E3 2015 Hands On — Mad Max

Mad Max

While At E3 I Got To See Mad Max In A More Intimate Setting Than Just The Trailer. Here’s My Take On It

One of the games that helped start E3 off with a bang, at least for me, was Mad Max from Avalanche Studios. It was revealed back in 2013 before the new film was even a sparkle in our eyes by Avalanche Studios and it captured my attentions back then so I was overly excited to get to see how Mad Max has progressed over the years of development. It launches on September 1^st for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC so hopefully it has made it to a state where we can remove the idea it is a Mad Max film tie-in title. Luckily I was able to lay hands on Mad Max at E3 so I can report back how it has progressed and if it will be worth our time in a few months here.

For the demo I was given I was placed right into the mix of hand to hand combat in Mad Max. Well at least after a very short section of driving and sniping out a few watchtowers in the middle of the Wasteland. I’ll touch on the driving a bit later as it was not the focus at this point. What was the focus was the sniping and shooting mechanics as you lead into the close combat. This began things off with a bit of confusion as by default, and I think you can’t change it, you are required to zoom in with the left bumper and then fire with the ‘B’ button or Circle button depending on platform. In fact this moved into all of the firearms and ranged weapons when aiming and not shooting from the hip.

Thankfully this was short lived in the demo, and I hope controls can be changed in Mad Max, and we closed the distance and jumped right into the combat of the game. At least the hand to hand combat. While it was explained well before the demo began, once I noticed the formula used for Mad Max it became second hat. Too be honest, it felt like Avalanche took the best parts of the Arkham games’ free-flow combat and gave it the visceral feeling of the Mad Max universe. Max didn’t respond as quickly or as fluid as Batman would have as you pressed the attack button and the counter button as the indicators popped up but that gave that extra feel that this was a Mad Max game using great mechanics.

Building off that, unlike the free-flow combat mentioned, in Mad Max when the opportunity arises in the mix of things you can always perform a finishing move to bring down enemies with the quick press of a button. There was no need to build a combo to get to these finishers but just the perfect timing of blocking and countering. It was actually this reason that I spent most of my time in the mix of the hand-to-hand combat of Mad Max and had very little time to see many of the other aspects of the game and the open world of the Wasteland. It is one thing to become lost in the mix of combat because of it being a bog but with Mad Max I was lost in the fun and exciting feel that just the close combat offered for the game.

Of course Mad Max isn’t just about the story and close combat and there is a huge world to “play” in as well as all of the excitement that the vehicles of the world have to offer. It actually takes up a good chunk of Mad Max when playing the game proper but for this demo we were limited in time as well as a bit of space. Even so, the world felt huge as it took me a good minute to drive to the next encampment that needed a good old Mad Max beat down; all while taking on some of the patrolling vehicles in the area with the vehicle combat aspect of the game. I wasn’t able to dig into that all too much but from the small taste I did have it captured the feel of the universe and the gameplay mechanics we could all have been hoping for in Mad Max. I just wish I didn’t have to come to a complete stop to have Chumbucket fix up the car’s damage.

If I didn’t know better I would have thought that Avalanche Studios used the Arkham games as a basis and it was an amazing idea for Mad Max. I didn’t want to give up my game time nor the demo and that is always a good sign for a game out there. Even if it was all free-roam and non-story progressing it was fun and made me even more excited for Mad Max to finally launch in a few months. Even if it isn’t linked at all to the films I see it doing just as well if not better given how video games normally roll. Mad Max is in the must own category for me now; as if it wasn’t before. Now for the grueling wait and look ahead for more from Mad Max. We’ll have it all here so keep an eye on the site for it.