Hidden Gem. This game is an absolute steal on sale and looks/plays great despite being released a decade ago. I had a ton of fun with the various things to do: strongholds to improve, areas to clear, things to collect, races and enemies to find, etc. The map is huge to explore with a lot of environments and landmarks to visit that really get you into the Mad Max world vibe. You could complete most the game before realizing you should probably start working more on the story quests but that is alright since there are plenty of gross but great wasteland characters to interact with and a lot of side quests to discover. Loved getting to build up my Magnum Opus and creating a grittier Max.

To start things off, I'm gonna say this:
Why does a game of this size not have the option to invert both camera axis but only one? (the Y axis)
So to invert it, I need to go to the controllersettings and invert the entire right stick in Steams big picture settings myself, but then the scrolling in the menus to read is obviously reversed aswell! I hate this about games...
Also that it starts off with a movie before letting you into the settings and doesn't make it skippable is kinda annoying, but at least it only plays the first time you open the game.

Also doesn't help that some soundeffects are just way too loud and if you're lowering the sfx option until it isn't, then you won't hear other things at all. (mainly talking about the volume of storms) I don't like getting my ears blasted, but I guess if I want to hear everything, I kinda have to.

The game itself is much better than the initial annoyance though! Interesting story (though I really don't like the ending part, made lots of things feel pointless..), but lots of stuff to do, to collect, to customize and fight!

It really is a ton of fun finding everything, taking over enemy camps and building "your own" bases up! I just couldn't stop trying to get everything there is and completing all the tasks, it was so much fun to just be able to see everything this world offers!

You build up your bases, your car and yourself! You can see the progress you're making constantly and it feels just right. You need scrap for most things, but special parts for the bases. Scrap you get by defeating enemies, destroying other cars, finding stuff... pretty much everything, always just a little. But sometimes, there are storms and they blow all kinds of junk at you, wanting you to find a safe place, if you stay out and search the area once the storm is over, you can find crates that got a ton of scrap inside it. Definitely a nice bonus, especially in the beginning!

The fighting is satisfying aswell! It doesn't have that much depth, its mostly just mashing one button to attack, or holding it longer to punch harder. You also got a block button, can use your shotgun if you need to and use weapons you find or that enemies drop, but they break very quickly. You can and must also dodge sometimes and your blocking needs to be timed. If you perfectly block, you get free counter attacks and while you do unlock lots of "moves" they're practically just all variations of the same thing. So you will not be learning much else in terms of fighting, but to me, the most fun was everything having to do with the car!

It can definitely feel a bit like too much of the same, if you're going to collect everything, as you're basically just doing the same thing more times, but you also definitely don't need to do that to get through the game. There is so much stuff to do, that you'll easily level up fully and got enough scrap to buy the most important parts anyway!
If you do want everything though, you'll probably need to collect everything too. It seems to fit pretty niceley. It had some online component in the past, but that has been deactivated by now. It was supposed to give you scrap based on real time passing, making it a bit easier to get everything, but if you're going for everything, it is still more than enough imo. (It was needed for one achievement though, if you're hunting for all achievements, you need to mod the game)

It does very rarely bug out though. Sometimes you can crash into the tiniest objects, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever, or I've also had it happen, that my character was suddenly slowly floating upwards. When I tried to fix it by teleporting to a fort, I fell through the ground. But that kind of thing only happened this one time to me.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed my experience!

cool