L.G.C. |Reviews| — Mad Max

This week your intrepid heroes eat maggots, collect scrap, and play in a post-apocalyptic sandbox. Mad Max faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: Mad Max
Webzone: www.feralinteractive.com/en/games/madmax/

Devel: Avalanche Studios / Feral Interactive
Engine: Avalanche Engine
Price: 29.99 / CDN 39.99

Wazzat: Become Mad Max, the lone warrior in a savage post-apocalyptic world where cars are the key to survival. In this action-packed, open world, third person action game, you must fight to stay alive in The Wasteland, using brutal on-ground and vehicular against vicious gangs of bandits.

Mandatory Disclosure:  Feral made with the Mad Keys


CHAIRQUISITION:
CHAIR– Nooope

CHAIRCHAIR– Not sure if want

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Check it out

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Shutupandtakemymonies


Makes with the working

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Thank FSM!
    • MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STAAAAAAAHP!
  • Never really goes much above 1GB video memory.
  • So, about that DRM?
  • 50/60 while driving about in the open
  • 24/35 in a camp.
  • Settings on High @1080
  • While not perfect it’s beyond playable.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • It’s definitely a Feral port. As in, if you’re looking out at the massive Wasteland your FerPS will average in the 80’s but if you have the gall to drop down into one of those underground bits, where you can literally see only 10ft in front you, the frames will drop down into the 40s.
  • Also, if a storm happens to hit while you’re in a stronghold, better find a safe spot and walk away from the keyboard, because you’ll be lucky if it hovers in the 30s. For me they dipped down into the low 20’s.
  • The lower the visibility, the lower your framerate. We’re living in bizarro world!
  • That could be explained by my FX 8370E and the fact Feral have a deep intrinsic hate for AMD processors, from their Mac porting years.
  • Because the 1080 never went above 50% GPU utilization.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Shiny / Sounds

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Say what you will about WB (we’ve said a lot) but man do they know how to make a pretty game.
  • Ironically most of the eye candy is seen driving about the desert.
  • Not to the say the bases/ships look bad but they are all a bit on the generic side.
  • The cars are wicked sweet along with most of the animation rigging.
  • As for the sounds…
  • I think I just heard a War Crier shite himself after getting killed to death.
  • Yeah, we’re done here.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Mr Foxdogg hates it, but I love all the fake ass-aussie accents
  • The map is huge and has a good variety of scenery for a desert wasteland
  • I especially like the designs of the little dungeons you come across. Makes me want to run an apocalypse world game. If only I had players
  • I don’t like how every little action is it’s own cutscene, but that’s not going to lose it any chairs
  • Their Max even sounds a little like Tom Hardy. Although the model straight up looks like nathan drake

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Hey! It’s a sandbox game in which there’s actual detail and textures and the environment isn’t procedurally generated!
  • You can tell, regardless of how big the map is, that the developers put a lot of work into the environmental storytelling.
  • Outside of the game’s events, you don’t get much in the way of exposition from NPC’s.
  • You basically have to piece the backstory to the places from the way the environment is laid out.
  • It’s the whole “Show don’t tell” school of design I like so much.
  • Also, there is nothing as visually satisfying in this as when you german supplex one of the enemies and the physics flip out and he goes flying into the sky!

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Control

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • I know you could play this with a keyboard/gerbil combo but this was clearly made from the ground up to use a controlla.
  • The XClone worked OOTB but there are a few issue.
    • I don’t like holding down buttons to perform an action… especially ones that I have to do over and over and over #petrolcans
    • The other is having to face just so in order to get the button mashy dialogs to make with the showing.
    • And FK help you if you try and do anything while near the back of your car.
  • The controller fighting mechanic works but I would like a few more moves alla Shadow of Hordor.
  • P-man will bitch about how shite the car controls but as the owner of a 79 Magnum… it’s legit.
  • Yes, it’s horrid at first but upgrading the suspension / handling is part of the game.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Credit where credit is due. I get correct prompts on the dualshock 4
  • I would like to do basic things, like loot someone with one hand
    • Or put a weapon in the passenger seat
  • Otherwise, it’s your standard AC/Batman style controls with some questionable button placement
  • Also. Holding buttons to do things. WHY

