Sand Land is a promising manga-styled Mad Max with more tanks and much more slapstick

Sand Land

I mean it as a sincere compliment when I say that Sand Land seems like a game I would've been obsessed with on the PlayStation 2. In another timeline, maybe I was—Sand Land is based on a manga from Dragon Ball legend Akira Toriyama, released back in 2000, and this action RPG would've fit right in during that era. 

Waiting two decades has its advantages, though: Sand Land has harnessed the graphical might of modern PCs and consoles to render Toriyama's wonderful cartooning style in great detail, with striking toon shaded characters that really play up their manga origins. In a short 20-minute hands on at Summer Game Fest, I could already tell that the camera in Sand Land won't make me burst into a Super Saiyan rage the way most PS2-era games' did. And the little bit I got to play hinted at a far bigger adventure than I would've expected back in the day.