Rage 2 - The Review

Rage 2 came out to a mixed bag of reviews, and I decided to hold off on getting it until it was on sale (which wasn't too much longer after its original release date). I snagged a copy around the same time I upgraded by laptop, and immediately ran in to some odd game-stopping bugs, odd ones in which the game would work fine then would simply stop loading. The fixes in the forums suggested digging in to the ini files to fix it, which could work....for a little while. So I gave up and waited a few months.

Recently for no reason I could discern other than "I was in the mood" I reloaded Rage 2 on my main rig and dived in. 25 odd hours later I finished the main campaign, which was basically about as satisfying as you might expect any id game ending to be; at the 27 hour mark I'd had enough time to decide the DLC missions weren't interesting enough for me to care.

Anyway....here's what I posted on Steam's review page for posterity:

PROS
--Open Sandbox world is fun to explore; good FPS controls and seamless vehicle controls make for a good time (Note: sandbox world is good for about 20 hours; starts to feel repetitive after that point)

--The core storyline is interesting (not earth shattering, just interesting) and lots of good voice acting (DLC less interesting though)

--The graphics are great, and the game feels very "ID" to me (it feels even more like a spiritual successor to Quake 4 to me than to Rage 1)

--Stuff that was good about the Rage universe from the first game influences and sharpens in this much expanded world

CONS
--The open sandbox world has a lot of "go here, find X objects" quests that are hard to escape if you get bored of them since its the fastest way to get the resources to level up; for my take, I'm fine with these but wish the game's assets were more diverse (why does everyone in the wasteland use pink cover containers to store their cash and feltrite, for example? Couldn't the devs have mixed it up a bit? There's like dozens of other container graphics in the game that are non-interactible! We won;t get confused, seriously...)

--There's a RMT shop filled with overpriced skins and the DLC. In a single player game, yeah. On the plus side the DLC missions are typical "ID DLC" type stuff, but the downside is they aren't very interesting and I just can't bring myself to care to care to complete them.

--Despite the overall storyline, not much beyond finding tablets and phones with story bits on them to flesh out the rest of the world (missing RPG style story elements, essentially); the game aims for a big, expansive world....but this kind of world needs the Fallout treatment, and it's really sorely absent here.

--The game has difficulty grades by location and mission; doesn't always advertise the difficulty of some missions until you're there; too easy and you roflstomp them, too hard and you get murderated endlessly.

NEUTRAL
--The DLC expansions are in the RMT shop and can set you back about $30, but they are the only things you will want to buy from there if you like the base game.

--The game had some weird bugs early on but it appears to be patched to a functional state now.

--You may get tired of "pink chalk color" while playing this game.

--The DLC is very optional, and best only if you desperately find yourself craving more after the main campaign ends (in other words, don't buy it like I did before finishing the main game).

OVERALL

--Solid A for fans of ID shooters and open world games, or fans of post-apoc settings to explore who enjoy the single player experience. DLC is a C- though.

--If you're missing one or more of those requisites then this may or may not appeal to you as much. For me, worth it. Especially if you can find it for $20 on sale.