Did a long session in Mad Max not doing any story missions, just clearing the side content to see if that approach works better. Cleared some areas 100%, built most of the projects for Jeet's stronghold so I can just warp back to refill ammo/water whenever. Got enough scrap now that I've almost been able to buy all the Max & Car upgrades available before doing stuff in Gutgash territory. But is it fun? Eh, it's alright. There's times when it's fun and the Camps and some of the scavenging sites can be absolutely beautiful in art design that going through their level design while beating up dudes or taking out a convey with your upgraded vehicle is pretty fun.
But then there's some real annoyance factors throughout. The whole "here is a viewpoint ballon" but first you have to untether it, then you have to make sure you brought an extra fuel can because it's out of gas and has no canisters at the site, now you can mark stuff on the map, etc... the game definitely makes you run through hoops to progress and it somewhat tedious because of it. Hearing about how Just Cause 3 locks abilities behind mini-games and stuff, I have to wonder what happened to these guys at Avalanche. Did they feel like people were blowing through Just Cause 1 & 2 quickly, only doing the story missions and missing a large chunk of the world they created, so now it's time to force players to see more of the repetitive stuff? Or did someone say their games were too short and so they had to add artificial grind to lengthen the games out? I dunno, but Mad Max is definitely a step back from Just Cause 2 in pure fun and not wasting your time. Mad Max is a pretty good game that wastes your time.
And then the car. First of all, the "races" where you have to use other cars which sometimes can control like dogshit and you can't quit and retry are junk. Second, the car handling in general is pretty junky in the game. I also really dislike how the game wants to be realistic, so adding weapons and armor slows down your car and makes it control worse. This is dumb and not fun. I end up driving around with all my armor/weapons off and then when I get in fights with cars I pause and re-equip them. Another thing that's dumb is the mines mini-game. Not only is it boring to defuse mines, but having to swap out your car for the doggy car and drive back out to the spot to actually pinpoint where the mines are is just a stupid timewaster that makes a boring mini-game even dumber. The game has a weird issue with realism. Some stuff is done to make it realistic, like the storms and having to mark map items yourself, and water/food/fuel, not being able to skip cutscenes, but then the game isn't realistic at all. If they wanted to, they could have totally done a New Vegas Survival type mode where you really have to eat and drink regularly and actually SURVIVE, instead the food/water stuff is just a lifebar.
Still kind of glued to playing it, but at this point around 12 hours in, it definitely feels like a 7/10 Assassin's Creed-ish bloat game set in a Mad Max setting. It still scratches a unique itch with the car combat and post-apocalyptic wasteland to explore, but eh.
