I’d like to take you all the way back to September 1st, 2015. I had just clocked off of work (I was working in a Wetherspoons kitchen at the time), and was making my way to my local game shop to pick up a very special game indeed. To my surprise there was quite a queue, clearly fellow connoisseurs had had the same idea. As I reached the front of the line the guy behind the till instinctively reached for a copy of Metal Gear Solid 5, apparently it had also released that day. But I merely smiled and said “No sir, I’ll be taking Mad Max.”

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>One of the post-apocalyptic games that many people think was overlooked was Mad Max. Created by Just Causers Avalanche, it’s an open-world driving/punching realisation of the long-loved, thankfully now Gibson-free franchise. Sand, mutants, spiky cars, and explosions. So many explosions. So to celebrate this first day in our newly destroyed Earth, I’ve put together a gallery of things going boom.

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I had twin criteria for this. The first was ‘is it a decent game?’ and the second ‘does it meaningfully evoke the spirit, themes or characters of the movie in addition to having Quite Good Guns And Graphics?’ The second saw quite a few games which would otherwise qualify ruled out. This year’s Mad Max, for instance, was an agreeable murder-romp but it’s much harder to argue that it nails the desperation or oddness of the films it’s based on. Star Wars: Battlefront, meanwhile, is an OK online shooter with marvellous graphics, but it’s too mechanical to ‘feel’ like Star Wars once you get beyond the spectacular presentation. Ah, ‘feel’. That’s the thing, isn’t it? Does a movie game make you feel like you’re a part of that movie’s wider world, or is it just wearing its skin?

It’s that question which most informed this list. I don’t disagree that there are, in some cases, better games-based-on-movies if ‘game’ is the foremost criteria, but these, in no particular order, are the ten games which most understood and even grew my appreciation for their subject matter, rather than simply piggy-backed it. (Additional FYI: I decided not to include any superhero games, reasoning they’re really their own thing rather than innately movie-based).

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Alice has been away this past week, and so I’d imagine is presumably playing the game of “If I swim to the other side of this loch and run away, perhaps I’ll not have to return to work on Monday.” The rest of us however remain on dry land and I’ve gathered the team to ask them what they’ll be playing this weekend. Leave your own response in the comments below.

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After some impressions of the first few hours of Avalanche’s Mad Max [official site] open-world action-me-do, I return having spent another week with the Road Warrior, ready to tell you wot I think.>

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Sometimes you just need to take a lot of screenshots of a game’s character ignoring the giant explosions going on behind him. We did this for Just Cause 2, and it seems that it’s happening all over again with Mad Max. So, for your viewing pleasure, here’s Max nonchalantly not looking at shit blowing up from a distance that really ought to be frying his bacon skin like bacon.

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Sometimes you just need to take a lot of screenshots of a game’s character ignoring the giant explosions going on behind him. We did this for Just Cause 2, and it seems that it’s happening all over again with Mad Max. So, for your viewing pleasure, here’s Max nonchalantly not looking at shit blowing up from a distance that really ought to be frying his bacon skin like bacon.

… [visit site to read more]

The weekend crept up on us silently, catching us snoozing or distracted flicking through magazines. But now it’s here! Loudly! In our faces! And has brought a dog! Read on to be wholly surprised by which game many of us are playing this weekend, then why not tell us what you’re clacking away at?

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I m trying to work out what I think of the early hours of Mad Max [official site] through a fog of flu and headaches, which is something I d hoped might help enliven an interpretation of George Miller s ultra-violent feverish post-apocalyptic peculiarity. Oddly, I m increasingly convinced that my fever is the closest this massive open desert world will get to capturing that distinct tone of the films. But what about the rest? The driving, the punching, the quest for silence?

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I m trying to work out what I think of the early hours of Mad Max [official site] through a fog of flu and headaches, which is something I d hoped might help enliven an interpretation of George Miller s ultra-violent feverish post-apocalyptic peculiarity. Oddly, I m increasingly convinced that my fever is the closest this massive open desert world will get to capturing that distinct tone of the films. But what about the rest? The driving, the punching, the quest for silence?

… [visit site to read more]