Sunday, February 28, 2021

Mad Max Game Analysis

You can find the video version of this analysis here.

Overview

Mad Max is an open world action driving/brawler hybrid based in the Mad Max universe created by George Miller in 1979. The Swedish company Avalanche Studios started development from 2012 and it was published by Warner Bros in 2015.

Formal Elements

Players

You play as the eponymous Max, a former Australian police officer who lost his wife and children to a violent gang attack in a future Australia where society's rules are crumbling. Although undoubtedly inspired by earlier figures like Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name, Max has been a huge influence on later lone anti-hero figures in cinema: Riddick and The Mariner from Waterworld being two examples.
Max begins the game in a similar situation to the film, Mad Max 2: He is driving his famous Interceptor car across the wasteland searching for enough fuel to cross the Plains of Silence. He is suddenly attacked by the main villain, Scabrous Scrotus, a son of the villain from the movie Mad Max: Fury Road, Immortan Joe. Although it appears that Max kills Scrotus, Scrotus' followers take Max's car and leave him for dead.
Following the characterization in Mad Max: Fury Road, Max has visions and has been driven over the edge by a combination of his traumatic experiences and the isolation involved in post-apocalyptic life.
Max is the only playable character in the game, and it is primarily a single-player experience, although there are some racing activities which can be completed together with friends online.

