I still had to drive as Max, though, which confused the daylights out of me. Fending off an attacking car, I held down LB, and time slowed down, which made it much easier to aim at my targets. The left bumper on the Xbox One controller invoked a mode designed to use my weapon-equipped partner. Max has an almost slithery companion, Chumbucket, who rides standing up in the back of the car, weapons ready. It gets interesting because there are two characters in the car. It's the standard right trigger to accelerate and left trigger to brake and reverse. Here's how they work: By default, you control Max, who drives. Mad Max's controls are unique, and they'll take some getting used to, but I didn't have time to ease my way into anything.
Just up the desert road, I found a mission that had me destroying mechanically monstrous vehicles and, later, weatherbeaten trebuchets. I didn't have much time to play, and I didn't really want to spend it fighting enemies out of my league. Pride, I decided, was not going to be a problem. My new friend said they were really tough enemies, that I might want to - and that's where he stopped because I was already driving away. The first wave came in two patchwork cars. In this case, it was, and I had no problem taking the feedback and suggestions.Īnyone familiar with the franchise (or video games in general) won't be surprised to learn that I didn't have to drive long before encountering hostiles who wanted me dead.
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But being told how to play a game isn't ideal unless it was absolutely necessary. He smiled a lot, gave me suggestions and pointed out what was important as I drove through the desert with all the caution of a dog who's knocked down the trashcan. In lieu of the gradual ramp-up that players will experience, WBIE sat a helpful companion next to me. It wasn't ideal, but I'm not sure there was a better way to present it. I'm leaning toward the latter because I think I can explain every problem I had with Max Max through the jarring feeling I got after jumping into a campaign 40 percent complete without any training. I want to play more, and I almost certainly will when it's released.īut the demo also felt too new to be comfortable, and it's difficult to know whether I should blame the awkwardness on the game, myself or the situation. I enjoyed careening around the desert, shooting and punching humanity's worse elements and pimping my rusty ride. Mix that all together, and you probably have a good idea about what to expect from Mad Max, a game that trades Just Cause's sprawling islands for a desert wasteland and adopts a modified version of Batman's combat to hurl against bloodthirsty post-apocalyptic madmen. And it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world filled with human beings gone, well, mad, which is intriguing in video games and movies alike.
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Interactive Entertainment, which has shepherded commercial and critical successes like the Batman Arkham series and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordorin recent years. It's being built under the auspices of Warner Bros. Mad Max is an open-world game from the developers behind a standout of the genre, Just Cause 2. My hands-on at Gamescom was a chance to see if my guesses were right. I wanted to play in this game's literal sandbox.
I was never huge into the franchise, but these last two years convinced me that I'd been missing out. Watching George Miller's stunning Mad Max: Fury Road this year only made me more excited. As I read and watched more about it, I got a sense of what the final game would be, and I liked what I saw. I've been reading about Mad Max since Avalanche unveiled the game at Sony's E3 press conference two years ago, and I can't recall anything that's happened since putting a damper on my interest. The only problem was that I devoured too much too fast, and some of the sweetness soured my stomach. Avalanche Studios' Mad Max is the least surprising game I played at Gamescom 2015, and after a long week on the other side of the world, I was happy for a bit of interactive comfort food.