Warner Bros’ open-world action take on Mad Max isn’t directly linked to any film in particular, even if it takes many of its cues from the recent Fury Road. Like its filmic inspiration, its premise is brutal in its simplicity: you’re Max Rockatansky, a drifter in the wasteland, and after being pounced upon by Scabrous Scrotus, son of Fury Road’s wild-eyed villain Immortan Joe, you’re left without your legendary Interceptor car. And so it’s up to you and new acquaintance Chumbucket, a deformed, lisping mechanic, to reclaim what’s rightfully yours and to build a new set of wheels for yourself in the process. What we’re left with is the curious, enjoyable wreckage that comes after a head-on collision between My Summer Car and a post-apocalyptic Assassin’s Creed. The game scores average in almost all reviews 6/10 gamespot – 3.5/5 metacritic – 8.4/10IGN.com Read the full review at eurogamer Objectives soon repeat themselves a little too often, while oversights remain in much of the design: despite being a car combat game, there’s no handbrake and no way to get the cars spinning on their axis in true Hollywood fashion, while the combat feels too scrappy for its own good. The sense of being a scavenger can become overwhelming, too, when progression grinds to a halt and you’re left patrolling the wastelands searching for scraps. That ties neatly into the harsh world of Mad Max, though, as does the slightly cultish feel of a game whose rough edges might scare some people away. You’ll have played other, better examples of the genre, and you’ve likely been a tourist to the post-apocalypse a few too many times before, yet Avalanche wears the fiction so well it’s hard not to be charmed by this brutal, beautiful open world.
