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LTTP: Mad Max (2015) - The Game That Time Forgot. AKA Don't Release Same Day As MGS V.

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Hopefully many of you guys are familiar with this (IMO) underrated and underappreciated game. Made by Avalanche Studios, makers of Just Cause, it released around the movie but wasn't exactly a tie in. The game had the unfortunate distinction of releasing the same day as Metal Gear Solid V, which would likely be a big reason why the game kinda fizzled away.

At the core it's a very basic open world game. You have dots on your map signifying things to do, you can upgrade both your vehicle and Max's abilities and there's even a version of Ubisoft's towers in this. It checks all the boxes so if you don't like games like that in general, you're probably not gonna have a fun time.

But the game has positive points as well, there's a heavy emphasis on car combat and you get a big amount of car selection and upgrades to your base car to play around with. Similarly, the game has a very Fallout style ultra post apocalyptic barren wasteland feel, no over grown forests or greenery here. The melee combat, like my last thread about Sleeping Dogs, is another iteration on the Arkham "Y" to counter system. The hits feel crunchy and there's a very solid feel of connecting to enemies with both your fists and weapons. Unfortunately no crazy environmental kills here.

All in all, it's not a game that revolutionized the open world genre, but it is a pretty fun. One of those games you can put on a podcast and either crank out a few story missions or clear out enemy encampments to get those upgrade points that make you that much more formidable in the wasteland.

Not sure if I'd wanna classify this as a movie tie-in, yes it released pretty close to the movie but it's not a retelling of the movie and it's definitely not the same sounding Max, this Max is Australian, not Tom Hardy-ish.

Oh and one of the best parts of replaying it now is that basically either any PC built in the last half a decade should be able to play it .. and it runs at a near flawless 120 FPS on Series X and 60 FPS on Series S via the FPS boost. No such patch for my Sony brethren as of now, but this game should definitely be looked at for the remaster treatment.

PS. This game was on sale on Xbox for $4.99 last week, but looks like the sale ended, it's back to $19.99 now.


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coffinbirth

Member
One of the very few games I 100% everything last gen. A true gem.
Hopefully the sequel rumors/leaks are true and we get another one!

Edit: Just remembered that I waited in line at midnight at Walmart to get this and I was the ONLY person in line not getting MGSV.
A dude in line tried talking to me about some Kojima bullshit and I told him I was there for Mad Max, and he said "oh" and turned back around, lol.
 
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Salz01

Member
This is so funny. Started playing this again just Yesterday. On PS5, is seems smoother. Felt like when I played it on PS4 it ran slower. Game still holds up pretty good.
 

AGRacing

Gold Member
One of the very few games I 100% everything last gen. A true gem.
Hopefully the sequel rumors/leaks are true and we get another one!

Edit: Just remembered that I waited in line at midnight at Walmart to get this and I was the ONLY person in line not getting MGSV.
A dude in line tried talking to me about some Kojima bullshit and I told him I was there for Mad Max, and he said "oh" and turned back around, lol.
"some Kojima bullshit" made me spit take! Bravo!
 

Hugare

Member
This game is pretty great

Got far into the story, but got repetitive and I have abandoned it years ago

Glad that you reminded me of it OP, will install it tomorrow
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
This game is pretty great

Got far into the story, but got repetitive and I have abandoned it years ago

Glad that you reminded me of it OP, will install it tomorrow


I actually did the same when I first played it on PS4 years ago. But now with a fresh coat of paint and quadruple the frame rate, I'm gonna give this a shot and try to avoid the bloat so at least I can see the story through.

PS. WHY does this game have so many achievements with just 3 and 5 points.
 

Rayderism

Member
I remember playing Outlander on the Sega Genesis back in the early '90's. I figured that game was supposed to be a Mad Max game, but didn't get the license to use the name. It even had Mel Gibson's image as the main character. Anyway, years later, I still remembered it fondly and always envisioned what a sequel on newer hardware would be like.

