RAGE 2 Preview
Rage 2 isn’t like its predecessor. That miserable, brown identity crisis of a game left a bad taste in the mouths of id Software fans, promising DOOM-inspired gunplay with Borderlands-style world-building and managing to achieve neither.
Not only does the sequel get closer to delivering on the promises of the first game, but it also does it with a creative energy that’s actually quite fun. It’s a trashy 90s B-movie crammed into a game: parodying and celebrating Mad Max in equal measure, self-aware of how cheesy it is, brimming with neon and blue to offset that dank, Fallout-y wasteland that made the first game so bland.
“In its simplest form, RAGE 2 delivers on the promise of the original game,” says studio director Tim Willits of id Software, bluntly. “The technology limited us to seperate areas in the first game – the driving and the combat were split onto different disks, right?
“In RAGE 2, the game is more connected. Everything works together better, you can go off and do different missions, you can go off and do what you want and that’s such and important part of what people wanted.”
Willits and his team have managed to weave magic into RAGE 2: the tight, beat-to-beat action of the levels works wonders with a fun, physics-based toolkit for the player to experiment with, and the writing gluing it all together is all the best bits of your favourite B-movies combined.
There’s a yawning gap in the shooter market for Expendables-esque action games, and it looks like RAGE 2 might fill it. Come for the gunplay, stay for balls-to-the-wall story.
With Borderlands MIA and Just Cause opting for a more ‘gritty’ take on sandbox shooting, RAGE 2 could be the most off-the-wall shooter we’ll see all year.
Oh, and the soundtrack? It’s got more metal than Tony Iommi’s fingers. We fully endorse that.
- Xbox
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