Rules

Combat and Movement

The combat of Mad Max has been heavily inspired by the Batman Arkham series developed by Rocksteady Studios. Similar to that series, Max can pummel wastelanders using his fists, counter their regular attacks, dodge their unblockable attacks, and use his shotgun to deal massive damage quickly. The shotgun replaces Batman's larger arsenal of tools such as the batclaw, batarang, and others.
As you counter, finish, and attack enemies successfully, you build up a combo counter that can send Max into a "Fury" mode, where your attacks deal more damage. Failing a counter or taking damage resets the combo counter. Like in the Arkham series, enemies come in a decent variety that force the player to use certain strategies against them. Your typical grunts can be wailed on to your heart's content, but shiv-wielders are fast and will dodge your attacks, forcing you to wait for their attack in order to counter them. Brawlers will block your attacks, and attack in heavy-hitting two punch combos or in unblockable grapples that pin you for their friends to take advantage of. Enemies with a larger weapon such as a club, axe, or machete attack more rarely than the other types, and can sometimes be tricked into taking out some of their friends with their wild swings. These weapons can be picked up and used until they break, or dropped at any time. Using your shotgun will automatically drop them. Shield carrying enemies have a number of unblockable attacks, and their shield must be destroyed before you can do damage to them. One last interesting enemy type is the warcrier, who is suspended above the battle and beats on a drum while exhorting the other enemies to attack you. This fills a meter that makes them "inspired," dealing more damage.
Where Mad Max departs from Batman is in the embrace of certain timing based elements and in lethality. For example, in the Batman Arkham series, as long as the distance and timing are within certain limits, you can counter any enemy. In Mad Max, however, Max does not have Batman's athletic training and will not zip around the combat arena, so you must be more aware of the distance between you and the enemy you wish to counter, and you must also take into account timing. You can trigger some special abilities if you match the timing of your counter "perfectly." On the other hand, you can take a small amount of damage but still block the attack if you bungle the timing. This is similar to the "active reload" feature of the Gears of War games, and adds a further element of challenge and mastery to the combat.
The shotgun Max carries allows him to quickly kill a single unarmored enemy, or to eliminate an enemy in an unreachable position. However, ammo is quite rare, and you can only hold a small number of shells at a time. The second element of lethality is the shivs that Max can pick up from knife wielding enemies and around bases. These can be used to finish off a stunned or downed enemy.
Another departure, in this case negative, is in the animation system itself. In the Batman Arkham series, the enemies' animations are all locked to Batman's state. So, if Batman is in the middle of a punishing finisher move, no enemies can attack you. This creates a feeling of reliability while in combat, because you can always count on being "safe" when you enter an attack or move with a long animation time. In Mad Max, they made the same mistake as CD Projekt Red did in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt: they try to combine the cinematic feeling of the Arkham series with the more realistic enemy attack timing of Dark Souls. This means that during many of your inescapable animations, you can still be attacked by enemies. During my 40+ hours with the game, I found few reliable animations that would 100% of the time prevent enemies from attacking me. The Wall Slam or Wall Finisher animations were most reliable, but even these sometimes do not block enemies. I'm not sure if this was deliberate, in order to create a feeling of unease in the player, or if this is simply the animation systems not communicating effectively. While you get used to this uncertainty, it detracted from my enjoyment of the combat.
The game features an autosave system that prevents you from losing too much progress if you die. For example, while trying to clear an enemy base, you might face between 3-5 groups of enemies, each with different numbers and types - one group of two grunts, a knife-fighter, and 3 brawlers, another group of 2 shield-carriers, a brawler, and 5 grunts, etc. If you die on any group, the previous groups you've faced will remain defeated, and any scrap, objectives, or collectibles you've picked up will remain cleared. You will respawn just outside the base and have to make your way back to the group you died on.
Outside of combat, Max can walk and run around, jump and climb on different structural elements. Due to the size and emptiness of the game world, it is best traversed using a vehicle. The different scavenging locations and bases often feature ladders, zip-lines, and climbable elements marked in strong contrastive colors to signal that they are climbable. If it is not marked in this color, Max's extremely low jump probably will not clear it.
On to vehicle movement and combat. The vehicles interact with the world in mostly realistic ways. The tires grip asphalt and slide through the sand, rocks bump you into the air. By default there is roll assist, which mostly prevents the cars from flipping over, although I did manage to get the car stuck on its side once or twice. As you drive, the fuel tank will slowly drain, but this can be refilled at a base if you have the appropriate upgrade, or you can collect gas canisters at enemy bases or other scavenging spots. You can modify your main car in a large number of ways. There are several car bodies to find throughout the game, and these change the overall look of the car, but then there are the performance modifiers. You can install different upgraded versions of a V6 or eventually V8 engine, which influences your top speed, acceleration and handling; armor, which protects you from enemy cars and increases the weight (slowing the car down and reducing acceleration and handling), different rams, suspension systems and exhaust, different tires for asphalt or sand, rims that damage cars you grind against, and lots more. For weapons, there is a harpoon, used to latch onto structures and vehicles to rip away armor, doors, or wheels; a thunderpoon, which is an explosive rocket weapon, a sniper rifle for taking out snipers in towers, and flamethrowers mounted on the side of your car to damage enemies next to you. There are also cosmetic changes, such color, decals and both front and rear ornaments.
Driving around the map is a real pleasure. If you reach max speed, you can hear the wind whooshing by, and car generates wind particle effects as you barrel down the mostly abandoned highways. The engine revs up, and you get a bit of tunnel vision as well from the camera changing the field of view. At the beginning of the game, your car, the Magnum Opus, will be quite weak, and you will have to disengage from enemies more often than you engage them. At a certain point, the tables are turned and you will become something of a hunter, actively taking out groups of roving bandits or convoys. You can ram into cars or enemies on foot, and you'll get a damage boost if you use your nitro, or you could use your shotgun, harpoon, and thunderpoon. Sometimes cars with loads of extra enemies will pull up besides you and the enemies will leap over to your car and try to attack you as you drive. You can even ricochet between cars on either side of you as you smash their doors and remove their armor plating.
On the subject of damage, once your car reaches zero "health," you will have 5 seconds to get out before it explodes. If you don't make it out, your car will explode, taking you out with it. If you do, you have a few options. If you are driving your Magnum Opus, your BlackFinger Chumbucket will begin to repair it. You'll have to wait until the car's "health" reaches halfway before you can hop in and continue. If you are driving another car, you'll have the option of spending a certain amount of scrap to repair it instantly, as Chumbucket is only available in the Magnum Opus. If you die outside of an enemy base, you will be returned to the nearest friendly base.
Returning to driving other cars, it is possible to drive any enemy car, provided you can kill the driver or force him to exit the car. You can then get in and drive it around the world, or drive it back to a friendly base. Doing so will add the car to your garage collection, if you don't already have that car. Once added, you can pick that car from any friendly base any time you wish to venture out into the wasteland. You will be able to fast travel, but doing so automatically switches to your Magnum Opus. One benefit from using an enemy vehicle is this provides a faction-based disguise, unless you get too close to an enemy vehicle. This allows you to avoid conflict with enemy patrols of that faction, and also to drive much closer to an enemy base before they realize what's up.
One final subject that covers both vehicle and melee combat is fire. Some cars are equipped with gasburners or flamethrowers that will temporarily set your car on fire, dealing damage for a few seconds. The same can happen in different areas in the bases. There are often areas that are blocked off by a constant stream of burning gas, and if you make contact with it it will set Max on fire for a few seconds and deal massive amounts of damage. You can use this same principle on enemies, and either knock them into the fire or lure them into it.

