Before getting into anything, I want to make sure to plug @strawhat for his incredible series of playing Rage 2 and my inspiration to download the game came from him. I was too late on the post series and had only seen the final post. Although the 7 day timeline is past, I highly advise checking out all of the posts starting here.
In the past I have played many open world post apocalyptic games and for the most part are my favorite open world games I've played. With this interest, I really wanted to get RAGE 2 at release, but money problems didn't allow for that. Skip forward to now, after seeing a post from a fellow Hivean playing, I remembered Epic Games had RAGE free for 2 weeks and I had "bought" it. So of course I downloaded it.
Immediately I realized one fatal error after launching the game. . . (pun intended)
Rage started off strong with fatal errors that would sometimes reset my progress on certain missions and quests. Unfortunately, these crashes would occur between 15-30 minutes continually for the whole game.
Even with updated drivers and everything correct, it continued to happen. This seems to be random as to who gets hit by it, some have this issue while others do not. I digress.
Opinionated
For a game that released in 2019, I feel that the game mechanics lack any innovation or slim-lining. While I say this, the game is still fun and it doesn't take too much away from the gaming experience. While using controller, running was frustrating as almost anything you do would cancel the sprint causing thumb fatigue over time.
On a brighter note, the guns and special skills behind them are unique and upgrading throughout the campaign made them always feel like a new weapon.
Furthermore, the different abilities that can be collected from Arks such as the vortex and slam make the fighting a good experience with unlimited ways to be used.
I will admit that I have not played the Original RAGE, in which I've heard trumps RAGE 2 in every single way, but this game feels like an almost direct copy of the Borderlands series by Gearbox Studios.
Both original games have been made very close to each other, 2009 for Borderlands 1, and 2010 for RAGE 1. 1 year is not much time to make one game copying another, and I do not want to say RAGE is a copy but oh boy do things seem dangerously close. Both comical, post apocalyptic games with open world, and Mad Max like vehicles as well as a skill tree that allows for new abilities and rage-like berserk modes.
Anyway, my main point of discussing this is to compare the mechanical evolution of the Borderlands games and the lack of intuitiveness in RAGE 2.
If any of you have played the Borderlands series, then you may see where I am going with this.
Without dragging this out a ton, Borderlands has evolved from its first publishing of the series to its' latest being Borderlands 3. On the other hand, RAGE 2 is lacking in many areas given that its been 10-11 years now and only being the second rendition. The graphics have mostly improved and the art style has changed but the overall gameplay has had no significant change worth noting.
An article before both releases, good read if you are interested
Up until now, everything has been pretty nit picky. The game isn't terrible and albeit a short story, it still kept me coming back to play. But this problem left me (RAGE)ing and pretty dang ticked off. Monday night during one of my insomnia episodes, I was playing 3AM just trying to finish all of the side missions/outposts and unlock everything. Until I realized I only had one more marker on the map for missions, and it was for engine parts.
What in the world?? Where is the final primary mission? I hadn't played the final mission where I go against General Cross, why is the marker gone??
The mission should be top left with a squared diamond shape in red and orange, like the one on the middle-left of the map.
As the picture on the right shows, I have all missions prepared and ready to do the final mission, but it just wont show up on my map at all.
After some loading and restarting the game, I started doing some research online and what a surprise. TONS of people were having this issue too, resolution: start all over or hope an old save still shows the mission on the map.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!
Neither of these choices were an option for me, I finished the critical missions in the first 2 days, and did 4-5 days worth of finishing quests to get 100%. (Which I didn't finish because of this) Not a single save had the mission on the map for me. I was not going to go through and re-do all of my progress either.
I am done playing RAGE 2, I spent days for nothing except dissatisfaction. We all know the final mission is the hitting point of the whole game where you feel accomplished. I am young and not worried about wasted time on a game, especially like this as I did get it free from Epic Games. However, I would be crazy to not explain my experience and warn future prospects on what kind of risk they're taking on this game. I had a terrible experience, @strawhat relatively didn't.
If you want an open world game that's fun and worth your money, buy Borderlands 3.. hell, even borderlands 2. At least then there is replayability and a final mission that can be finished.
Buyer Beware
Thanks for reading
And until next time...
