Hard to even know what facet of the game to address first--so many competing questions and concerns from fans of Baldur's Gate, the Divinity series, and classic CRPGs generally.

Let me say first that I have 60+ hours in the game as I write this, and I have not finished the content--the content in the *first act of the game contained in the pre-release*. Needless to say, anyone concerned about the scope of the game being insufficiently epic is going to be pleased. Speaking of common concerns, anyone worried about a lack of continuity to the previous games in the series will also be pleased, assuming they keep an open mind--many of the notable differences from the earlier games are down to there having been three(!) editions of Dungeons & Dragons released since Baldur's Gate 2, and the ensuing changes in game design that have arisen since. Even an isometric game, if using 3rd Edition rules, would have quite a different feel (as seen in Icewind Dale II), to say nothing of how much more controversial a 4th Edition take would have been. It genuinely annoys me how tieflings are everywhere when there was, what, literally one in the entirety of the first two games, but again, this is 100% from the parameters set by 5th Edition, and Larian is just doing right by the source material here.

But yes, beyond that, obviously Larian is producing a game using a mixture of their own style of CRPG and the pre-existing influence. I definitely never thought I would shoot a fire arrow to blow up an oil field in Baldur's Gate. But the thing is, any critic being intellectually honest should acknowledge that this kind of turn-based game with the possibility of more open-ended and innovative combat tactics is what many people thought Baldur's Gate should have been in the first place. Consider yourself lucky if you do not remember the "this isn't D&D" arguments when it came out that the game would be playable in real-time, or the complaints that there was no creativity to combat tactics (remember how a single wolf could wipe out half your party in the first chapter?). This is to not even mention the "Black Isle making a cash grab" complaints when Baldur's Gate's sequel was still called "Baldur's Gate," despite the city not making even a single appearance in the game. Some people cannot help but hate anything new, and those people in time will either realize the new thing is actually good... or will still be complaining about, say, Fallout 3 a decade later.

Speaking of Fallout 3, one of the things I find most interesting about Larian's efforts here is that they have brought in a more complex conversation system than ever existed in most Infinity Engine games (Planescape: Torment perhaps notwithstanding), but despite it being a change, I imagine even people otherwise critical of the game's direction are happy to see skills and ability scores (and races, and classes, and backgrounds, and and and) serving a purpose in conversation. For that matter, it is hard to imagine many complaints about Baldur's Gate III being an incredibly gorgeous game overall, or having an astoundingly compelling and grandiose opening cinematic that sets the tone: some truly outlandish and mind-boggling events are taking place, and you are at the very center of them all.

But yes, if you read the discussion forums (which I do not recommend doing until the trolls have gotten a little more bored), you might get the impression that this game has nothing to do with Baldur's Gate I and II. Well, I mean, it has more to do with those two games than Fallout 3 did with the first two Fallouts. Or than Neverwinter Nights 2 had to do with 1. Or than Icewind Dale II had to do with I. Or Might & Magic VI did with V. Or Wizardry IV did with III. Look, I too would have been totally into another real-time-with-pause isometric game, but as someone who has been playing Dungeons & Dragons since the 1990s and loves little more than a quality party-based RPG, there is so much to love here that I have no idea how cynical you have to be to ignore them in favor of the handful of things that do not exactly match up with what you wanted. No amount of tie-ins to the rest of the series will be enough for the naysayers, whereas when within the first hour of exploration I found a plot-critical book where the story arc of a Baldur's Gate I companion set events in motion in this game, well, that told me they were definitely not going to forget their history.

This game is absolutely going to be one for the ages, and I am already going to go ahead and say Baldur's Gate IV, or whatever they do as a follow-up (because they obviously have one planned given the low level cap here), is already on my must-buy list, given how much care has gone into this game already.

I mostly passively absorbed reviews of this game back when it came out, and got the impression that it was cool and all, but certainly not a must-play or anything. Well, I am here to tell you that anyone who said anything less than "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, they MADE A PLAYABLE MAD MAX MOVIE" was doing the gaming public a great disservice. Can you name many other games where lines of dialogue, stripped from the context of being inside the game, are still immediately identifiable as being related to the source? The developers may as well have split George Miller's mind open and consumed its contents considering how perfectly they nailed the lingo and speech patterns of the Road Warrior-to-Fury Road era of Mad Max. Every time I ran into a random wastelander encounter the kind of otherwise throwaday dialogue you would get in any other game had me enraptured instead. You could drop Chumbucket into pretty much any scene in Beyond Thunderdome, have him deliver one of the lines from this game, and likely not even think him out of place.

