Simo
Member
- Developer: Avalanche Studios [Sweden]
- Publisher: WB Games
- Platforms: PC, Playstation 4 & Xbox One
- Genre: Open World, Action & Adventure, Driving
- Release Date: September 1st [US & Europe], September 2nd [Australia], September 4th [New Zealand]
EBGames Australia Exclusive:
Press Release said:
Max on foot can perform melee attacks that similar to the contextual combat in the Batman: Arkham games. You also only have one sidearm in the game: Max's shotgun. Ammo is scarce in the wasteland and while you can use is it for a quick shot in combat, you can aim but cannot move. However the shotgun can be upgraded as you progress and you'll eventually unlock Shivs to use in combat takedowns.
In addition to these you can also use melee weapons the enemies drop along with Jerry Cans as throwable explosives or Thundersticks: Throwing spears with a explosive spike on the end that can be thrown or impaled in enemies that then detonate. As you build up your hit streak you can enable Fury Mode that allows you deal more damage and perform quick finishers.
Scrap is the main "currency" in the game that's used to not only upgrade Max's car, the Magnum Opus, but also Max's gear for better offense and defense abilities in combat and exploration.
You can change Max's appearance be it to be clean shaven or feral looking with long hair and a beard.
Max will also need resources to survive. There's no health regen in the wasteland so you'll need the following to recoup any health lost:
- Water. Max has a canteen that you can fill at a water source should you find one that can be used by pressing UP on the D-Pad.
- Dinki Di Dog Food. A nod to Mad Max 2 you can find some dog food that will instantly replenish your health.
- Protein..Maggots. Keep a eye out and you might some birds circling in the sky. That usually means there's a corpse below and as such a food source: Maggots.
Legend also tells of a wanderer called Griffa, where signs painted into the rock and messages will notify if he's near your location. Trading Griffa Tokens will help improve more of Max's skills and help unlock new moves and combos to survive.
Chum in the game will always ride in the back of the Magnum Opus and no other vehicles. He'll man the harpoon in the back and if the Opus takes too much damage you can command him to do quick repairs on the move or when stationary.
Like Max you can upgrade Chum with new gear and accessories along with his skills like doing repairs much quicker.
The War Boys are a army of young men, described as "half life" due to the toxicity of the wasteland they're all born with a disease like a cancer and only live until their 20s. Immortan Joe takes in these young men as cannon fodder, brain washing them under a religion that worships cars and engines and the legend that if they did a glorious death they'll be transported to afterlife of Valhalla. SHINY and CHROME like the engine blocks they worship.
They took your car...so you're going to build a new one...The Magnum Opus. In the beginning you can choose the starting car body for the Opus and then everything else is up to you! You'll be taking out the War Boys and other gangs with this be it ramming them or using some of the following weapons...
- Harpoon Launcher. Use the harpoon to take apart enemy vehicles piece by piece or to drag out and launch it's driver in to the dirt. Pull down sniper towers, stronghold gates or even launch it to latch on to a fleeing car to boost ram them.
- Thunderpoon. Take your harpoon and turn it into a make-shift rocket launcher.
- Sniper Rifle. Max will actually climb in the back of the Opus to use this when selected. Again ammo is scarce so make your shots count!
You can also drive the Opus in First Person View, although car combat becomes increasingly difficult...
Another resource you'll need for Max and the Opus is Guzzoline aka fuel. The Opus does consume fuel along with whatever offense/defense weapons on the Opus that uses guzzolene. Thankfully given Gas Town supplies all the strong holds and regions with plenty of gas you'll never be in too much of a need for it so you'll usually find a Jerry Can that can be stored in the Opus should you get low or be resupplied at a friendly stronghold.
With the scrap you collect you can use it to upgrade just about every part of the Magnum Opus:
- Ramming Grill: Increases ramming damage, reduces handling/speed
- Armor: Increases durability, reduces speed
- Engine: Increases speed
- Exhaust: Increases top speed
- Tires: Slicks provide better on-road grip while off-road tires work better in the dirt
- Suspension: Increases handling, especially for heavy vehicles
- Boost: Nitro provides a temporary surge of speed for ramming, pursuing etc.
- Rims: Add spikes to your wheels to do additional damage to the enemy's armor
- Boarder Spikes: A defensive weapon that prevents raiders from jumping on your vehicle
- Sniper Rifle: Provides a ranged combat option for picking Raiders off at a distance
- Harpoon: Operated by Chumbucket, the harpoon can pull off enemy armor, grab drivers etc
- Thunderpoon: When equipped with an explosive cap, the Harpoon becomes extra lethal
- Side Burners: Side-mounted flamethrowers that do additional damage to Raiders, but cost extensive amounts of fuel in order to use
- Repair Speed: Increases the rate at which Chumbucket repairs the Magnum Opus
- B]Car Body[/B]: Mostly visual, allows the player to change the appearance of the car
- Body Color: Allows for recoloring of the vehicle
- Hood Ornament: Collected from defeated enemy leaders, these provide a buff to your stats.
If you prefer not to mess around with changing around the Opus upgrades you can find schematics in the wasteland for Archangels. These are preset Opus builds usually put together for one purpose or another, like say built for speed so armor, grill, weapons and overall weight is low for quickness.
