Rage 2 Review: Gameplay Impressions, Videos and Speedrunning Tips

Rage 2 provides everything fans should want from a sequel.  

The powerhouse tandem of developer Avalanche Studios with an assist from id Software promised a greatly expanded, open-world offering of the first effort in the series, which was released in 2011. 

Carving out space for a first-person shooter in 2019 is a tough sell on first pass. But Rage 2 takes inspiration from recent hits like Doom (2016), Mad Max and the Just Cause series and mashes it up into a brilliant gameplay loop and player freedom that is hard to put down. 

Confronted with avoiding the "just another open-world game" stigma at this point in a console generation, Rage 2 excels and stumbles in this area—where it does the former or latter will greatly impact the experience on a player-by-player basis. 

Graphics and Gameplay

Rage 2 is an interesting mix visually in quite a few ways. 

That was at least partially the point when setting the game 30 years after the events of the first offering in the series. This is still a wasteland, but from a narrative perspective, the release of EcoPods to recreate the planet spawned vastly different biomes. 

It's a welcome bit of diversity in both color palette and play experience. Dune Sea is a sandy experience, the Torn Plains are a rocky ride, the Wild is all about towering, expanding flora and the Sekreto Wetlands get muddy and swampy fast. 

Rage 2 is a beauty overall in most instances. The handful of different enemy classes are all distinct in their own right too and the vibrant colors, while clearly aimed at standing out from other similar games settings, fit the universe and tone well.

A close attention to details helps too, as this is a gory, limbs-flying-everywhere experience. As silly as it sounds, the explosions are the best seen in a game yet and the audio kick to coincide with them is a treat. Other details like the marks left in the sand behind a vehicle can be appreciated in the game's solid photo mode. 

Interestingly, the vehicle segments are the best-looking portions of the game. The draw distance is massive and the different times of day and night that interplays with a vehicle's lights and some of the lighting throughout the world looks great. 

Things can start to fall out of whack when in first-person mode at times. Textures don't always pass the zoom test and non-cutscene mouths don't always sync up with the sound. Consistently repeated items like mannequins and bicycles dot various camps too. 

It all still oddly adds up to a rather immersive-looking experience that pairs mostly well with the game's biggest selling point—gameplay. 

Rage 2 offers a power fantasy unlike most in gaming. This is a weighty, impactful experience made highly customizable thanks to the upgrades and creative weapons sprinkled throughout the wasteland. 

The game is a standard FPS experience at first with a pistol and assault rifle before becoming something much more. But even those basics are punchy. The marriage of gore and sound design creates a sense of lethality most shooters in this day and age besides Doom fail to match. 

But everything opens up thanks to an absolutely wild array of abilities. There are standard early unlocks like a double jump and short blink. But it isn't long before players are pulling off Jedi-esque moves, with Thanos-snapping rounds into explosive bursts and going all Skyrim with a Fus Ro Dah shove—to hint at a few of the abilities. The mind boggles at the way players will be able to get creative when combining all of these abilities, and it is sure to be a GIF-heavy game when players start sharing clips of the carnage on social media. 

Overdrive is a crowning feature of Rage 2. It almost feels like a mechanic found in a fighting game. Chain enough combos together and Overdrive allows the player to deal more damage in gruesome fashion while recovering health. And Overdrive is refreshingly available, it isn't some once-an-encounter thing—spamming it and getting it right back for more carnage isn't uncommon. 

And this is worth its own section. It might make Doom fans feel some type of way, but Rage 2 now has the best shotgun in video games. It's an absolute blast as it works with the game's brilliant physics system, which means it isn't just a gun, but a way to interact with the environment to a player's advantage. And firing from the hip means the pellet spread can hit multiple enemies—but in a smooth evolution, aiming down sights fires a slug-type charge with greatest distance and accuracy for those gory one-shot kills.

Ironically, the game's best moments come indoors despite the open world selling point. Chaining together Ranger abilities, using the environment as a weapon and kicking into Overdrive while mowing through hordes of baddies is exhilarating, if not unmatched. But out in the open at an enemy camp, too much distance between enemies handicaps the gameplay loop. It can quickly become a peek-and-shoot affair instead of what it seems to really be going for with the loop. 

Some of the same compliments to the first-person action also apply to the vehicular side. As opposed to Rage, this sequel shelves the arcade feel to the racing and vehicle combat for a more consequential-feeling play style. Gravity, traction and momentum play much bigger roles this time out, and it makes for a more interesting racing affair, not to mention more entertaining once the vehicle battles start. Tearing down a chain of enemy vehicles in a caravan while roaming the free world is unrivaled here. 

As a whole under this umbrella, players who want some fun, customizable first-person action don't need to look much further than this. Rage 2 is a treat for the way it combines the basic with superb execution of intertwining more complicated abilities. The kill-to-kill combat, picking up health from fallen enemies as the player goes, is often entirely too easy on hard difficulty, but it's also a blast.  

Story, World and More

Rage 2 story can be strange at times. As it plods through one of the punk-vibed towns in an apocalyptic setting, the game can feel like a trip into a much more visually-pleasing Fallout universe. 

But those hoping for a similar story should temper expectations. The story here is short, makes the expected punches and won't impress those who aren't buying into the universe's overall tone and sense of humor, which feels more like an explicit Borderlands trying to evoke a reaction—whether it's positive or negative. Not that a game with a big bad named "The Authority" should be hinting at a deep story. 

