Mad Max - fourth movie, and a game coming in 2015

For the last couple of weeks I've spent most of my gaming time exploring the desolate future of Rage. In my opinion this game is an absolute gem. Yes, it has a few niggles, like a lack of an autosave feature, and the texture pop-ins, but it was exactly what I was after as my next game to play.

Rage is an open-world shooter with a terrain that essentially looks like a more realistic rendition of Pandora (Borderlands), with the vehicles and weaponry of the original Mad Max movie. In fact the game shares a lot of features with the original Borderlands, such as the bounty boards, looting, and of course, the various bandit enclaves.

Before I found out about the existence of Rage, I was getting quite excited over the future release of the open-world Mad Max game being developed by Avalanche Studios. While the in-game Max looks very little like Mel Gibson, and more like Joel from The Last of Us, I'm guessing the game's Max is actually modelled to look more like Tom Hardy.

What does the Bane actor have to do with Mad Max? Well Hardy is playing the titular character in George Miller's fourth instalment, Mad Max: Fury Road, which is also set for a 2015 release. I'm guessing it makes more sense for the game's Max to look more like Fury Road's Max, than like the original Max, Mel Gibson. This will help the game and film tie-in with one another, even if that was not the initial intention. 

We'll have to wait to see how these new additions to the Mad Max franchise will be marketed. But it looks like my desire for another open-world game, set in a dystopian future will be satiated by Mad Max. In the meantime though, I'll quite happily continue to get that fix from Rage.

New games incoming

Last month I had a little poll to see which open-world, first person shooter was favoured by my modest following of readers. Despite the 250 or so hits the blog has received in the last month, no one took the time to vote. This isn't the first time this has happened, so I get the impression you lot don't like voting in polls regarding first person shooters.

Never the less, I decided to resolve the matter in my own way; by purchasing Rage: Anarchy Edition. How did I go about making this decision? It had nothing to do with ratings, reviews, or recommendations. Instead I looked to see which of the three titles I was interested in playing was still available from the various online retailers. Since Rage was the only title available, Rage is what I bought. OK, so it's not a 'new game' as such, but it will be a new game for me.

As an added bonus it was on promotion, so I managed to pick up both Rage: Anarchy Edition and Deadpool for only R299. The downside is it will take nearly three weeks for the package to be delivered. That will at least allow me some time to progress in Diablo III, and possibly even try my hand at playing Call of Duty: Ghosts online. That said, I have spent quite a few of the last couple of evenings watching soccer (or football if you prefer), instead of gaming or reading, so perhaps I wont get all that much further in Diablo III before Rage and Deadpool arrive.

Games I've 'clocked' recently, and a poll

I recently completed the single player story of Far Cry 3. I even managed to do so without liberating any of the outposts on the southern island. So after completing the story I spent a few hours wrapping up all the optional missions, liberated all the outposts, and searched high and low to find all the remaining relics and chests.

I probably spent more time 'cleaning up' in Far Cry 3, than I did playing the entire story of the third game in this post. I even went so far as to unlock all the trophies related to the single player campaign, that's just how much I enjoyed exploring the islands of Far Cry 3. There is still the matter of achieving the six co-operative mission trophies before I manage to gain my first platinum trophy, but those will have to wait until I have someone to play the co-op. missions with. Perhaps I'll get a chance to complete one or two of the co-op. missions next month when my brother comes to visit.

Shortly after finishing Far Cry 3, I jumped back into Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, and completed all the story related missions too. I had previously played through about 65% of the game, so thought that I still had quite a few more hours if the story left to play. Hence it came as quite a surprise that the final chapter was so short, possibly even shorter than the credits sequence.

Turns out the majority of the remaining 35% of gameplay was all the naval contracts, assassination missions, and hunting down of the remaining collectables. Unlike Far Cry 3, I probably wont be getting round to completing too many of these any time soon, as I didn't find sailing the Seven Seas in Black Flag as enjoyable as traipsing the jungles of Far Cry 3. Maybe I'll give it another go in a few weeks time, after taking another break from Black Flag.

A few days after finishing Black Flag I completed X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which had a much shorter, but still enjoyable story. The shortness of Wolverine came as quite a relief, as the previous three games I'd completed (Borderlands, Far Cry 3, and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag) had all taken a vast number of hours to finish, not that I'm complaining.

Now that my gaming backlog is thinning out a bit, I'm on the lookout for another open-world, first person shooter. I've been having a look, and the three titles that come recommended as being similar to both Borderlands, and Far Cry 3, without being sequels/ prequels are Dead Island, Fallout 3, and Rage.

As such, I'm setting up another poll to see which of these three open world shooters you think is the best. In the meantime I'm going to take a bit of a break from playing PS3, as there is quite a lot happening in my life over the next  four weeks, culminating in a week long trip to an Indian Ocean island (or two).