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Rage 2, the sequel that no one asked for, is the follow up to ID Software's 2010 post-apocalyptic first-person shooter. The first game was met by a "meh" from most players and critics, and no one really expected a sequel. I'm in the minority in that I was really looking forward to this. Rage 2 was promised as a Doom style FPS in a Mad Max style setting. Furthermore, unlike the last one, this was a joint development by ID Software and Avalanche Studios. The Avalanche devs were responsible for the criminally underrated Mad Max game that came out in 2015. Doom and Mad Max are two of my favorite things, so I was actually excited about what was promised as complete insanity. Alas, it wasn't.
Rage 2 is astonishingly mediocre. It's not bad, but I can't call it good. The shooting is fantastic, unfortunately its broken up by the humongous open world that is filled with almost nothing. Seriously, for an open world game, there's shockingly little to do. Essentially you drive from point A to point B, kill people at point B, acquire object, repeat ad nauseum for 10 to 20 hours.
There's an attempt made to focus on car combat, much like the Mad Max game, but even that falls flat. For starters, there's no challenge. They give you the best vehicle right out of the gate, there's literally no reason to ever use anything other than what's essentially the Tumbler from Batman Begins. The story is basically non-existent, which would be fine in this kind of game if everything else was up to par, but it's not.
The worst thing is that this had so much potential. An open world game set in a Mad Max post-apocalyptic world with Doom-style shooting should be right up my alley, and during the moments where you actually are shooting enemies, the game shines. But everything else is dull and repetitive with no real challenge involved. Again, it's not bad, and if you're looking for a quick Platinum trophy, you could easily do worse, but I can't bring myself to recommend this. And I wanted to love it, I really did.
I kind of hope we get a Rage 3 believe it or not, because all the elements of a great game are there, they just need to be assembled correctly. But I sincerely doubt that happens.
Three out of five flaming guitars.