Mad Max Video Game Gets The Gameplay Trailer We’ve Been Waiting For!
Ted Hentschke
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During my breakdown of the new Mad Max Stronghold Trailer a few days ago, I mentioned concern over the lack of extensive gameplay trailers. It’s rare for such a big name title to be a month from shelves without at least an hours worth of spotty beta gameplay showcasing features that probably won’t amount to shit in the final product (I’m looking at you, every open world ARPG with a brawler combat system ever), and typically foreshadows a lack of publisher confidence. After the cat is out the bag that your game looks and plays like crap, people aren’t going to plop down $60 on name recognition alone. I was still allowing myself some excitement over the game, as the developers Avalanche Studios have a decent if not sparse track record.
Not three days later, lo and behold, my prayers were answered in the form of a 20 minutes IGN exclusive gameplay walkthrough. Check it out:
Having watched the trailer, I can’t figure out why we haven’t seen more sooner. While the melee looks like nothing new, that car combat is what I dreamed of for a solid week after watching Fury Road. Senior Producer John Fuller gives some explanation as to how the car can be decked out for any number of styles of play, and there is no “correct” loadout. I was on board with that until I saw the side mounted flame throwers, and wondered exactly how any build would be superior to maximizing the number of flamethrowers. While it is hard to craft a definitive “Mad Max” style of melee combat, high speed javelin shots ripping off wheels and shotgunning dudes off of the hood of your car is about as true to the canon as you can get.
If you haven’t already watched all 20 minutes of it, I urge you to. While we don’t get a sense of the crafting, scavenging, or resource management, we do get to watch Max jab people in the chest with explosive javelins. While it lacks the finesse of Shadow of Mordor and the gimmick variety of Watchdogs, it does allow you to harpoon dudes in the chest and drag them behind your car/launch them into the stratosphere Team Rocket style, depending on the whims of the physics engine. If you get tired of the repetitive fisticuffs, turbo-boosting into the side of a car and watching the driver launch out like a dummy in a drunk driving PSA is sure to get you back into the spirit of things.
Little touches to the environment really bring the feel of the game in line with the Mad Max universe, especially Fury Road. Balloon vantage points, folding out your sniper rifle from the back of your car, and tearing down scrap metal scarecrows makes a familiar system very stylish. Fuller mentioned that the film and game studios were working very close together on getting the feel right (probably why they included the exploding javelins and use of the term “warboys”), but that the stories were completely separate, so don’t expect just a retread of the events of Fury Road.
We haven’t seen a whole lot, so there’s no telling how much variety there is, but what we have seen got me excited. I would have liked to see more of how the strongholds evolve and alliances are formed, but as a showcase of the gameplay it was compelling. This was exactly what I wanted to see with the game coming out next month. While it doesn’t impress me as much conceptually as Shadow of Mordor did, I ended up being largely let down by how little of a role the interesting mechanics played in that game. With Mad Max, I am coming to smash cars into things while flames shoot out the side and people explode. In that regard, this trailer delivered in a big way. Look for the game to hit shelves September 1st.
Categorized:Horror Gaming News
