Quick Look: Rage 2

I'd love to see Avalanche make a nice, linear game with all the tools of destruction it dreams up. Games like Just Cause and Mad Max, and now this, shouldn't be this dull. But they consistently (IN MY OPINION!) have been.

@larsc: That's what I was thinking. Rob Riggle retired from the Marine Corps Reserves in 2013 after 23 years of service.

You seem to be killing alot of Punk chics?

Is it time to let open world games die? Rage 2 sure as hell makes a good case for it.

Not having a mini-map and instead just leaving all your icons on a bar at the top of the screen is a super annoying move - especially in a an open world where there are tons of icons.

Because it's not always the best way for everyone. Some people genuinely prefer to use a gamepad, it's hard to believe considering how niche console gaming is these days, but it's true.

100% This

*barely uses the abilities and says the combat is basic*

*says NPCs are boring while talking to a mad scientist riding a mutant dude*

Okay I can't take this seriously anymore. Have fun not having fun with the game I guess.

So...the mutants all have cleft palates? Wow..great, creative design there to take a fairly common, but tragic, birth defect that lots of people are born with and turn it into the "joke" of the game. I love how the marketing was so "OMG EDGY IN YOUR FACE AND THIS IS NOT ALL LIKE BORDERLANDS" and it's totally clear they wanted badly to ape Borderlands, but not so much it'd be an outright rip off, so instead it's just another boring post-apoc shooter with none of the fun shit in the Borderlands games. But..LOL RANDOM the BFG!! Remember that thing from another game? Remember nostalgia?

Combat looks fun enough. I wish it wasn't attached to a drab looking open world game though. Might get this on sale.

The shooting looks enjoyable, with lots of options. Shame how they are saying the game don't incentivize the use of them though. I don't care for cookie cutter open world design either and collecting all that shit don't seem fun at all. No thanks.

For an M rated FPS connected to Id Software, this has a really strange lack of blood or gore. Not that everything needs to be Soldier of Fortune, but point blank shots with a shotgun were doing little more than making the guy ragdoll backwards. I don't think I saw any blood decals on the walls or anything of the sort. Just seems weird.

So what struck me while watching this was the idea of; But what else is there? In the genre I mean to say.

Not the biggest FPS person but a lot of that boils down to how few of the them are made that I'd have any interest in.

Modern military, online centric team multiplayer, battle royales, mmo-lite loot shooters, etc. No thanks. Like, sure whatever, I'm ok with you dang kids playing on my lawn. Have fun. I'm just not going to play with you.

So what's left? Doom and Wolfenstein? I suppose Far Cry as well. Maybe I'm forgetting a ton of games but...? BioShock is dead, Titanfall seems dead, Half-Life is dead, even stuff like Alien vs Predator seems gone.

I'm the last person to bemoan the death of the glut of mediocre FPS's that flooded the PS3/360 generation but it's still kind of sad that this style of game is so, I dunno, on life support?

Like I'm sure Doom Eternal and Wolfenstein The Next One will be great, you know the other Bethesda/ID games, but again. What else is there?

Because this seems surprisingly unappealing for having so little direct competition.

@mb2814: How do you anger someone that served in the Marines? Call them a former Marine.

Source: My father served.

Can you start playing these games above normal difficulty please!! This game is amazing at the hardest difficulty, makes the game million times more enjoyable! Watched Cohhcarnage play this today for a few hours and the game looked amazing, then watched your cake walk quick look and it just seem like I was watching a totally different game!

Sick of this website be for the hardcore gamer and the people working here being the hardcore gamers but they still play all the games on NORMAL, Like who plays games on Normal!?!?!?!? I know I sure as hell don't but IDK to each their own.

I could go on how you have addressed this issue over many quick looks and review but it is just a dumb explanation to sugar coat why you do this. I feel bad for everyone when you do this (the developer, the watcher and YOU) you are cheating people on seeing what games can be like for experienced players. I wish Devs would just make normal mode HARD and have an easy setting for non gamers then one extreme difficulty after you beat the game once.

Sorry for my bad typing and sentence structure typing this out quick as hell. I love GB personalities to the moon and back but this normal mode BS has to change for so many reasons!