Should you manage to salvage a enemy car Max can drive it too and take it back to a nearby stronghold to obtain the maximum amount of scrap from it and it to your collection of vehicles to use. If you're out in the wasteland and want your Opus you need only shoot off a flare and Chum will bring it to you.
The wasteland in Mad Max is made up of mostly of a region known as The Great White, what used to be a old sea bed that has long since dried up after the world's collapse. To the north of the Great White sits Gas Town..
You'll come across various settlements, points of interest and activities in the wasteland:
- Vantage Points. Hot air balloons anchored down that you can ascend to get a good aerial view of the region and which you can use Max's binoculars to scout out points of interest or nearby enemies and strongholds. Vantage Points also act as checkpoints you'll respond at should you die.
- Convoys. Spotting plumes of dust usually means one of Scrotus' convoys is on the move and heavily protected by numerous War Boys. You can hunt them down to begin a chase and obtain a large amount of scrap.
- Collectibles. Once great cities that existed in the old world are now buried beneath the sand along with old containers, ship tankers and junk that you can explore to find scrap or old world relics.
- Death Races. Races in the wasteland...only with a timed explosive strapped to the hood of your car!
- Survivors..and strangers in the wasteland...
Since Scrotus and his War Boys rule and torment these regions of the Wasteland they in turn have Influence. Such Influences of fear might be Scarecrows, monuments erected with bodies and steel to show of Scrotus' power. By destroying these Scarecrows, along with strongholds and Top Dogs, you can lower Scrotus' Influence to help some of the wasteland survivors and also open up more quests and missions.
The wasteland has a full Night/Day cycle with some specific enemy groups coming out at night. Also a dynamic weather system is in place which means you'll never know when a dust devil might kick up or a toxic storm approaches...
You can go beyond the borders of the game map to The Big Nothing, regions of the wasteland that are full of nothing but toxic storms. How long can you last?!
In the game you'll come across various encampments and enemy strongholds that you'll need to enter either for a mission or maybe to get more scrap, collectible or Opus schematic/upgrade. Some strongholds aren't as straightforward to enter and often protected by large groups of War Boys or camp defenses like flame thrower towers. There's multiple ways of entering them though so the choice is yours.
Be warned though: Some enemy strongholds have War Criers who when alerted with put a buff on enemies to increase their defenses and sometimes a Top Dog, gang leader, will reside in a stronghold. Taking out these Top Dog mini bosses greatly helps and reduces Scrotus' power and influence in the wasteland. When you liberate these strongholds, survivors and settlers from a nearby home base will move in to start repairing it and turning it in to a settlement you can obtain resources from.
You'll also come across NPCs in their own strongholds that become your home bases and through doing missions you can improve to offer resources and upgrades like say building a maggot farm where survivors become willing amputees or building a source of water to fill your canteen.
Some of the survivors and strangers you'll meet in their strongholds...
- E3 2013 Announcement Trailer
- "Soul of a Man" Gameplay Trailer
- Gameplay Overview Trailer
- "Savage Road" Story Trailer
- "Eye of the Storm" Trailer
- Stronghold Trailer
- Choose your path Interactive Trailer
- Official TV Commercial Trailer
Mad Max is a single player game only with no multiplayer mode and the only online component is a leaderboard. There was talk of being able to see other players builds of the Magnum Opus but I'm not sure if this feature made it in to the final game.
Well in the 1990s there was a NES game developed by Mindscape that was based on Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior. Other than that no there have been no other official Mad Max gams developed.
The Mad Max movies have inspired and spawned many homages, references or ripoffs over the years in film, TV and video games with some of the recent titles being inspired by Mad Max being Fallout, RAGE and Borderlands.
The PS4 version does come with The Road Warrior Pack. A bunch of hood ornaments inspired by Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior movie that give you stat boosts for your car but is only exclusive until the end of November.
Otherwise all day one copies come with The Ripper car body. No other DLC is known at this time.
Mad Max runs at near solid 30fps and in 1080p on both the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. The PC version is said to have uncapped fps...
The PC version was developed in-house by Avalanche Studios Sweden alongside the console versions. Also a lot of the gameplay trailers you've seen and linked here are actually from said PC version because according to Avalanche it's much easier to capture and edit footage from the PC build of the game.
That said, I'm not a PC gamer and won't be able to give you a specific concrete answer but there will be a lot of gaffers who will be getting it who possibly answer any other questions pertaining to the PC version!
A great feature most of us always ask for, especially in open games, is a Photo Mode and most of the time developers listen and patch in said mode after the game's release. Examples like Batman: Arkham Knight, The Order 1866 and Shadow of Mordor spring to mind.
This time Avalanche Studios is staying ahead of the demand and including a Photo Mode day one with what they call "Capture Mode". Capture Mode works in the same way as any recent game with photo mode where you with a button press you can pause the game and then control the camera to move and get whatever angle to so desire along with some editing tools to create your own wasteland post card.
However Avalanche went one awesome step further: If you have a friend connect their controller to your system and engage Capture Mode they can use the mode to capture video while having full control of the camera and editing tools! So they'd basically be like your co-director while playing.
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Thanks to gaffers Bootaay and Definity for the awesome gifs, screens and information. I sourced some of the info from Mad Max Wiki.
Also heres the link to the Review Thread.
Also not forgetting but September 1st marks the official release for the Mad Max: Fury Road blu-ray. Grab the best film of the year so far and then stop over at the OT to be SHINY and CHROME!
