Mad Max wastes marauders in the wasteland

Licensed games are mostly known for being quicky cash-ins, but when the series is Mad Max, which hasnt had a film since Mel Gibson went beyond Thunderdome, the rules are a little different. The Mad Max/Road Warrior films of the 1980s clearly inspired the many post-apocalyptic games like Fallout and Gears of War, but now the originator is heading for digital media. And after seeing a hands-off demo, we know hes bringing his sawed-off shotgun and his badass car with him.

The open world, third person gameplay of Mad Max is ripped straight from the films--though the lead bears no likeness to Mel Gibson. But even with a less famous face, this road warrior is drives the barren lands searching for fuel, car parts, ammo, and un-irradiated water. Maxs main goal in the demo was to collect a new piece for his car. It seems like the car not only works for tooling around the wide open, barren vistas on your way to outposts. Making the car (dubbed Magnum Opus) the ultimate driving machine seems to be the ultimate goal of the game. Because without a ride, youre dog food in this world.

So Max spends most of the game hunting for tools with his idiot savant mechanic Chuckmonkey in the back. We watched as the crashed into lesser cars until the vehicles exploded. We saw Max shoot the tires off a car until it crashed, then Max looted the corpse of the driver. We even saw some graphically brutal executions that would make Duke Nukem blush. But dont worry, those were all bad people. Not that it really mattered to Max.

Keep reading to learn more about the games with the accompanying annoted slides.