Mad Max Mixes Intense Driving and Lackluster Melee Combat

My first three minutes with Mad Max presented me with two wildly different experiences. A group of three enemies swarmed me as soon as I gained control of Max, and after a flurry of button-mashing punches and a missed dodge or two, they were all lying limp on the ground. It was an underwhelming way to start, and yet not a minute later, I was in my car, using a harpoon gun to rip the tire off an enemy vehicle and boosting head-first into another that promptly exploded.

It's the tale of Mad Max's two halves. On the one hand, the open-world game allows you to freely drive your vehicle--the Magnum Opus--through this post-apocalyptic world, powersliding around corners, slamming into vehicles at high speeds, and harpooning helpless enemies with impunity. On the other, you're moving around on foot, taking on enemies with what feels like a rudimentary version of the Batman Arkham games' combat without the gadgets or initial opportunity for stealth.

That the vehicle stuff is the superior component in Mad Max comes as no surprise, in light of what's been said about the game previously. It's not necessarily that the on-foot action is bad; it just feels--based on what I was able to play--thoroughly outclassed by Batman's combat, which clearly served as its inspiration. You have light attacks and heavy attacks that create powerful combos when combined, and you'll be alerted to incoming attacks that can be countered with a properly timed button press. You'll occasionally, through no specific action on my part that I could tell, pull off an especially brutal counter, breaking arms or otherwise eliminating enemies without the usual bevy of punches.

Beyond that, you have some additional tools at your disposal, like a shotgun and the bomb-tipped spears seen in Mad Max: Fury Road. But these are clearly intended to be used only on occasion--you have limited ammo, and they're also tremendously useful while driving. It's Max's fists (and the occasional melee weapon) that are meant to dispatch the majority of foes when on foot.

And all of this is fine provided the on-foot combat serves as an occasional distraction more than an equal to vehicles. Driving is the real highlight of Mad Max. My first task was taking down a convoy to earn an upgrade for my vehicle. And while I was somewhat disappointed the convoy wasn't anywhere near the size of those seen in Fury Road (something that might be due in part to how early in the game I was), the options I had in dealing with the main vehicle and its escorts made this a delight.

Just in this one encounter, I took down enemies in at least a half-dozen ways. One foolishly rushed at me head-first and was destroyed by boosting at him myself (which provides an especially wonderful sense of speed); another went down after side-swiping him repeatedly, the last of which sent him careening off a [ridge] to his death; one I shotgunned when he pulled up alongside me; yet another I burned to death with a flamethrower when he pulled up alongside me. Most satisfying of all were the various uses of the harpoon gun, which can be used to pull tires or other parts off of vehicles, incapacitating them, or to pull drivers right out of their rides.

And having all of this happen while driving at high speeds makes it all the more tense, enjoyable, and--when you manage to pull off exactly what you intended--satisfying. Combined with the vehicle upgrades that allow you to customize the Magnum Opus (making it faster or tougher, for instance), there's potentially a huge amount of diversity in how these encounters can play out. I'd love to try out different approaches--I can see it being fun to build a tank that crashes through everything, as well as a speed demon that circles around groups of enemies, picking them apart with the harpoon.

I'll be very curious to see what balance the full game strikes between time spent in-car and on-foot--we've previously heard it'll be in the neighborhood are 50-50. While you're free to choose between the two when exploring, there are certain areas that require you to get out of the Magnum Opus. If these segments are skippable to some degree or they find some way to introduce new wrinkles to combat, Mad Max can avoid being a game that alternates between being an absolute joy to play at times and somewhat of a drag at others.