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| Rage 2 artwork, showing off it's new vibrant colours of Neon Pink [Bethesda ©, Image source: Microsoft Store] |
I’ll be the first to confess that I’ve never been an FPS
(First Person Shooter) fan. A shooting game has to have some kind of gimmick or
be funny for me to want to play it. So when Rage 2 was announced and with the
subsequent trailers, I must admit I was drawn into the neon pink wasteland and
high-octane action. I might not be alone in saying that Rage 1 never gripped me
enough to finish it so I was going in half cocked. But after finishing Rage 2 I
found it to be an enjoyable experience, just not a very long one.
When I first began playing it, I got a DOOM meets Just Cause vibe, fitting as it’s made by both ID Software and Avalanche Studios developers of those series respectively. It’s the same run-and-gun style of combat in first person with near superhuman abilities like a double jump, ground slam and super blast ala DOOM. A skilled player will combo all these abilities and use the variety of weapons to get some stylish and gory kills. But the more novice shooter player like myself rarely used anything other than the shotgun, assault rifle and rocket launcher. Even the BFG from DOOM is a weapon in this game (when you buy the deluxe edition that is) and is just as overpowered as you’d expect, but ammunition can only be bought from one shop in the entire game and it’s definitely not cheap. In my run, it rarely saw the light of day except for the occasional Crusher fight when I didn’t fancy sinking all my ammunition into its face. The gist of my point here is that the gun play is very satisfying, even to the basic shooter player like me.
The open world is a different kettle of fish though. It’s a huge open sandbox that you’re free to explore from the word go with a plethora of locations to visit and destroy ala Just Cause. You can go kill all the bandits at their camps, clear out mutant nests, open up road blocks by killing the bandits, liberate power stations by killing the shrouded… Okay so it’s just a lot of killing really, the side objective variety is sparse. But as I said above, the gun play is satisfying enough that I didn’t wholly mind going everywhere and killing everything. There’s enough enemy variety that I had to put some thought into how I went about completing objectives rather than go nuts with the shotgun. My issue with the open world is that outside of the missions and side missions, there isn’t anything there. Getting around is a drag and the best vehicle in the game is the first one you get. You can unlock motorbikes and tanks, but the tanks are slow (obviously) and the bikes are an utter mess to handle. Seriously, I think I’ve been spoilt now for motorbike physics with Days Gone because that game handled them like a dream, but Rage 2 is a nightmare. I wouldn’t have touched the motorbikes if it weren’t for a trophy. Oh and there’s a flying vehicle too, but I used it once when I needed to be on the other side of a big ravine to reach the next objective.
Because it’s such a big game, it’s not unusual to find a few bugs here and there but, similar to Days Gone, there weren’t any that really stood out apart from one instance of a game crash. I do take issue however with how slow the menu system ran. There wasn’t that much going on in the pause menu and the layout is similar to other open world games releasing of late, however this one took longer than it should to switch between tabs. This might not matter to some but it really took me out of the experience, especially when the game itself has a very smooth frame rate.
It seems like I’m zoning in on the smallest things to complain about but I do want people to know that I did enjoy my time with Rage 2; the gun play is very satisfying and varied enough to keep me invested to finish the game. But if you’ll recall, I mention that it isn’t a long experience and this is my biggest problem with the game. The main campaign runs in at around 12 hours with about 8 campaign missions in total. There is practically no story other than the typical revenge plot; “Bad guy killed someone I love, gonna go kill bad guy”. The characters don’t really have any kind of arc and the story doesn’t have any twists or surprises. I understand that this isn’t the kind of story centric game, but when you’re charging full price for a game that can be completed in 1 or 2 sittings then something is definitely wrong. In order to get the most out of my money, I went for the platinum trophy which proved challenging only because the stats screen was glitched and didn’t keep a clear track of my actions.
If you consider yourself a big shooter fan than Rage 2 should be on your radar, eve
n if you aren’t it still a good enough game as it is. But I definitely do not suggest anyone get the deluxe edition as the length of time to complete it isn’t worth that extra £20 or so just for a strong gun that you may only use twice. Go for the standard edition or better still, wait for a sale.
When I first began playing it, I got a DOOM meets Just Cause vibe, fitting as it’s made by both ID Software and Avalanche Studios developers of those series respectively. It’s the same run-and-gun style of combat in first person with near superhuman abilities like a double jump, ground slam and super blast ala DOOM. A skilled player will combo all these abilities and use the variety of weapons to get some stylish and gory kills. But the more novice shooter player like myself rarely used anything other than the shotgun, assault rifle and rocket launcher. Even the BFG from DOOM is a weapon in this game (when you buy the deluxe edition that is) and is just as overpowered as you’d expect, but ammunition can only be bought from one shop in the entire game and it’s definitely not cheap. In my run, it rarely saw the light of day except for the occasional Crusher fight when I didn’t fancy sinking all my ammunition into its face. The gist of my point here is that the gun play is very satisfying, even to the basic shooter player like me.
The open world is a different kettle of fish though. It’s a huge open sandbox that you’re free to explore from the word go with a plethora of locations to visit and destroy ala Just Cause. You can go kill all the bandits at their camps, clear out mutant nests, open up road blocks by killing the bandits, liberate power stations by killing the shrouded… Okay so it’s just a lot of killing really, the side objective variety is sparse. But as I said above, the gun play is satisfying enough that I didn’t wholly mind going everywhere and killing everything. There’s enough enemy variety that I had to put some thought into how I went about completing objectives rather than go nuts with the shotgun. My issue with the open world is that outside of the missions and side missions, there isn’t anything there. Getting around is a drag and the best vehicle in the game is the first one you get. You can unlock motorbikes and tanks, but the tanks are slow (obviously) and the bikes are an utter mess to handle. Seriously, I think I’ve been spoilt now for motorbike physics with Days Gone because that game handled them like a dream, but Rage 2 is a nightmare. I wouldn’t have touched the motorbikes if it weren’t for a trophy. Oh and there’s a flying vehicle too, but I used it once when I needed to be on the other side of a big ravine to reach the next objective.
Because it’s such a big game, it’s not unusual to find a few bugs here and there but, similar to Days Gone, there weren’t any that really stood out apart from one instance of a game crash. I do take issue however with how slow the menu system ran. There wasn’t that much going on in the pause menu and the layout is similar to other open world games releasing of late, however this one took longer than it should to switch between tabs. This might not matter to some but it really took me out of the experience, especially when the game itself has a very smooth frame rate.
It seems like I’m zoning in on the smallest things to complain about but I do want people to know that I did enjoy my time with Rage 2; the gun play is very satisfying and varied enough to keep me invested to finish the game. But if you’ll recall, I mention that it isn’t a long experience and this is my biggest problem with the game. The main campaign runs in at around 12 hours with about 8 campaign missions in total. There is practically no story other than the typical revenge plot; “Bad guy killed someone I love, gonna go kill bad guy”. The characters don’t really have any kind of arc and the story doesn’t have any twists or surprises. I understand that this isn’t the kind of story centric game, but when you’re charging full price for a game that can be completed in 1 or 2 sittings then something is definitely wrong. In order to get the most out of my money, I went for the platinum trophy which proved challenging only because the stats screen was glitched and didn’t keep a clear track of my actions.
If you consider yourself a big shooter fan than Rage 2 should be on your radar, eve
n if you aren’t it still a good enough game as it is. But I definitely do not suggest anyone get the deluxe edition as the length of time to complete it isn’t worth that extra £20 or so just for a strong gun that you may only use twice. Go for the standard edition or better still, wait for a sale.
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