Base Development

As you play the game, you will encounter a number of different bases led by friendly factions. You can perform a certain number of missions for them that will unlock special benefits for you, and you can also explore the map to find specific items which can be used in base development. For example, you might need four special items in order to build a water collection system. As water and food allow you to refill your health bar, having this system refills your water canteen automatically when you visit the base. You can travel to the locations marked on your map, pick up the items, and return to the base to build the system. There is a time limit on the frequency of refilling, however, so you can only refill your canteen about every 30 minutes.
Besides a water collection system, there are many others. For example, you can build a maggot farm to refill your health automatically, a clean up crew to collect any scrap from vehicles you destroy in the region, and a oil reserve to refill the fuel on your car.
Combat is impossible in friendly areas. These friendly bases are filled with NPCs who are immune to your attacks. Every other area of the game is considered hostile.

Inventory

Mad Max has an extremely simple inventory system. You always carry your shotgun, and you can pick up a limited number of shells and shivs to use in combat. Any scrap or ammo for your car weapons is automatically transferred, although like your shotgun, you have limited slots for your car weapons' ammo and cannot store any extra. There is no item management or even inventory screen.

Region Management

Each friendly base controls a region divided into several territories. Each territory has a number of minefields, enemy camps, convoys, sniper towers, totems and race locations. Completing races will unlock new cars for your base, while clearing the other challenges will reduce the threat in the region. Reducing the threat makes it safer to travel through the region, with fewer enemies spawned in as you drive around. Reducing the threat is also critical for unlocking certain upgrades, and advancing the story in some places.

Procedures

Complete a mission

These are relatively simple in structure, and usually involve killing a particular enemy or destroying a camp, or going to a location and finding an item. You might have to complete a race or speak with an NPC as part of the mission, but these serve to add spice. All missions advance the main story of Max's quest to get his V8 back, and eventually cross the plains of silence.

Scavenge

Scrap is critical for upgrading the bases and the Magnum Opus. You will collect a large amount of scrap by clearing bases, destroying enemy vehicles, and in the early game, by finding locations marked as scrap sites.

Eliminate a convoy

Enemy convoys are large groups of cars with one main vehicle being protected. These patrol set routes, and can be really challenging to take out, especially in the early when your Magnum Opus does not have much armor or offensive ability. Once a convoy has been eliminated, you can pick up an ornamental object for your car, and the threat level in the region will be reduced.

Clear an enemy camp

Camps come in several varieties. The main enemy camp in any region will house a "Top Dog," which will be a reskinned version of Scabrous Scrotus himself. They all fight in almost the same way, have the same animations, and can be tackled with almost the same strategy: bait them into charging, dodge, then wail. Rinse and repeat. There is very little variety here.
Another camp type is an extended brawl. You will face a number of groups from Stank Gum's Legion, and you just have to kill all of them. Two other camps are oil pump camps, and transfer tank camps. The objective of these is to destroy either the tanks or the pumps. You will also find a number of scrap items, ammo, food, water, and base parts for you to collect, and Scabrous insignia for you to destroy. These are optional, but with the exception of the insignia, all benefit you.
Camps have a number of navigational challenges or puzzles associated with them. You might have to lower a bridge whose winch is on the oppsite side, or you might have to locate the trigger to turn off a gas flame that is blocking your path. These serve to break up the combat challenges and add a bit of variety.
As a prelude to actually clearing the base, you can often speak with an NPC placed outside it who will give you extra information, such as defenses, what to expect inside, and secret ways in. Also, the bases often have different types of defenses: snipers, towers that launch grenades, flame throwers that block the entrance, etc. Similarly to the warcrier's effects on enemies, spending a long time with these defenses aware of you will increase a defense meter. Once filled, the defenses will become supercharged, dealing more damage and more actively attacking you.
As you continue playing, you will be dependent on these camps. After you clear them, friendly NPCs move in and take over, much like in the cleared villages in The Witcher III. Every 20-30 minutes, they will gather scrap that is deposited in your account for you to use however you want. Near the endgame, you will receive around 200-400 scrap at a time.