Mad Max (2015) is the closest thing to what I imagined Outlander 2 could have been, and I loved the hell out of it because it came so close to what I imagined so many years prior.

But even though I was completely enthralled with the game when it came out and played it until the end, when I tried to play it again a couple years ago, I couldn't get into it. For me, Mad Max (2015) was great, but very much a one-and-done sort of game. And for the life of me, I'm not sure why.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
But even though I was completely enthralled with the game when it came out and played it until the end, when I tried to play it again a couple years ago, I couldn't get into it. For me, Mad Max (2015) was great, but very much a one-and-done sort of game. And for the life of me, I'm not sure why.

I understand the feeling. These big open world games are massive time sinks.

I love AC Odyssey to death but I am in absolutely no mode to replay it for another couple of years, after having beaten it on Xbox when it got the 60 FPS patch late last year.

I've only played it twice, once on PS4 and once on the new Xbox and both times as Kassandra.

I would like to play the game once as Alexios as well ...... but maybe a long while later.
 
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wipeout364

Member
Loved this game, one of my favorites last gen. Such a cool setting and story was pretty great. I actually enjoyed this more than Just cause 3 and 4. It is very repetitive though so you have to be in the mood for a typical open world game with all of the baggage that comes with them.
 

K2D

Banned
Same year as beginnings of gamer gate. One year before Shadow of Mordor [avarage score of 8.7], and two years before the FTC announced foul play over sponsored reviews. Interesting time in gaming...
 

Roberts

Member
It is a great game, slightly repetetive but got that Mad Max vibe wonderfully - it is even better now with fps boost. It’s funny you mention MGS because in my neck of the woods, Mad Max gets talked about so much more often now.
 

MayauMiao

Member
Fantastic game. Avoided it at launch because of bad experience with movie tie in games. Only tried it after seeing it free on PS+.

I did bought it on Steam eventually.
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
People game while listening to podcasts? Isn't that distracting from both the game and the podcast?
I do it all the time, never had a problem with it. Unless there's are like story cutscenes or dialogue in the game that I actually wanna pay attention to, all you do in the game is mindless manual tasks so it's easy to occupy that other part of brain with a podcast or an audiobook. Sometimes I will even put on a movie on my laptop while gaming.
 

GymWolf

Member
Re-played a couple of months ago, probably one of the most underrated game from past gen.

One of the few free flow combat system where positioning is important since you can't slide from enemy to enemy like spiderman or fucking batman, also the weighto of the punches and sound design was crunchy as hell.

Car combat was as fun as melee, the grapple hook was genius.

Also chumbucket was fucking hilarious (and sad at the same time), i loved that mofo.

The game still has the best car explosions effect and the best thunderstorm\sandstorm in a videogame to date, fight me, graphically it still looks good even today imo.

It was peak avalanche studios.
 
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tassletine

Member
That game was great. I actually think it did something small for the open world genre, in that it was the first open world game (I played) where every gameplay action seemed justified and no actions broke the gameworld.
In all other open world's I'd played up until that point ie GTA, Far Cry. There was always a bit of a disconnect where you could kill loads of people and nothing would really happen to you. It felt like you were toying with a game not living in a place.

I appreciated how "solid" everything felt in Mad Max. Because every character was pretty evil, you never got that disconnect.
As everyone deserved to die, the devs really didn't have to try to make the characters likeable, and that really worked. They also, like the balloon towers, which really helped seat you in the world. You had to put some effort in to get somewhere. Although the game world was barren (easier to program) it felt complete and lived in and had no bugs that I saw. It was the first time an open world that really did that. And that driving and those storms! Lots of fun.
 

tassletine

Member
People game while listening to podcasts? Isn't that distracting from both the game and the podcast?
Depends which game, depends which podcast. If you know a game well, then you can listen to anything. Most podcasts are also completely vapid, so easy listening.
 
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