We wanted to create the game with a game experience as the primary focus, and we want core gamers to be able to enjoy this game. We want to enjoy the game ourselves. We want to make a game that we want to play.”

While tie-in games do tend to hit the negative spectrum(at least in my limited experience), I firmly believe there are still avenues to appreciate them, whether they’re good/faithful tie-ins or not depends ultimately on the experience of the user. In the case of the 2015 title by Avalanche Studios, I found myself beset with numerous issues clashing against loads of firm quality creating a divisive outcome leaning towards a positive range. Yet, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the major red flags severely impacting my experience. I’ll dive into what the title does well before I drive onto my mixed feelings, but first the premise.

Max Rockatanksy is a gruffly serious, middle-aged man who’s been left for dead after a violent encounter in a godforsaken sandy post-apocalyptic wasteland. He stubbornly survives and comes across a hunchback companion, Chumbucket, who tells him of a project called the “Magnum Opus.” To build a hell of a car, intrigued since he lost his own, he joins forces in an uneasy alliance to complete it. All the while, contending against raiders led by Scabrous Scrotus, a man he had a violent clash against. And so goes our adventure through this inhospitable place filled with unruly, violent individuals to create a badass vehicle.

Vehicular combat is black fire magic, like holy hell, I LOVE IT. Been a hot decade since I played: Twisted Metal, Burnout, Vigilante 8, and RAGE, these feature car combat to varying degrees, and Mad Max delivers in driving similar paths, but extra nitro to burn. Hell, the titles I mentioned earlier don’t have an extensive list of upgrades. In Mad Max, you have 18 oily options to customize your car buddy anyway. Want to grind cars by slamming next to them? Equip some spiked tires, Want a harpoon, thunder version, sniper rifle, and flamethrowers? Yo, we can do it! Boost? Bruh, Fast and the Furious ‘family’ Dominic Toretteto got nothing on this, armored up? Son no sweat, we can slap it on there to make your baby a lean green fighting machine!

Sideways on another path, the wasteland is rife with oily rust, sand, and smoke, and workable ramps to leap with your magnum, never gets old boosting off a ramp or baiting unsuspecting fools off a cliff, and speaking of geography, the post-apocalyptic universe is decently crafted translating a film IP into an action-adventure game. The surrounding lands have distinct rocky, rough, smoggy, and sandy textures covering countless abandoned urban and industrial factories littering the landscape along with abandoned small buildings like gas stations, outposts, and broken structures filled with garbage and treasures.

As Max and his side-kick Chumbucket tear through bandits trying to survive and complete their project, you do have the ability to partake in races and clean out the wasteland of undesirables to earn scrap or tokens. Honestly found the upgrading system for my car and personal skills to be useful! There’s a whole range of tiers in either category.

However, I did come across several mixed feelings, not a positive or a negative, but some concerns I had in varying degrees that I felt are worth mentioning for newcomers.

First, I did come across a sizable amount of frame dips and stutters despite my attempts to lower the settings and trying to locate the cause. I feel I'm an outlier since I’ve played their past games and didn’t have any issues before, so clearly something must’ve gone wrong on my side.

Second, story is barebones, except for the climax. Aside from building yer magnum opus and fighting off constant threats against you like Scrotus, while seeing bits and pieces of Max’s stoic personality and hints of his past, finding peace is a challenge for gruffy Max. I spent most of my time roaming the broken dunes fulfilling tasks for warlords in charge of strongholds. Think of these guys as head honchos who control certain sectors of the big overworld. Felt like a servant at times to gather parts for my Opus, not a bad thing mind you, but these severely impacted my playthrough. It wasn’t until the climax happened later on, that I truly felt the game shined a lot along with few unconventional horror segments that I felt were appropriate but was too short to lean into further.

Third, outposts, camps, enemies, and boss battles and a majority of the level design is so repetitive and recycled ad nauseam. Countless times I’ve witnessed the same several blokes trying to fight me using the same old tactics in the same corridors, ladders, and ramparts of a broken outpost, while there are extremely rare instances of a level-making fair use of the texture palette variety, the sheer overwhelming majority of everything else leaves much to be desired.

Fourth, the side-missions offered by warlords in strongholds are weak and don’t offer much except upgrades to your current arsenal which is nice to see a substantial upgrade, but the content more or less dumbs down to fetch/kill quests that don’t offer much in the end, wish the dev’s fleshed these out further like I said above regarding cleaning enemy camps.

Fifth, I felt the Arkham-like combat was barebones. Where the progression of skills and abilities you earn don’t change the playstyle much to offer variety. I'm spamming punches, countering, and using my limited weaponry to combat crazy dull mobs. If I had an extra skill set or kit I think the combat could’ve been elevated higher, sure I could grab fallen weapons off the ground to attack repeatedly and execute finishers, but they break apart sooner or later if I don’t put points in the weapon durability skill tree.

In the end, All the above, creates a hodgepodge of problems turning my enjoyment in the beginning into a half grimace and half satisfaction. I like the gritty post-apocalyptic Mad Max world and the vicious natives always trying to kill me, I like how the film verse was mostly translated into a game verse here, and I love the vehicular driving and serviceable combat. I grin in anticipation for a merciless sandstorm as I tear through the dunes with my vehicle buddy to escape its harrowing clutches and devastating weather effects, it’s a core memory I don’t think will fade from my memories. Reversing course, I don’t like the Ubisoftness of tasks boring me to smithereens, and a story I wish was overhauled to be better. Yet despite these varying mixed feelings I firmly believe the game is fun if you expect it as a mature, slice different from the developers Just Cause days, there is an upgraded effort to maintain a brutal human nature detailing their viciousness versus perseverance to begrudgingly helpful nature I find appreciative. Yes in another universe we could’ve had our ‘perfect’ game or Hideo Kojima take, yet for what it’s worth the 2015 title by Avalanche Studios still deserves praise with some hiccups for unleashing an underrated niche amongst the post-apocalyptic open world brethren. And I for one wish someday in the future another dev will take a shot for the IP, for saint's sake man.

6.5/10

Review severely cut to fit Steam's 8000 character limit. Full review here[www.backloggd.com]

GIVE US A SEQUEL!!!
Such an underrated game, yes it can be repetitive with all the camps and scrap locations, but the car gameplay and combat is brutally good. All recommendation, go support and play this game.
Still hoping one day we'll get a sequel that will expand the lore and be even more awesome. Fingers crossed!

Honestly this game is still worth at least 20 bucks. I have it on XBox, PlayStation and PC. Just a really good all around action adventure with a fun cast and great game play. Still better than 80% of the games that have come out since. This should be in your collection.