Clear a mine field

Mine fields are both interesting and somewhat annoying in this game. Unlike most games with mine clearing, the mines are actually invisible until detected. You need to use a special vehicle, Chumbucket's buggy, in order to detect them. The buggy has a dog, who you encounter and rescue from Chumbucket at the beginning of the game. The dog will bark and face the direction of the nearest mine, and when you get close enough it will be revealed for you to disarm. Although novel, there are two problems with the implementation of this mechanic. First, you cannot fast travel with any car except the Magnum Opus, so if you fast travel with the buggy from anywhere to the nearest fast travel option, you will automatically switch to the Magnum Opus, defeating the purpose of using the buggy in the first place. The second is the sheer number of minefields. Most territories have two minefields, and each minefield has between 2-3 mines. 14 territories times 2 minefields times 3 mines is 84 mines! To summarize, you'll have to drive around in a very weak and exposed vehicle to the minefield, assuming you have already located it, then slowly putter around listening to your dog bark and watching which way he is facing until a mine is revealed. While this is interesting the first few times, 28 mine fields is a bit much.

Complete a race

As mentioned before, sometimes completing a race will be necessary in order to progress the story. There are a few different kinds. One is simply to reach the finish line before anyone else, while another is a checkpoint based race: there are a number of lines of barrels set across the race track at different points, and at each line you must smash into one barrel before continuing.

Reveal a region

There are 11 air balloons scattered over the world map. Once accessed, these function as fast travel locations. Very often these will be guarded, and sometimes you will have to make the air balloon functional again. For instance, once or twice you will find one that needs to be fueled up, and there will be no fuel canister in the area, so you will have to use a spare from your car if you have one, or you will have to go and find one then return. Once up in the air, you can use your binoculars to reveal different locations on the map, and to reveal the name of the region as a whole.

Level up

Mad Max has a rather unique leveling system. Max has ten abilities, each with ten levels. In order to level up his abilities, you need to complete challenges. A challenge is basically set up as a condition: for example, collect 45000 total scrap in your playthrough, or defeat 10 Scrotus vehicles. Some of these, by their nature, are repeatable, like the second one. Others, such as completing all the base projects for all bases or for one particular base, can only be completed once. Each time you complete a challenge, you are rewarded with a Griffa point and an increase to your legend level as well. It seems that your legend level controls several aspects of the game: you can only get access to some upgrades for your car after reaching a set legend level, for example.
Griffa, it is implied, is one of Max's hallucinations. In order to level up your abilities, you must travel to one of Griffa's locations, which are marked on the map. There, he will engage in some dialogue, and then you may upgrade your abilities. These include increasing your health bar, receiving bonus water from water collection sites, increasing the amount of health you gain by eating food, gaining extra scrap when you collect it, using fuel more efficiently, and several combat related abilities, like increasing your damage with a melee weapon or making melee weapons last longer before they break.

Manage a base

In keeping with the Mad Max ethos, there is not much for you to do in managing a base. Unlike Metal Gear Solid V, you will not assign staff to different departments, nor will you need to make sure income is sufficient. All you need to do is collect the appropriate parts out in the wasteland, bring them back when you have them all, and build the project in the base. Besides the in-game benefits of doing so, it feels really satisfying to see each base progress from an absolute shit-hole to...well, not paradise, but a less shittier hole, at least.

Upgrade the Magnum Opus

At the beginning of the game, it will be quite basic and weak, but you can unlock rams, armor plating, new weapons, nitro boosters, and many more. Most of these just require scrap, but often have a game wide condition as well. This could be completing a story mission, or reducing the threat level in region below a certain threshold.

Weather a storm

Similarly to the massive sandstorm in Mad Max: Fury Road, sandstorms will frequently appear in different areas of the map. It is sometimes possible to evade them by driving outside their range, or even more simply by seeking shelter in a friendly base. These storms are dramatic and deadly. The sky darkens, lightening flashes down across the landscape, the normally quite soundscape is replaced by mad howling and blowing, you can barely see anything, and huge pieces of debris are whipped around which can lay Max out and kill him, and which (thankfully) only slightly damage the car.

