Here’s roughly my experience with Rage: I played the first game repeatedly, loved it, read the novelization, which reveals a lot more as the story to the first game is not very significant in itself, and I have the comic which tells some details of characters, locations, and events in the series. So, when Rage 2 came on Xbox Game Pass, I was beyond thrilled.
So, the obvious question is how does Rage 2 stack up? Formidably. I must say, I really enjoyed the experience. Yes, it was a bit simple, but it did what it did right so good it kind of overshadowed the flaws.
There is a lot to this game that only hardcore fans will appreciate, which is an enormous gamble, as the first game received a mediocre reception. And I think that’s being generous even. Not because the first game was bad, but because gamers wanted other things at the time. Like the main villain of this game, General Cross, is a character only people who read the book would know, and understand how he could become so powerful.
The game is a post-apocalypse caused by a major asteroid impact. Humanity knew about the impact ahead of time, and prepared survival arks filled with top people and technology and resources to restart humanity. Well, some humanity survived doomsday, some mutated into horrible monsters, and arks came up over time. On the eve of doomsday, when the arks were being put underground, General Cross started taking people out of arks who were deemed necessary to humanity and started filling it with his people. Military brass, scientists, and soldiers. These people come to hunt down arks, and anything attached to them, and once the survivors are useless they are killed. These marauders come to be known as the Authority. They have all the power, as much as anyone has power in the wasteland, and their technology is advanced and they are a very formidable force.
At the end of the first game, you raise all the arks. Between the first and second game there is a war which seemingly ends the Authority, but as we see in the intro to Rage 2, they are anything but defeated. They’ve continued their mutant experiments from the first game and comic, to terrifying lengths.
So, its your job, new character to the story, to take them out. You do this by assembling a project built by arkists and important anti-Authoritarians from the first game. I’d love to go deeper into the story and tell you about the ending, but I have no idea how it ends. Not that I didn’t have time to play it before this review, I honestly hoped on starting a New Game + after beating it. But, the last mission won’t trigger for me. It is a glitch, which I have read online some others have had, and had success reinstalling the game. this, tragically, did not work for me. Now, this game crashed at least every couple hours of play, so I can’t say I’m surprised, but after being this invested in the story, I would really enjoy experiencing the ending of this game! (Exclamation point in place of expletives.)
The game had other problems besides being buggy. You use the same three guns the entire time. There are other guns, but the ones I have come across have been laughably useless. The revolver that, instead of using the left trigger to aim and be powerful and useful, you use the left trigger to detonate already fired rounds. Why don’t they just detonate on impact? What possible advantage could this serve? Just get rid of the incendiary mess altogether and let me aim an actually powerful revolver! I already have a pistol from the start of the game I haven’t used since, but you allow me to spend resource points to upgrade it, which is almost adorably stupid. I put all my points into the holy trinity: assault rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher. And I suppose I was satisfied, upgrading them gave them perks and increased damage. So you don’t EXACTLY use the SAME three guns the whole time.
Let’s talk about the good points of this game. First of all, gunplay is amazing. Exciting and challenging. It is satisfying to see enemy armor shatter, and also this effect is useful to have a visual effect to help you know their armor is broken, because while the hit reticle turns from yellow to red when you go from hitting armor to flesh, that only helps when you’re shooting them. This game doesn’t have health bars for most enemies, although tougher ones will. So, seeing the armor basically explode off the person in pieces is a cool way of letting you know what is up. There is also a handy red skull that appears on the reticle when an enemy has been killed.
The vehicles weren’t as fun as the first game, partially because I wasn’t blown away by the graphics the way I was the first game, seeing scenery and such, and in the original most of the driving you did was racing. But, you unlock a flying vehicle at one point in the game which trivializes travel. I will say however, there are roaming convoys you can engage in vehicle combat with, and this is really fun, even if it is really hard. Easier if you upgrade your attack vehicle, but until then it is hard to come by auto parts to upgrade.
Speaking of resources, there are a lot in this game. Different currencies you can use to do different things. Money, obviously, buys you things at stores. There are different upgrade currencies depending what you’re trying to upgrade. Resources are scarce enough to motivate you to do as many side missions as possible. Which, honestly I was fine with because they were fun. Doing different mission objective types earns you loyalty points with different people which benefits you.
You have unlockable superpowers in this game. These are a lot of fun, and you definitely want all of them. They make you much stronger. And all powers are super upgradeable. Like everything else. Powers include throwing singularities that draw in enemies, a barrier you can place, a dash, to a defibrillator so you don’t just die when your health reaches zero, (all abilities have cooldowns.) Those are just some powers.
Rage 2 faithfully carries on the spirit of the Rage universe, while innovating in exciting ways. I always thought about how the nanomachines from the first game that only heal you, could be made to do crazy things, as they do in this game. Although most of your powers seem to flow through the suit you wear in Rage 2. I liked the characters they brought back, and General Cross is a great villain as are the Authority, but you fight other factions. Three essentially, if you count mutants. None of them really have much to say besides the Authority. The story feels like its a bit more campy and over-the-top, but its refreshing in a way. This game plays a lot like the new Doom, (2016,) and is from the same publishers. If you have the DLC, the BFG from Doom is even unlockable in Rage 2.
Final word: I am really upset I can’t start a New Game + in a series I am deeply invested in, especially since I was having such a good time. Bugs pretty much killed this game, which is a terrible shame. I suspect it got rushed onto shelves when it’s existence got leaked during development. This game also wasn’t developed by a different company than the original, which is very much present in other ways, but I’m not sure if this is one of them.
HereticDerek 