First one is pretty decent from what I remember. Didn’t even know it got a sequel.
I found the first one was hampered by so many forced racing and card games as bottlenecks to progressing. Those would have been fine as optional side activities, but making them so mandatory really killed the pacing when it came to doing some shooting.
The bosses were super underwhelming. You had one giant boss where you were trapped in a small building and shooting up at him. Very uninteresting. The final sequence of the game felt like there was going to be a boss. Narratively the enemy headquarters are built up as being heavily defended, the bad guys are built up to be doing crazy genetic engineering, and the game gives you a last minute BFG. Then you get inside and it’s a bunch of reskinned low level enemies. Felt like the devs ran out of time or something.
In the shooting, the game did give tons of gadgets and options, though I rarely found myself using most of them.
I wish the sequel had built on the promises of the first game, but it basically turned into a generic shooter that cribbed the aesthetic from Borderlands.
I’m currently playing through Rage and really enjoying it.
The races are fine and not that hard to win and I haven’t touched a card game yet. I get enough money from selling all the junk I find as I play.
I’m regards to it’s sequel, I’m very methodical (blame my autism 😁) and I played the game by competing all missions and side quests in one area before starting the next.
This side effect of this was that I upgraded the character so much, when I competed the final mission, it was so easy, I didn’t realise it was the final mission and it took me by surprise!
Rage 2 was a mix of Mad Max and Farcry, all while trying too hard to be like Borderlands.
It sucks. How they made Rage 2 into a Borderlands lite.