I was working on a fun little post about my favorite fictitious bands from pop-culture, but we’re here on Tuesday afternoon and I really feel like that one needs a little more tender loving care before I release it to you all for your enjoyment.
Instead, I will return to the well that runneth over with blog inspiration: Mad Max. But this time, instead of talking about any of the cinematic installments, I will talk about the video game which I’m presently probably like 30 hours into.
The whole inception of this game seemed a little half-cocked. Originally titled Mad Max: Magnum Opus, the game was supposed to come out like a year before Fury Road and not be really that related to the story of the film. Which I dug. I really like the individual nature of the Mad Max stories and how they are all just little glimpses into the world on the whole, with Max as the lense for the viewers. After some delays, they dropped “Magnum Opus” from the title (but not from the game, more on this later) and did a bit of an attempt to tie it in with Fury Road.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not very tied in. But there’s a few references to Immortan Joe and the Citadel, and the main crux of the story is basically breaking into Gastown to get yourself a sweet V8 for your new car.
So, what’s the story?
Our opening sequence has Max seemingly killing Scabrous Scrotus (which sounds like a terrible venereal disease) who is Immortan Joe’s middle son. The resulting fight also leads to Max losing whatever version of the V8 Interceptor he was driving. So yeah, he killed a big bad, but also now has no wheels. Which is a bummer not just because he’s Mad Max, but also because he had resolved to drive to the Plains of Silence for some refuge from the general shittiness of the Wasteland.
Enter a weird hunchback Black Finger (Mechanic) named Chumbucket, who has plenty of knowledge about this region of the Wasteland and sees Max’s talent as a driver to be some kind of a divine gift (echoing the Cult of the V8 stuff that was going on in Fury Road). He promises to help Max build the greatest car the Wasteland has ever seen, the Magnum Opus (there it is). Max has the specific requirement, obviously, of needing to have a V8.
The game then progresses into an open world sandbox style game that has you helping out various “good” (or maybe just “not evil”) factions in their struggles against the various “bad” factions in exchange for upgrades and supplies for your gear and your car.
Pretty straight forward really. Almost TOO straight forward. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
