Rage 2 was always been billed as this pompous, neon-paint covered shooter with Andrew W.K. riffs playing in the background while you blow shit up with your arsenal of weapons. Looking back, this advertising is a little misleading because other than some Mad Max-looking enemy designs and a modicum of pink paint splattered across the world, I wouldn’t say that Rage 2 feels very bombastic. It’s really just a fairly rote open world shooter.
The game is designed like a typical open world game where you make your way through this massive landmass with points of interests scattered around the environment. Your main mode of transportation is an upgradable vehicle, but the driving always felt like it was supposed to be something a little more ambitious. It’s kind of just… there. Rage 2‘s shooting mechanics are very good though. It’s tactile in a way that makes killing enemies a thrill, and by the end of the game some of the extra powers can make you feel absolutely unstoppable. You can potentially find all of the most powerful weapons/abilities immediately too, which is one of the few unique elements in Rage 2 that I found to be pretty cool.
Some of the locations around the world like the Bandit Dens are fun since shooting enemies is always a blast, but some locations are straight-up bad—the collection of lame Sentry fights specifically come to mind here. There’s lots of other stuff like a reputation system for completing various activities across the game world, levelling you character, and weapons upgrades, but it takes a little fiddling to understand how everything works. For some reason the menus are incredibly sluggish—I even had the game crash multiple times on the vehicle upgrade menu. Rage 2 might be a really good game to plough through on a weekend on mute with a podcast in the background, but otherwise I definitely can’t say it’s essential.