RAGE 2

If Far Cry and DOOM Eternal had a baby
Sub par story. Empty esk world á lá Ubisoft. But the gameplay is fun and cool, it's really FC+DOOM combined.
Buy it at a big discount.

Play it for the gameplay, everything else is bullshit that gets in the way. This game would have been way better if it was an arena shooter or roguelike where you earn upgrades and new powers from some sort of permanent progression currency. Rather than the open world boredom that it is. No point wasting words on explaining the rest of the game, everything from story to world is very forgettable, Just play it if you want more gameplay similar to modern Doom with it's own spin on weapons and powers.

With my hours the true contents of this game is starting to show and it is a mixed bag.
Starting with the Cons:
- After a deeper look it seems there is a major chance you cant finish the game due to main quest bug, assuming you can get the game to start at all so if you do put money down this game better run good for you right from the start or refund it. Game has run nicely for me with a Nvidia card and Ryzen CPU but quite many are not so lucky. No crashes whatsoever for me.. Also price: I would not pay full price for this so consider getting it on sale.
- Bugs, glitches, constant pointless combat in the wilderness that only exists only as something to shoot at / drive over meant for the player. Open world has potential but is an untapped promise. Nice views though.
- It is evident to me the biggest issue this game has is that Borderlands beats it in so many areas as a starter. Seems to me there has not been any kind of leadership in the game that is responsible for ensuring the look & feel of the game is consistent, instead you get a feeling development has been this 'Check out this cool trick!' -kind of going for wow stuff and it shows as there are quite many times you need to suspend your disbelief when you are presented yet again with something so utterly weird you have to wonder if they could have presented these things differently or just skipped it. As for interactions In reality there is a lot of NPCs and events that rival Borderlands but since marketing dept is mostly just showing that stupid RAAAAGE face everywhere and trailers are just a mess... well people think this game is dumber than it actually is. But i suppose marketing just gave up and plasterd that Goon face everywhere like Borderlands does with the mask guy and hoped for the best. Nope, did not work at all. The Goon gang is a total nobody compared to the baddies in Borderlands and they didnt spend too much time on those either.
Pro:
- Surprisingly good gunplay, Takes a lot from current gen Doom and that is a plus. Also Aggressive gameplay is sometimes the only proper way forward so at least part of that RAAAGE thingie is warranted. (Although for some the real rage may or may not come outside the game on technical issues)
- Things to do, events that surprise you. Always something going on. Logs fill up with stuff to do.
- Not a looter shooter, I am DONE with borderlands style looter shooters with their gun collecting. You collect stuff here as well but the stuff you collect is much smaller in quantity and has less flashy effects yet i think the skill trees etc. are better than in Borderlands and i find the system here much more motivating than Borderlands skill trees + gun comparison. I like the nanotrite effects you need for combat. All in all the collecting stuff is good enough to warrant some effort. Although i find it painful that someone decided to hide all the loot containers, a pain that will follow along until you get a skill that will ease that part.
So to sum it up: Pick a good enough price point for you and get it on sales. Setup the game at once and ensure it runs properly or refund it. Chances are relatively big this wont run properly for you. If it does run then extract as much fun as you can get and there is a surprisingly lot of that and be happy with Ubi-like open world 'mess around sim'. This game is like Rage 1, a 'grandiose but incomplete vision' and now a derelict but with a 39.99€ price tag. I got mine from mystery bundle so expectations were a round ZERO but there is content here worth paying to my great delight. With caveats of course.

lets talk about rage 2
A dead world that is coming to life and crazy people that are busy killing
Unfortunately, compared to the first version, the story is very short, but there are thousands of different missions for more fun but repetitive
The graphics of the game are acceptable
The gameplay is very similar to Cyberpunk 2077
The design of the environment is really amazing, and one part is desert and dead, another part is plain and desert, and another part is similar to rainy marshes
I think 8 out of 10 is fair

