The Mad Max video game welcomes you to the Wasteland

Mad Max has seen a resurgence of popularity thanks to the recent release of Mad Max: Fury Road. Does the video game offer the same type of thrilling action? First of all, it's worth mentioning that the Mad Max video game is its own unique universe. The game is not based on any of the movies so you won't be playing as either Mel Gibson or Tom Hardy. This may sound disappointing on paper, but in return it allows the game to introduce us to new characters and a fresh story. The Mad Max video game starts off in explosive fashion with Max fighting off hordes of enemies led by a fearsome warlord. Max manages to survive, however the war party steals his prized car and possessions.

 In hopes of getting his car back, Max runs into a hunchback by the name of Chumbucket. The two work together to get revenge on the warlord and rebuild Max's "Magnux Opus" car to make it stronger and more durable to survive the desolate Wasteland. Max Mad is an open-world video game set in a desert. You may think a game based in a desert might be boring, but the game thankfully offers several hours of gameplay giving you lots of side-quests to undertake on top of the many main missions that are on offer too. There is a lot of variety of missions on offer that easily has up to 30-40 hours' worth of gameplay time. One mission could see you storming a huge enemy base killing everyone inside while another mission you might be competing in a death race. The thing I like most about Mad Max is that it offers two kinds of gameplay styles. There's hand-to-hand combat as Max is proficient at wrestling and punching people. The combat system borrows heavily from the Batman Arkham games as Max can parry attacks and string lots of combos. My favourite part of the combat system is when Max is in Fury mode and he dishes out some wrestling moves on the enemies. I also like the fact that the combat is more melee-based instead of just a generic third-person shooter. Max does have access to a shotgun and sniper rifle, but ammo is very rare so you won't be using them too often. It wouldn't be Mad Max without vehicular combat, and this video game does this perfectly. Fighting off vehicles can be difficult in other games as you are forced to bash enemies off the road. In Mad Max however, it's easier for you because you have access to a harpoon. The harpoon is my favourite weapon in any video game I have played recently. The harpoon can be used while driving and you can take out enemies' tyres and more. You can even impale the driver and take them out of the driver's seat. The harpoon can also be used to take down sniper towers and destroy other platforms. You also have access to Nitrous Oxide too to make the Magnus Opus go faster and to ram into opposing vehicles. As much fun as I had playing Mad Max, there are a few flaws that prevent it from being perfect. I feel the mission structure could have been improved as Mad Max forces you to find scrap all over the Wasteland. If you don't have enough scrap to upgrade your car, you have to tediously find it all of the time. There were numerous times I was unable to continue with the main story because I didn't have the required number of scrap to buy the parts I wanted for the car. I had to spend several hours just driving around and finding scrap all over the Wasteland. It gets boring needing to do this frequently. Speaking of not continuing with the main story, I also encountered many glitches while playing this game too. The worst glitch prevented me from progressing because the game didn't think I earned enough scrap. It wanted me to buy a part that only cost 100 scrap, but I had over 300 scrap in the bank. Because this game has autosave, I had to restart the game from the beginning. Other flaws included a problem with the GPS system. Sometimes the GPS system wouldn't work so I had to frequently pause the game and look on the map if I was travelling on the correct road. Hopefully Avalanche Studios irons out these bugs and issues in future patches. The Mad Max video game is fun and should entertain hardcore fans of the franchise.  It may not be based directly on any of the films, but it still has the same type of fearful atmosphere.  The only things preventing it from being better are that it gets repetitive and some glitches are still present. Verdict: 7.5/10