Am I the only one who is forced to watch the video through the youtube embed?

Looks so boring. Seems like the AI needs a lot of work.

Ben, Rob Riggle was a marine, not Huebel

This is the best bets review, put it on the box: "RAGE 2 is OK, better than Mad Max, but I wasn't feeling Mad Max." - Jeff Gerstmann

@kingdanglerbk: Eh, pretty sure Jeff mentioned they play on normal since that's the default the developer intended. I'll play this on a higher difficulty because it forces you to get deeper into the game mechanics. But they play a lot of games, normal seems like the best way to stay on schedule.

Also I don't think this game is for HARDCORE gamers, it's for people who love video games. It's a celebration of games and all the goofy shit around them.

4:10 to 4:22 on repeat. This is good stuff.

@kingdanglerbk: Who plays games on normal? Err, most people? Hardcore gamer doesn't necessarily mean "beat Dark Souls in three seconds using a broken Power Glove", it just mean "plays a lot of video games and follows the industry".

Normal is the default, which is why it's called normal. It's meant to be the baseline, unmodified experience. They're not out to impress anyone with 360 noscope 1337 Mountain Dew-sponsored whatever. There are a TON of places to get that if the only thing you want out of a game is difficulty. (which is perfectly valid, just not the *only* valid way to enjoy a game)

So wait, you are the last of your kind and the only one who can wear the special armor? The abilities are cool, but it is often easier to just shoot dudes in the face? The shotguns have range? Is this just an open world Warframe?

I can't wait for the giant open world and crafting fads to finally end, it's gone on for far too long now. I'm starting to view open world shooters like I view Dynasty Warriors games, I just need a small taste every 6 or 7 years and i'm good.

That map, icons, UI, the after mission messages and even the arrows during driving really give me Red Faction: Guerilla vibes. They look super similar.

I love that game but it is 10 years old at this point. Not sure that was a comparison the devs were hoping for but idk.

I liked Mad Max, this looks boring; even though it looks extremely similar. the convoy stuff is exactly the same, and the car needed to be built up in order to be better. Seems like people wrote it off without playing much of it.

*guy ritchie freeze frame*

"here is the character outline and relationship summary of this newly introduced character. "

video

gmEA

WRITNG!!!

Played 1 and skipped 2. This could be the ticket.

Oh boy, it's an open world.

*exposit

I think this game looks pretty good, and will play it on a harder difficulty (thanks earlier post guy) because I watched IGN get absolutely CRUSHED by a sub boss named THE DEATH GOD.

I want to fight the DEATH GOD.

(Huge id fan since 1993, I had no fuckin chance at not buying this one...)

Welp about 2 hours in and THIS GAME RULES

The weapons have TONS of impact and the driving is so good. I just did about 6 races in a row because the driving feels god damn excellent. The vehicles move so amazing and spin out on different terrains and just moving around the world feels awesome plus there are a ton of different vehicles and upgrades.

The shooting is just like Doom 2016 - it feels snappy and impactful. The slight recoil on even just the few starting guns feels awesome. The enemies look like they came out of Doom (the first thing you fight is basically a revenant which is the first enemy archetype).

This is awesome. I love this. I can't wait to collect things and get stronger, because this is what I wanted. Maybe it changes later on but the world is crawling with enemies as you drive around on hard. This is gonna have to do until Breakpoint comes out in October. Pure hell yes.

Just boosting the car around hills and off cliffs feels spectacularly weighty and what I was hoping for since I thought Mad Max was a ton of fun. Great job Avalanche after the sad state of affairs that was Just Cause 4.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Check out the leet gamer everyone.

If it's too boring/easy maybe bump up the difficulty? I just played 5 hours straight on Nightmare and am having a total blast. One of the best games of the year so far from what I've played.

Edit: I see someone already pointed this out. Nothing wrong with starting on Normal, I do for most games. But its weird how unwilling some folks are to increase it if they aren't having fun.

I agree with Ben, open world games have hit its end. We thought shadow of mordors nemesis would change it, it didnt. We thought breath of the wild would change open world games, it didnt. Fallout 76, anthem etc etc. Its time to make different games. Let ubisoft make open world collecting games. But the others should stay the fuck away from it.

