REVIEW: Rage 2 — Wreak Havoc And Not Much Else
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Raves
Rants
Rage 2 doesn’t quite induce uncontrollable anger as its title might suggest. It’s more likely to arouse a sense of adrenaline and a bit of euphoria for every time you set out to slaughter droves of Mad Max-y thugs at your vicinity. Gunplay is what you come for in Rage 2, everything else is inconsequential.
STORY
It’s highly unlikely that you’ve played the original Rage, much less remember its story (if you have and you do, congratulations, you’re one out of twelve people). Rage 2 doesn’t bet on it either but nevertheless, it continues the existing story albeit taking place many years later. Though the stories are connected, it isn’t necessary to have played the first game through the game does sum up the premise briefly during the opening act. Even though much of the series’ history and even its characters persist in Rage 2, the narrative is pretty dull and nearly all the characters are forgettable at best. That being said, you’ll realize quite early on that the story really is just secondary, existing almost only to give you a reason to kill shit and nothing more. Thankfully, letting you kill shit is what the game is good at.
The basic premise is, you’re a ranger in a harsh Mad Max-style apocalypse with lots and lots of creatures to kill in all manner of ways.
GAMEPLAY
On the surface, Rage 2 is a hardcore first-person shooter, very akin to the likes of Doom and Wolfenstein. Right out of the box, It plays like any standard shooter. But as you make your way around the game’s world, you start to unlock all sorts of nastiness that improves your arsenal in pretty significant ways.
Rage 2 bombards you with numerous ways to enhance your character. Nearly every aspect of your arsenal is upgradable. Even your vehicle can be tricked out with enhancements. Each weapon performance can be upgraded, and each upgrade allows for further mods that change how a weapon behaves. Each major NPC represents a tree of upgrades which presents more stuff for you the more work you do for them. You can unlock over a dozen skills and each with their own individual upgrade trees, too. Like, if it can be used to kill, then you can bet your butt its got upgrades.
Rage 2’s world is littered with ARKs, these are pre-apocalypse bunkers that are filled with cool tech, usually unlocking a new skill or weapon for you to up your arsenal. Combat in Rage 2’s pièce de résistance and the more upgrades, skills, and weapons you unlock, the more unstoppable and badass you feel. Feedback from recoil and collisions are so sweet, you can almost taste them. All the cool powers you get can be strung together to create some pretty wild combos. Don’t believe me? Check out this nifty video DualShockers put together.
Rage 2’s combat might be delightful af, but the experience is marred by limited enemy variations and uninspired quest designs. You’ll get to a point where you’ll just get too powerful for anything the game can throw at you. Some good set pieces and creative quest designs do create opportunities to flex your mean arsenal. Sadly, these opportunities are few and far in between. The driving aspect also seems lacking, as they seem to have laid a solid foundation for good car combat, however, there are very little activities laid out beside the occasional convoy attacks and standard races.
VISUAL & PERFORMANCE
As is common among all decent shooters, Rage 2 runs at a satisfyingly high frame-rate. The textures and lighting effects are straight up baller, too. Nearly all the visual elements applied in Rage 2 are top notched, but unfortunately, it still couldn’t save the game from a dull and boring wasteland sandbox. No area or landmark seems interesting enough to explore, and the areas feel more barren than they intend to. The lack of spontaneous activities occurring as you drive around the world map is enough to kill the adrenaline rush in between encounters. The menus also don’t navigate well on the PS4 Pro; there’s some noticeable slowdown when switching between tabs. The soundtrack is pretty decent at least, though it’s no Doom.
VERDICT
Rage 2’s world feels more barren than intended and the variety of missions leaves a lot to be desired, but the game seems to have laid out the groundwork for a pretty solid shooter. Its no Doom or Wolfenstein, but its something close that has both an open world sandbox and vehicle combat. If the Dev teams can manage to refine the latter two, Rage might yet be one shooter to behold, even if the story’s still crap. If you’re into action shooters that makes players feel like an absolute unit, Rage 2 is a still quite a ride.
[This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher]