'Legally distinct Mad Max' is a worthy successor to one of the most underrated open-world games of the last 10 years, and it's got near-perfect Steam reviews to boot

Avalanche's Mad Max might have gotten off to a slow start, but it eventually emerged as one of the most hidden open-world gems out there. The story of how it came to be a cult classic rather than a literal classic isn't one for this article, but it does include Mad Max film director George Miller and his good pal Hideo Kojima, and also helped pave the way for Fumes, which is following firmly in the tyre tracks of Avalanche's 2015 game.

Fumes puts you in the driver's seat of a retro-looking rustbucket in the midst of a sprawling desert filled with enemy rustbucketeers looking to do you harm. It's a dusty, grimy, world in which every vehicular inhabitant feels like it's held together with duct tape and a dream, where the rattle of your roof-mounted autocannon feels like it's more likely to shake your own car apart than do meaningful damage to your opponents.

It's an obvious homage to Mad Max, and that's before you even get to the defeated opponents shouting out things like "witness me" as their cars burst into flames. Even as you rumble through the opening cutscene, your license plate reads "not M4x," an amusing 'legally distinct' workaround that belies how effective a pastiche this really is. It's not exactly a like-for-like comparison to Avalanche's game - it's too deliberately arcade-y for that, even if several elements ring true - but it certainly understands the world that Miller and co helped bring to life.

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From a driving perspective, it's not exactly complex, the huge swathe of uninterrupted desert and the apparently infinite ammunition reserves you've got not exactly requiring delicate handling. Instead, you and your foes seem to bounce across the sand in a manner that's more reminiscent of dune buggies than Max's sleek Pursuit Special. But the bounce beneath your struggling suspension is a big part of Fumes' charm - driving is less a matter of skill and precision as it is of confidence and bravado.

Fumes hit early access on Steam yesterday, where it's already racked up 96% positive reviews - enough to put it in the 'Overwhelmingly Positive' category if it can keep up its current trajectory. But if you're not convinced yet, you can still check out the demo, which places you immediately in the driver's seat and never really allows the action to let up. I'm pretty confident that if I hadn't had to stop and write this article, I'd still be playing it now, so if you, like me, picked up Mad Max ten years late and found yourself itching for more, Fumes seems like an excellent alternative.