Right off the gate Jeff doesn't notice the giant crater and the compass on top pointing him towards it, thinks unrelated terrain next to the crater is the crater... Oh boy, I know that having to talk and play at the same time is hard, really hard, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating to watch.

@kingdanglerbk

Woof. What gave you the impression that GB sells itself as "for hardcore gamers"? Every member of the GB staff would seriously mock you for using such a dumb, childish phrase. "Hardcore gamer". Gross. Who even says that in 2019?

I play games on normal. Tons of people play games on normal. More people play games on normal than on anything harder. Bumping up the difficulty can make some games more fun sometimes, but it's not a universal truth. More often than not making the game harder just makes it more frustrating and more of a chore to get through. When you're already not feeling enthusiastic about the default experience, increasing the difficulty is not an inherent or intuitive solution for many. Instead of feeling sorry for people because Giant Bomb made the game look bland by playing on Normal, consider that it's the developers' fault for making the default experience so bland. It's not Jeff's fault for the game being the way it is.

@hiczok said:

I think all the pink and purple light really fucks with Jeff's colorblindness. He seems to really have a hard time seeing things like bright red objective markers.

This looks fine, but just rather a little boring. Rage 1 had excellent combat but some of the environments, even though they were really linear, were really pretty. Rage 2 doesn't seem to have that, but it's still got the great shooting.

Looks Ok. I might pick it up on sale in a few months. But I couldn't imagine being a video games video person. Just imagine the open world fatigue these guys must have. I skipped the last few open world shooters so I'm ready to jump into a new one.

And the Mad Max game wasn't bad. The convoy stuff was a highlight of that game for me.

Oh if that's the case then I'm 100% sold. I loved Mad Max despite it's flaws like hand-to-hand.

That's really weird. The convoy battles were really fun sections that were a true test to your car's durability and fire power. It really sold the weight of the car combat.

Looking forward to Jeff and Ben's Dr. Ksavir's cosplay. Not sure which one will be riding the other, but I'm stoked for it regardless.

Mad Max had it's ups and downs, i think the game tried way too hard to give the player something to do. This seems sort of the same.

All the side stuff was kind of pointless and really had no narrative going for it, car combat became super boring because you did it constantly. And in general though super pretty the wasteland was not very fun or engaging to be in.

To Jeff's question: Playing this on Hard atm and I can say that armor absolutely matters, and using shatter, that by the way can be reduced to a base 15sec cool down with 2 stored uses, makes a world of difference already. Otherwise you'll be pinking away at their armor for a while and a half with that AR. And because you have other abilities to use, I find myself not noticing the cooldowns anyway as something is always getting activated.

So if you don't want to just play it by pointing and shooting an assault rifle while being in little to no danger, I do highly suggest not playing this game on normal.

What is actually ticking me off about the game atm is the driving is clearly made for controller and the mouse aim keeps getting dragged with your car turning making it very jarring and uncomfortable to drive while looking around with the mouse aim as it now essentially your arrow keys also control your look, and its never a good idea to double up like that on the camera.

I remember the first Rage having really good shooting and enemy A.I. This looks like a step back in that regard?

@fredz85: the nemesis system was never going to change anything. People around these parts built it up as something bigger than it was. Open world games like most things aren’t going to change thanks to shortcuts like an infinite random character generator. They will get better thanks to bespoke content. No amount of variables will ever match carefully arranged, hand crafted levels and encounters with NPCs that have unique and memorable dialog.

I got this game anyways and yeah, it seems like hard is the way. That boss fight from the quick look, it was an actual 5 to 10 minute multistage boss fight ( without the rocket launcher). AND armor does not crumble to dust by spitting on it, it get's removed slowly by 2 or 3 layers.Not to mention almost everyone is armored save from some random melee dudes.

I ended up having to use all the tools at my disposal, if you don't dash, you die....and bashing? it's just what you need to clear out a group and or change positions to turn more folks into red mist. I got shatter with the low cool down and the double load and I over use it.

I'm really liking the combat rhythm of this game, but I don't think you can get that if everything is made out of paper. Not putting the blame on the QL tho, Avalanche probably made normal too easy.

Well, this sure seems "Fine".
the perfect "Wait for a sale" kind of title!