P-CHAIRCHAIR

  • For a game which focuses this heavily on cars as a staple of the subject matter, the actual driving is a bit lacking.
  • The cars all drive like they’re weightless.
  • Are post-apocalyptic suspensions that good?
  • And this is the real kicker, by the default if you have an Areola Controlla it makes the right Areola send Mouse input while the rest of the buttons are joystick inputs.
  • You know what that does? It makes it so you can’t turn the camera and move/do anything else at the same time! Who’s brilliant idea was this?
  • Thankfully you can just edit the configuration and change it to either Joystick Mouse or just regular Right Analog stick behavior.

Total-CHAIRCHAIR


FUN

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Leveling system is a bit on the confusing side.
  • If anyone sorts that, let me know.
  • I played 12 hours in two days.
  • I don’t play many games 12 hours in a full month.
  • Unlike Skyrimjob / Hordor it did not immediately suck me in.
  • But after 30min of figuring out what the hell was going on I, at the very least, wanted to explore the world.
  • Then I figured out how the upgrade system worked and OMG UPGRADE ALL THE BASE!
  • Seriously, the game is collecting scrap while I sleep.
  • Granted, I could give two FKs about the main story because there are so many side quests and scrap areas to explore.
  • Like Skyrimjob I will probably never finish the main quest but that won’t stop me from putting in another 50hrs dicking around in the sandbox.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • I’m having a blast playing this game
  • It’s gorgeous, controls decently well and has a lot of stuff to do
  • Curbstomping motherfuckers is always a good time
  • Gotta agree with Venn, the leveling system is really weird. You have three or four different things you need to manage
  • I expected Post apocalyptic skyrim, and that’s pretty much what I got.
  • It also appeals to the completionist in me by giving me a big ol’ scavenger hunt. That transforms into a very frustrating scavenger hunt. WHERE THE FUCK IS THE THING? HOW DO YOU EVEN GET THERE?

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • The fact we don’t have too many sandbox-type games without voxel graphics on Linux shines this game in an unquestionably favorable light.
  • It looks pretty damn good, it plays suspiciously similar to Shadow of Mordor, and it has several different options of what you can do that anyone will have a different experience. At least for the first half of the game.
  • And if that sounds like a transition to the point where I start enumerating everything that is wrong with this game, you’re starting to get to know me. Stop it!
  • First of all, the hand-to-hand combat was ripped off wholesale from Shadow of Mordor except without the Nemesis system so all you’re doing is alternating between mashing the left click to hitting the right click at certain points or, if you’re skilled enough, using the E button to do a finisher or a really cool reversal.
  • Also, the hand to hand combat is ironically much better executed than the vehicular theircombat.
  • How on earth do you manage to make vehicular combat so frustrating and pointless in a setting where cars are the fulcrum to the entire fucking narrative?
  • More than once I found myself driving into a choke point, getting out of my car and pounded the conga line of enemies that were pursuing me, as they came out of their cars one by one.
  • “Oh, but that motivates you to unlock better stuff for your car!”
    • Does it, now? Because I’ve already unlocked better parts for my car than the story would’ve liked me to.
  • That’s right! There are upgrades you can only unlock by doing the story missions which are worse than those you unlock by lowering threat on someone’s territory.
  • That’s not an organic upgrade system. It’s an asinine “fuck you, that’s why” upgrade system.
  • “Oh but the Archangels…” Bitch my car is objectively better and better balanced than ANY of the Archangels.
  • I can only imagine there’ll be a contrived reason for me to downgrade my car in the story later on, because I need a specific Archangel to progress.
  • And then, there are the races… Fuck the races! Fuck them with the gnarliest, rustiest bit of scrap of scrap metal you can find. Also, don’t bother trying to beat the times. They’ve already been hacked, seeing as there 2second times in races that need you to go halfway across the region.
  • Still, seeing as we don’t get too many games in this genre in Linux, I’m not entirely burnt out on the sandbox. Literal as it may be in this game.
  • And as I’m sure it’ll keep consuming many more hours of my day in the weeks to come, I can safely say it’s worth a solid 3 chairs.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Final –CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

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