Rage 2 review – garish but great post-apocalyptic shooter

Rage 2 is a wacky Dayglo-infused post-apocalyptic world filled with various different factions who, for one reason or another, want you dead. Think Mad Max on magic mushrooms. Sounds kind of fun, right? You play the role of Walker, the last remaining Ranger following a major attack from arch nemesis General Cross.

You're pushed into a wasteland world to recruit three main leaders from around a sprawling landscape littered with road blocks, bandit camps, broken bridges and desolate dunescapes, as you bring the pain to the main enemy faction, The Authority.

Along the way you’ll meet the good, bad and plain weird among a healthy population of over-aggressive future-punks running around in bin bags, sporting fluorescent mohicans and bad attitudes.

For a world as hyper-coloured and gorgeously garish, the plot is Stone Age-level storytelling and the weakest part of the game. The directionless narrative is generic action-hero fare and with the campaign lasting around 10 hours it becomes a conveyor belt of rinse and repeat fetch and carry tasks or assassination missions. So far, so identikit – however, there is a rather large "but" on the horizon.

The thing is it’s still heaps of fun actually to play. There’s loads of souped-up cars, that look like extras from a destruction derby, equipped with weapons like "mini nukes" that cascade from your trunk to explode with devastating effect in front of any pursuing vehicles. Then there’s the weapons - heaps to choose from and many with an innovative secondary firing function. You find firearms dotted around the world in Arks – giant asteroid shelters hidden around the map that encourages full exploration of the Rage world.

Physical abilities can be gradually upgraded through additional Ark loot, which makes melee combat a joy to behold, as you dash at blur-speed from cover points, before launching into the air and punching enemies into the dirt.

The huge array of weapons and abilities means there’s loads of opportunity to switch up the combat strategies and engineer new and interesting ways to dispatch the legions of foes. The gunplay, no doubt in part down to id Software (makers of Doom) being on the development team, is literally more fun than you could wave an assault rifle at.

Rage 2 is a good time game. It’s not particularly big or clever, but for fans of Mad Max or, to a lesser degree Just Cause or Far Cry, it offers a polished, vibrant, if somewhat shallow take on the run and gun open-world shooter – with added fluorescent paint.

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