Mad Max 4 - The Game (September 1st 2015 PS4, XB1, PC)

[levcore]

That's fascinating Taipan, thanks for the additional information. Personally i see it as another solo Max adventure and just like the Mad max movies, each installment doesn't quite fit together, or at least only loosely. I mean this is clearly not Hardy's or Gibson's Max in the game, he looks and sounds very different. It's just a great continuation of the universe, obviously heavily influenced by the style, themes and tone of Fury Road. It certainly doesn't work as a prequel or anything, it's just a fun Mad Max adventure and loosely ties in with the references to Scrotus being Immortan Joe's son and Gastown etc.

[DGSimo]

Got this game for Christmas and have been playing it constantly. Great stuff, what a fantastic continuation of the Mad Max universe, it's really great fun. I've just gotten to Gastown, i'm trying to take my time with the main storyline.

Speaking of which, I had an interesting talk with Mark Sexton the other day about the game and few other things regarding Fury Road. He stated that the game is definitely not canon. It's a bit convoluted, but essentially what happened was this:

Fury Road writers created a storyline that was going to be a prequel to the movie. That story included Scrotus, Glory and her mother etc, but here's the kicker - the creative control over the game was handed over to Warner Brothers and they decided to 'Americanize' it. The story was altered, it might also be the reason why Max had an american accent in early previews of the game too. They just wanted to make it as nondescript as possible. The team over at Avalanche studios wasn't even that familiar with the Mad Max franchise, so they took a lot of liberties. That's why everything is off, while using familiar themes from the movie.

Mark said he didn't play the game so he asked me if it was set in America - shows you how much involvement he had in the process and what the studio's intent was. Now the original storyline is in the comic books, albeit stripped down to bare minimum, but it is the correct version of what could have been in the game had it stayed under Miller's creative control.

Well there it is. It explains why we were all scratching our heads about how it seemed like it was connected to the movie but also was something different.

It seems like back in 2008-09 that when Miller had grand visions of having a fully supported and self sufficient entertainment industry with Dr. D and KMM that a gaming studio was part of that and is one of the primary reasons Cory Barlog left Sony Santa Monica during development of God of War III to take up Miller on his offer. However when Happy Feet 2 bombed and Miller's plans went in smoke so did the gaming side leaving Barlog to pretty much oversee the development when WB shopped it to it to an outside developer, in this case Avalanche Sweden in Stockholm.

Obviously there's no concrete info to back this up but that was the gist I was getting and looking back over the game's development.

[TheWarriorMax]

It seems like back in 2008-09 that when Miller had grand visions of having a fully supported and self sufficient entertainment industry with Dr. D and KMM that a gaming studio was part of that and is one of the primary reasons Cory Barlog left Sony Santa Monica during development of God of War III to take up Miller on his offer. However when Happy Feet 2 bombed and Miller's plans went in smoke so did the gaming side leaving Barlog to pretty much oversee the development when WB shopped it to it to an outside developer, in this case Avalanche Sweden in Stockholm.

Obviously there's no concrete info to back this up but that was the gist I was getting and looking back over the game's development.

I had always wondered if there was a big change like that because more than 2yrs ago an industry person (confirmed id, not anonymous) posted in a forum that they had worked on Mad Max in 2009, in Australia, and apparently Miller was there. Almost no information was given, due to NDA I assume, just basically chimed in on a Mad Max discussion thread to say BTW I worked on this.

[DGSimo]

Taipan if you're able to chat with Mark and possibly others...why not getting in contact with Cory Barlog? I'd be curious to get the full story about the development of the game: How it was the conceived, the original story and pitch, gameplay mechanics, why control was given to WB and then Avalanche chosen to develop it, why Barlog left etc?

[Taipan]

I'll see what I can do.

[TheDarkOne#1]

Saw something very familiar on a music channel. Rapvideo with a car cameo from the game.

https://youtu.be/K_9tX4eHztY

[Sam Coggins]

The game is superb! It deserves a series.

[biolumen]

Fortuitously, Hollywood director George Miller was in town visiting collaborators on Mad Max: Fury Road, then eight years out from being released in theaters. One of Barlog’s new friends at CAA tipped him off that Miller enjoyed talking with game developers. Barlog went through the grapevine to arrange a sit-down and brought along a copy of God of War 2. Picking up a PS2 controller, he played and talked about the design decisions that had gone into this and that segment. Miller sat and watched, silent throughout Barlog’s soliloquy.

“I had no idea if I was connecting with him just because he was sort of staring at it,” Barlog remembered. “I was like, I don't know if this is going very well. Then, suddenly, he was like, ‘This is amazing!’ We just sat there for, I think, two-and-a-half to three hours, talking about movies, things that inspired us, what was going on with me during [God of War] 2 and what I was trying to do. I was telling him that he ruined me for flying forever because of his piece for Twilight Zone. He said, ‘Oh, that's great.’ He just felt like this creative, kindred spirit.”

Barlog’s meeting with Miller inspired him to evaluate his career. He and other frontrunners at Sony Santa Monica had mapped out a story for God of War 3, planned for release on the new PlayStation 3. If he left now, he wouldn’t leave his teammates in a jam. “I kind of realized, ‘You know, I don't know if I should do this,’” he said. “There was always a new director on each of the God of Wars, and I was like, ‘I think if I do this, I won't grow. I might simply keep rehashing.’ I took the leap and spent a lot of time with [George Miller].”

For two years, Barlog and Miller spent hours locked away in conference rooms batting around story pitches for a Mad Max video game that would tie-in with Fury Road. Ultimately, the project fell through. Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios ended up taking the reins on a game, released in 2015 to coincide with Fury Road.

Barlog had no time to dwell on the fact that his and Miller’s collaboration had borne no fruit. The hours they had spent learning from one another were invaluable to him, and led indirectly to his next venture.
----------------
Like his leading man, Barlog faced battles every day at work. Nevertheless, he held to his vision. Of all the lessons he had gleaned from his time with George Miller, commitment proved the most useful. Miller had recounted to him the uphill battle he had faced in casting Tom Hardy as Fury Road’s titular character. To many of his constituents, Mel Gibson was and always would be Mad Max. There was a time much earlier in the film’s troubled production when Miller had agreed. Gibson had been cast, locations locked down, vehicles built and ready to roll.

“They were ready to shoot,” Barlog said. “Mel was on board, and then the [Iraq] war broke out, which limited access to their location, which then made them have to put a pause on everything. That pause started to create time and distance, so they had to start reevaluating everything. They had to rebuild all the vehicles; they had to redo everything.”

During one meeting, after Hardy had been cast, Barlog suggested to Miller that they include a Mel Gibson-themed Mad Max character skin as an unlockable in their upcoming game. Miller disagreed. “He started talking to me about how it was important to commit fully,” Barlog recalled. “That was an interesting moment of me realizing, yeah, there's this really cool part of nostalgia, but there's also the sense of: This is the direction this project is going. That full commitment really shows confidence to the audience as well, to realize, oh, this is a new chapter of the world.”

http://www.shacknews.com/article/100390 ... -adventure

[Immortan Joecutter]

recently I pimped my PS4 Mad-Max-style

ps4.jpg (65.4 KiB) Viewed 20225 times

[Stef-Man]

It's awesome!