3/5 ★ – hunkypet's review of RAGE 2.

Rage 2 is not a bad game, it’s just a frustrating one. There’s so many interesting ideas, potential and groundwork already laid for this to have been a truly amazing game. id software team up with avalanche studios to combine doom like shooting mechanics mixed in with Mad Max’s open world design and vehicular combat. The first thing you notice when playing Rage 2 is it’s beauty. It truly is an exceptionally good looking game, it has one of the most visually appealing and diverse looking sandboxes I have played. That’s not to say it’s all good though, the open world is just window shopping, there’s nothing to do in this vast world over than Far Cry style enemy camp takeovers and they get old fast. What is good is this gameplay. The game plays incredibly well. Rage 2 facilities some of the most fun you could have in an FPS. Just Cause style craziness with Doom like mechanics and feel, it’s a dream. You have ample upgrades and tweaks you can make to the action to really home it to your play style. I will also applaud the difficulty options, each different option you select drastically changes the game and how you have to play, a nice exception to most games lazy design of stacking enemies and giving them extra health. The story takes a massive downgrade from the original, there isn’t much content here. 5-6 hours if you just do the story and 10 with some side content. You’re almost expected to have to go out and do endless filler content and bloat to even get the most out of the games mechanics. It’s a shame, with a tighter focus Rage 2 could have been a classic. Except it’s a nearly game, to well known to be whispered about as a lost gem and not good enough to be mentioned on anyone’s best of lists. If you do take the plunge my advice is to jump head first into the gameplay and ignore everything else. Let it be a catalyst to drive you forward to discover what other cool mechanics the game has. Make sure you play this on the enhanced consoles as they aim for 60FPS. I played on base PS4 and was stuck with a 30FPS frame cap.. it’s jarring at first but with solid motion blur the game is more than playable. Played on PS4