And oh my god, hold on, your sidekick CHUMBUCKET. I had to check who voiced him (for the record, Jason Spisak, the same guy who voiced Vulpes Inculta in Fallout: New Vegas, which is grand) and I would not have been surprised if it was going to say "Chumbucket voiced by himself" or something, because this character LEAPS out of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GAME and implants himself in your soul. For all the Mad Max series' endless wonderful contributions to the post-apocalyptic genre, Max himself is not exactly the most versatile character; look, I absolutely love him and he is great, but his emotional range is (intentionally) minimal compared to the literal sideshow going on all around him in the movies and here as well. Chumbucket thus basically provides the entire spectrum of human emotional experience, both for himself and for the player to feel by proxy. Within the first hours of the game, he somehow manages to convincingly portray pathos, obsequiousness, hilarity, barely-contained rage, and both religious and, honestly, sexual ecstasy in regards to Max's car, and the character manages to get more complex from there. Near the story's climax, Chumbucket is screaming in somehow simultaneous sorrow and reassurance, and these lines are going to stay with me my entire life. For ♥♥♥♥'s sake, this might be the best performance I have ever experienced in any video game.

O.K.! Whew, catch my e-breath here. Look, the game is not ALL spectacular, no. Every aspect of the game is pretty well implemented, whether vehicular combat or melee combat or some light quiet exploration in the always-spectacular vistas; the developers were able to make a bunch of visually distinct and compelling environments out of what on paper could have been incredibly boring endless sand, one of many aspects of the game that really speaks to their creativity. BUT, well, even given the creativity within these environments, "chase down and blow up some awesome-looking cars, knock over some enemy towers, beat up some enemies on foot, and go recuperate at a friendly settlement" definitely has a shelf life. There are also the purely optional death races, sprinkled liberally throughout the game world. Well, at least they act as fast travel points, but personally I would rather stab myself in the face than engage in timed race missions in games without quicksave, because I value my time far too much for that, so I only engaged in this the one time the game makes you.

Overall, this is definitely the kind of game where you do not want to go out of your way to be completionist once you are no longer vibing with the combat and exploration and racing; I did fully clear the first few areas and found it enjoyable, but then the prospect of doing it for the even larger third area just made me sort of check out and start mainlining the primary missions. The blowing up of other cars is certainly very satisfying, particularly how even if you start getting your ass handed to you there is always the option to bail out of your car and let Chumbucket work on fixing it while you try to instead convince the enemies to chase you on foot rather than just running you over. And, again, beating up people in hand-to-hand is also very satisfying, particularly when you realize it is entirely in-character that they are dumber than you and this can be exploited, and the upgrades to your overall hand-to-hand or car-to-car power come fairly quickly and often provide noticeable improvements, which is always a good thing in holding your interest. Though let me tell you about how dumb it is when the game takes your one-hit-kill shotgun and decides it basically does no damage against the bosses, I guess because they, what, hold their arms across their chest or something? Weak, just let us Indiana Jones our way through things if we have good ammo management bro

When you beat the game, no spoilers, other than it says "all right, now go nuts and do whatever all sandbox-style." You also get some final upgrades. Still, I am not entirely sure that I will do any more goofing around, given how tied up the story is with my own enjoyment of the gameplay, though I will probably want to at least finish upgrading the V8 engine just to see if I can drive so fast up the volcano spire that I enter space.

Ultimately, all the discrete elements of the game are fun for varying amounts of time, and if you just stop going out of your way to complete things once it starts getting old, then you cannot go wrong. It also helps for any completionist whims that the WB servers being offline mean there are challenges and even parts of the death race mode that are just unavailable now, and thus you would have to use someone else's save to get all the achievements anyway, which sort of defeats the purpose. But yes, truly, I think anyone who enjoys any of the things I have talked about in this review is going to have a great time with Mad Max, and I absolutely recommend at least giving it a shot.