Resources

There are a number of different resources.
  • Max's health: Self-explanatory.
  • Max's canteen: Holds a limited amount of water. You can collect this from water collection devices spread around bases and scrap locations. You can drink from this to restore some of Max's health.
  • Max's stats: Max has a number of abilities and stats that can be upgraded in different ways. Similar to the way that the Magnum Opus can be upgraded in the garage at any time, Max's gloves, jacket, shotgun, and fighting special abilities can be upgraded and unlocked using scrap. As discussed above, by completing challenges you get Griffa tokens, which you can take to Griffa's location and upgrade his health, etc.
  • Max's shotgun ammo: Really scarce, and useful in particular circumstances.
  • Max's Shiv ammo: Dito.
  • Car's health: Chumbucket will repair this automatically whenever get out and explore. Your car cannot be repeated while it is in motion.
  • Car's stats: Discussed above.
  • Car weapon ammo: Can be found in bases, and also replenished if you have the armory upgrades in a friendly base.
  • Region threat level: This is controlled by the number of threats in the region.
  • Base Upgrades: Discussed above.

Conflicts

The main conflicts in terms of game play are how you customize your car. There are a large number of trade-offs. Just as a few examples, let's say you want to build some kind of speed demon, so you max out the engine and exhaust, remove all the armor plating, and front ram. This gives you a light, fast car that will take damage very easily and probably not survive long in a tough fight. On the other hand, maxing out the speed also has a slight negative effect on the handling, so the greater your max speed and acceleration, the more difficult it will be to maintain a good course with such a car.

You could of course go the opposite way, maxing out armor, equipping the heaviest ram. This will make your car much slower, but more able to withstand and to deal damage. You can still have a powerful engine, but due to the weight of the armor and ram, it will be less effective.

For the story, of course the conflict between Max and the enemies is front and center most of the time. He wants his V8 engine so he can continue his insane plan to cross the non-existent Plains of Silence. But, there are a number of lesser conflicts. For example, whenever you level up, Griffa's dialogue speaks about how Max still has his humanity and his desire for friends and family, but Max repeatedly denies this, even as you the player make Max improve all the friendly bases and complete tasks to make their lives better. As the story progresses, it becomes clear to Chumbucket that Max sees him as a means to an end, and plans to install two large gas tanks in the back, leaving Chumbucket no place of his own. This leads to a short-lived conflict between the two of them.

Although never acted upon in the game, there are also conflicts between the different friendly bases. As you wander around them, the NPCs can be heard to say things like "I guess we're now trading with those assholes of Jeet's. I can't wait till we raid one of their convoys" or similar hostile comments.

One final conflict is between Max's goal and Hope. Hope is a slave/concubine that Max encounters in one of the friendly bases early on, and later takes on more significance as Max does a number of missions for her to rescue her daughter, Glory. Max initially denies his own humanity and attraction to her, but eventually risks his own life and his goal to help her.

Boundaries

The world map is surrounded by The Big Nothing, which takes the form of endless dunes and dramatic canyons (presumably once undersea valleys). You can enter this area for short distances but eventually you'll be forced to turn around.
As mentioned before, there are strict limits on inventory. You can only hold so much ammo for your shotgun and your car weapons, and the same goes for water. You can never carry food around: once found, you must either leave it, or eat it immediately.
There are also some limitations on car types. These are restricted to four-wheel vehicles, and only run the range of sedans, muscle cars, pick-ups, and beetles. There are no war rigs like in the movies, no motorcycles, etc.

Outcomes

There is only one basic outcome of the game. You have a final confrontation with Scabrous Scrotus in which he, the Magnum Opus, and Chumbucket all die. Hope was killed previously, as was her daughter, Glory. Max is on his own again, and he has Scabrous Scrotus's car in which to continue his journey.

After this event, you can continue to play the game and destroy enemy bases, complete races, etc. The Magnum Opus and Chumbucket are resurrected for this, which although very gamey, makes sense in terms of gameplay. After all, you can only make use of the Magnum Opus's weapons if Chumbucket is present, and without the weapons it is basically impossible to take down the defenses of a base, eliminate snipers, take down totems, etc.

Dynamic Elements

Besides the elements discussed below, the world of Mad Max is itself somewhat dynamic. As you drive around, you have the chance to encounter Scrotus's patrols, and this probability is affected by the threat level in the region. There is also the chance to encounter a sandstorm, and this seems to be randomly triggered.