This is Max Max 2.. but with guns, jedi powers, and an alternate dystopian plot.
It's Avalanche's "take too little content, and cookie-cutter it across way too big of a game world" template once again.
If you've played Max Max and/or Just Cause, and thought "wow, this is the most repetitious BS ever!" then this is not the game for you.
The problem is they tacked on Id's Doom-style gun combat. And, the original Rage had some long shoot-out areas. So, folks go into this thinking it's going to be some non-stop action a la Doom.
NOPE.
It's an Open World Survival game with random Mad Max driving combats and base take overs with Doom-style gun play for the guns. But, 80% of your time will be wandering the wastes looking for the next point of interest. Or, avoiding combats.. b/c they waste your resources while barely giving you anything worth your time to compensate.
Here's the Max Max video game formula copied into RAGE 2
- Massive game world filled with roads and random copy-pasta'd points of interest
- Random packs of vehicles roam around looking to pick a fight
- Convoys with big rigs wander around every now and then
- You can find & drive various vehicles, but there's a "Magnum Opus" main to upgrade
- Bases scattered through-out to clear (in this case, looking for an Ark Chest that has goodies)
- Spend 10-15 mins killing enemies at a base, then 2 hours scavenger hunting loot boxes to get a 100% clear at the base (BOO!)
- Various other random cut-n-paste encounters, like Authority towers to destroy, etc.
- Killing enemies is pointless, because you waste a lot of resources for barely any gain. So, most of your time is spent avoiding combat unless necessary.
Now let's throw in Doom-style combat...
- Bullet-sponge enemies that take 5 assault rifle rounds to the face before they go down. And that's on EASY mode!
Now let's throw in Star Wars, b/c ...
- Every stupid game has to have Jedi Powers now. And this makes absolutely NO SENSE for RAGE. There was no indication from the first game that the nanos would give people magic powers. Yet here we are.. b/c jedi powers in every game is all the (*cough*) rage these days.
Now let's throw some "Avalanche being dumb" mechanics into the mix...
- an absolute carp-ton of keys to bind. Avalanche can't figure out how to incorporate more actions into less keys, so you're bombarded with tons to map.
- convoluted UI's that make it difficult to tell what to click on or do. Did you just double-click that thing to unlock it, silly goose?! No, you're supposed to press AND HOLD the "F" key to unlock that thing.
- And why do they have an obsession with pressing AND HOLDING keys? I want to go up a ladder. In other games, I just touch the ladder, and aim up or down to climb up or down. In RAGE 2, I have to aim at the ladder to get the interaction prompt, then press and HOLD the "use" key, wait for a 1 second timer to count down, then the character breaks immersion by taking complete control and climbing the ladder for me. I'm tired of pressing and holding keys. I don't know if they think this makes the game more "interactive" or what, but it's annoying.
Getting back to combat....
Enemies barely drop anything. Feltrite is the "XP" of the game world. You kill someone, they MIGHT drop 3-4 when they die. And that disappears in 10-20 seconds if you don't rush up and grab it. It gives you a minor health boost, too.
- But, some enemies don't drop any
- 3-4 Feltrite is literally 3-4 xp.. most stuff costs 500 Feltrite to even start upgrading
- The minor healing it gives you is pointless, b/c you have to rush up to get it while getting your face shot off doing so
- You wasted a whole clip killing some dude to get it.. so now you're low on ammo
Doom-style combat doesn't mean anything if you don't get anything out of it worth while.
The main reason you get into a fight is to clear an area, like a base, so you can wander around in peace for 2 hours trying to find all the loot boxes.
The rest of the time, you're just skirting around fights to avoid them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, after carping on the game for most of this review, why do I thumbs-up it?
Because it's a "shut your brain off and grind" fest.
I carped all over Mad Max, too.. but it's the kind of game you can come home from work, switch your brain off, and just go head out and explore, get in a fight, shoot someone in the face, and wash-rinse-repeat to zone out and relax.
While RAGE 2 also tries to push vehicles on you, I've been playing the whole time on-foot. Like Mad Max, it's makes it a bit more tense hearing the sound of on-coming engines when you're on foot. You have to scurry off and hide. That has enhanced the "open world survival" aspect of the game.
I've also been playing without powers. I dont' want to use jedi powers. I'm annoyed they included them. So, I'm not using them. I just want to shoot people in the face. (Which is why the bullet sponge enemies annoy me. And, why the paltry rewards for doing so annoy me.)
If you're looking for non-stop action, go play Doom or Borderlands.
If you're looking to switch your brain off and grind, or wander around and go "I wonder what's over that hill?" then this is the game for you.

At a discount this is a near perfect zen/flow state shooter. otherwise avoid.

If you can get past the cheap looking, god awful live action marketing campaign that ruined my first impression, you'll find a total gem of a game. If the offspring of Doom and Far Cry, on the one hand, and Mad Max and Crysis, on the other, came together and made a baby, that baby would be Rage 2. It's awesome. Play it.