Players handle Walker, who right off the bat becomes a Ranger, which in this universe is the top of the food chain. He has a narrative reason for starting out weak, but it doesn't last long. He or she is the last of the line after an all-out assault by the big bad, and with an assist from a hologram of the recently slaughtered, he gets to setting off into the world to overcome it all via Project Dagger.

Fans of the first game will love to see how some familiar faces have evolved over the years. Project Dagger consists of three friendlies—John Marshall, Loosum Hagar and Dr. Antonin Kvasir—that need help throughout the map to progress the story. 

That's where things start to hang up a bit. Players will meet some interesting characters along the way, but only if they're buying into the explicit cheesiness of the whole universe. 

But it quickly devolves into busywork and only exists as a reason to nudge players toward doing events in the open word. The story is blocked until players bump a progress bar with each of the three. The story itself never really grabs the player, nor is it memorable. 

Out in the open world, there is a ton to do. Players can fight towers, loot camps, participate in races, flag down a driving vendor, hop in any vehicle they want, complete bounties, clear checkpoints and blockades, engage in random vehicle battles, fight some wildlife, it really goes on and on. 

But keep in mind the mention of the game feeling better in smaller spaces from before. This is all fun on first pass, but if open-world fatigue has set in for a player, the options here aren't doing much to set the game apart, and the open world can feel uninhabited at times. 

Those towns follow a similar trend. The structure and vibe of them are great, if not Falloutish. But there are some blatant set pieces upon entering that just don't make them feel lively or lived-in. It's one of those cases where standing too long in one spot reveals the NPCs aren't really doing anything and everything has a set loop. 

Mutant Bash TV bridges some of the gap with these concerns. The game show asks the player to mow through rooms full of enemies in different settings, which is prime real estate to rip off massive combo chains. It's a bloody, violent time and unsurprisingly the best feature. 

Player agency is a big theme with Rage 2, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to hear there is a massive arsenal of weapons once players get rolling through the map and discovering Arks and vendors, all accessible through a handy eight-slot weapon wheel. Even the starter pistol is strong, but the game really shines when a player is confident enough to manipulate an enemy with the Grav-Dart Launcher while also using some other abilities. 

This same breadth of player option and style extends to vehicles. Any vehicle discovered in the open world is driveable, upgradeable and accessible from the vehicle menu. Cars, motorcycles, vans, even non-grounded vehicles are all here and have upgrade trees, which are worth investing in. As one can probably imagine, purchasing the ejector seat upgrade and launching high into the air and raining down ammo and abilities on enemies in a surprise attack, to name a small example, is a thrill.

That same upgrade-tree feature applies to weapons. Range increases, reload speed and interesting perks make for meaningful progression available in a player's preferred weapon of choice. And the three allies all have their own set of upgrades available for unlock via projects. John Marshall's four unlock trees, for example, house combat upgrades like a movement boost while aiming down sights.  

If it sounds like a lot—it is. The reward is in the progression of a build first, then the mastery of the approach. 

To its credit, Rage 2 tries some interesting things—it's hard out here being a singleplayer-only game, after all. It creatively weaves in Twitch viewers when the player needs revived, which encourages streaming. And players have universal access to (they still exist!) cheat codes as they play throughout the game. 

But there are some technical issues. At certain points, NPC dialogue overlaps with itself if interacted with too quickly. Vendors sometimes disappear but still talk. There weren't notable frame dips though, and small issues could get ironed out quickly, so it's not hard to give the game a pass. 

Speedrunning Tips

A Rage 2 speedrun is going to be interesting, to say the least. 

With a game as customizable as this, viewers are bound to flock to notable runs in the name of sheer curiosity—they will probably stay for the amazing skill on display once the best runners get to mastering the combat and shooting. 

An any-percent run isn't going to take long in this game, either. Scenes and dialogue are skippable. Fast travel opens up in certain spots once a player has been there. Careful navigation of the world and skillful driving makes for quick trips. A 100 percent run is a totally different animal, though the stunningly low times on any-percent runs will probably make them the more popular choice. 

Arks that unlock movement-based abilities are going to be key to runs. Along those same lines, upgrading nanotrite abilities' recharge times means having the most overpowered items in the arsenal available right away. 

Farming Feltrite from enemies and camps early on will guarantee quick upgrade paths on weapons. A health infusion schematic early on lets the player craft some of their own, too. In short, anything to optimize elusiveness and agility is a big win, as is the ability to craft items as opposed to returning to towns to purchase them. 

In this case, player shortcuts, decisions on which open-world events and Arks to hit or avoid and sheer skill will pair with some of the tips above to make for some surely stunning times. For a game without multiplayer, a healthy speedrunning community popping up is a good development. 

Conclusion

The most triumphant moments in Rage 2 don't necessarily happen in the open world. They come in tighter spaces when the player chains abilities and guns to pull off jaw-dropping moments.  

It raises the question if this would have been better off as a more linear experience like Doom, but a certain portion of players still love the exploration and sense of immersion from the open world. And it is nice that this is a seamless, loading-screen free experience as opposed to the fragmented nature of the first game. 

A little too silly at times and easy once players get rolling, Rage 2 isn't going to grab and hold an attention span for a long time. But the core gameplay is brilliant and doesn't have many equals when everything flows together. 

Provided players aren't thinking too much or looking for a deep story, the world of Rage 2 is at least interesting, and the gameplay loop is unique enough to seek out thanks to the mastery of its niche.