2019-03-01_PC_Gamer

pairs well with both the Vortex Grenade

and the Shatter palm strike attack, but

also with the Grav Gun, which can tether

enemies and fling them towards a position

of your choosing.

The combo options suggest some fun

ways to play, but in general abilities feel

like they could use some fine-tuning. The

way Ground Slam forces the first-person

camera to look at the floor means it’s

difficult to aim, and also makes it hard to

tell what you’ve actually done to enemies

it hits. And when I lunged at an enemy with

Shatter, more often than not they’d simply

dodge out of the way. All abilities are on a

cooldown timer, and wasting one is a

disappointing way to break the flow of

combat. I like how brash and loud the

abilities all feel, but a little more finesse in

the execution would go a long way.

Fortunately the gunplay feels more

robust. Guns are chunky and impactful,

and it’s obvious this is one area where the

collaboration with id has paid dividends.

“The first-person feel is not necessarily

just ‘take all this code’,” explains Willits.

“It’s more like a secret sauce. It’s based on

timing and setup and aspect ratios and

depth of field – all sorts of small things

that add up to get that id feel.”

The most noticeable aspect of id’s

design philosophy is the audio design of

the weapons, providing a chaotic, urgent

pace to the flow of encounters. “I sat down

with their sound designers and I said with

weapons you always have to make the

sound of the next thing above it,” says

Willits. “If you take the sound of a 9mm

and put it in a videogame, it never sounds

right. But if you [take the sound of] a .50

cal and call it a 9mm, then it sounds right.

We use cannons and big explosions for the

small weapons, and that’s how you get

that good feel. ... That’s one of those

things that id have learned over the years,

and we’ve helped teach Avalanche.”

Having won Mutant Bash, I head back

to the town of Wellspring – here more

colourful and more characterful than in

the original game. As part of protagonist

Walker’s quest to take down The

Authority, he must journey the world,

looking for people connected to

something called the Dagger Initiative.

One such person is Loosum Hagar, mayor

of Wellspring and one of a few returning

characters you’ll meet in the game.

Loosum is prepared to work with

Walker, but only if he infiltrates the

headquarters of local gangster and rival

Klegg Klayton – a ridiculous caricature

obsessed with winning. His club is called

the Winner’s Lounge. It only serves

winners. Fortunately for me, I just won a

TV game show. During an initially friendly

meeting – Klegg really likes winners – I

manage to bug his office. But as I leave, he

discovers I’m working with Loosum and

traps me in the sewers – forcing me to

fight through his army of goons.

Each character tied to the Dagger

Initiative offers a series of upgrades,

called Projects, that are unlocked with the

Project Points earned by doing favours

and completing quests. One of Loosum’s

early upgrades is Surprise Attack, which

does five times the damage to unaware

enemies. That’s probably not the

game-changer it might sound – stealth

doesnotstrikemeasafocusofcombat.

But between Projects and the ability

upgrades you earn by collecting Feltrite

out in the world, Rage 2 seems designed

to let you nudge the combat towards a

preferred playstyle.

FURIOUS ROADS

Rather than return to Loosum after my

sewer escape, I hop into my car and

journey out into the world. While I don’t

make it far enough to experience the

different biomes of the map – in addition

to the standard post-apocalyptic

wasteland, you’ll also fight through

swamps, mountains and forests – I do get

to try a selection of activities. Some, like

destroying the fuel supplies of a gas

station overrun with bandits, are pure

combat challenges. But there’s stranger

stuff out in the wasteland. I eventually find

an Ark – a pre-apocalypse building that, in

the one I explored, let me use gravity wells

to launch myself into the air.

While basic combat is mostly

entertaining – always a positive for an FPS

• I don’t yet have a sense of how varied
  the open world will prove. There are plenty
  of icons to explore, but some felt more like
  padding, and the vehicular combat
  encounters I stumbled into on my travels
  seemedbasicandrepetitive.WhileItook
  plentyofpositivesfrommytimewith
  Rage 2, I also have concerns about
  whether its sense of style is masking a
  lack of substance. Hopefully it will prove to
  be more than just another solid shooter.
  Phil Savage

IN GENERAL ABILITIES FEEL

LIKE THEY COULD USE SOME

FINE-TUNING

Rage 2

PREVIEW

Vehicular combat is

pretty basic.

Some underrepresented

colours of the apocalypse.