Dynamic friction is used in many areas. As you unlock higher and higher upgrades for Max's combat abilities, and for his car, the prices in scrap of course increase.

This manifests in the Fury Meter you have during combat. This is set on a timer, so it will inevitably empty and you will have to continue your combos in order to fill it again.

The main manifestation of this is the car customization. As mentioned before, you can create a large variety of cars that fit your play style.

The stopping mechanism is used to prevent the player from abusing the base upgrades and the Magnum Opus weapons. The weapons all have a limited amount of ammo, and there is a several second delay between uses of the weapons. As for the bases, there is a 20-30 minute delay between refill times.

 

Dramatic Elements

Characters and Story

The story does not follow any of the movies or other media exactly, but takes heavy inspiration from almost all of them, especially from the third movie and from the comic book series prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road. As an example, in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, there is one character called Blackfinger, and in the game this is expanded out into a huge cult or religion of car worshiping mechanics whose fingers are of course black from working with grease all day.

Max has already been discussed at some length, as has his mechanic/blackfinger, Chumbucket. Other characters are Jeet, Deep Friah, Gut Gash and Pink Eye. These are the leaders of the friendly bases, and you can learn a little about them through dialogue and by completing missions. Crow Dazzle is the MC for the races, and for enemies you have Stank Gum and Scabrous Scrotus. We don't really learn much about the main villains. Stank Gum likes to wear people's skins, and Scabrous is just a big evil dude who took your car, and also happens to be one of Immortan Joe's sons. As mentioned before, the "top dog" enemies are all just reskinned versions of Scrotus, so there is very little personality there.
Last of all there are Hope and Glory. These appear to be non-canon versions of characters with the same names from the comic book series.
In terms of the actual story, while rich in lore and environmental details, the plot is very lite. Following being left for dead and having your V8 engine stolen, you quickly find Scrotus's dog, which Chumbucket is about to eat. Max saves the dog, and you and Chumbucket team up. Chumbucket agrees to be your mechanic in exchange for help finding parts for his Magnum Opus, a car that he is building and one which he attends to with religious and sexual devotion. To get the parts, you need to scavenge locations under the control of different groups of War Boys. Along the way, you will do missions for the leaders mentioned above, who will often give you information or weapons that enable your further progress.
Eventually,you will make it to Gas Town, compete in a race and Thunderdome style duel in order to get the V8, only to discover that Scrotus was still alive. He recognizes you, and you must fight him. This proves too much for Max, and Hope must rescue you. This triggers a number of missions to reunite Hope and her daughter, Glory. This also brings to a head the situation with Chumbucket: now that Max has what he needs, he no longer wants Chumbucket's company, and this triggers a break between the two. Max must leave to find Chumbucket, who has stolen the Magnum Opus. While Max is away, Scrotus and Stank Gum torture Chumbucket, and discover the location of Hope and Glory. When Max finds Chumbucket, Scrotus has already left, but Stank Gum is still there. Max kills Stank Gum, and returns to find Glory and Hope dead.
Chumbucket and Max team up one more time to kill Scrotus. After destroying Scrotus's convoy, you will have to use the Magnum Opus to push him over the edge of a cliff. Chumbucket refuses to leave the car, and so all three (Chumbucket, Scrotus, and the Magnum Opus) die.

Conclusion

Mad Max lacks a lot of elements that other open world games have. You won't find any animal skins to hunt and craft into holsters or pouches. You won't find any plants to collect and craft into medicines. You won't have any reputation tracking or a morality system. Nor will you be tasked with tracking down 11 different kinds of useless collectible objects. You will not be running out of energy and be forced to stop what you are doing to get some food, or suddenly become thirsty and need water, since this is not a survival game.
The main word that comes to mind as I wrap up this analysis is focus. Avalanche Studios has taken an iconic IP, and stripped it down to its barest essentials, and developed each one to the fullest. Mad Max, as a world, is about beating the shit out of bad guys and driving through a desolate landscape, and this game delivers that in spades. You get a great, although somewhat flawed, melee combat system, and you get great driving and vehicular combat. The story stays true to the ethos of the originals, and the design of the characters and world is excellent throughout. In terms of character and enemy design, my only bone to pick is with the lack of variety in the Top Dog Enemies.
Like a tough survivor out of the wasteland, Mad Max the game has been stripped of fat and is a lean experience. Even 5 years after its release, it remains a great play and a game well-worth your time.