Rage 2 review – scintillating action in a trite wasteland

PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4; Avalanche Studios/Bethesda Softworks
With weapons including a firestorm revolver, the shooting is thrilling and stupendously violent - but the vast post-apocalyptic setting is a letdown

I would say it's been a long wait for Rage 2, but that presumes anyone was waiting for it. The original Rage was the weakest of developer id Software's first-person shooters, the others being Quake and, of course, Doom. Rage's hybrid of action-packed gunfights and open-world driving took five years to create and felt out-of-date when it launched. Nine years on, Rage 2 is eerily similar. The world is bigger and the action better, but id's post-apocalypse is still playing catch-up with superior games.

This time around, development has been handed to Avalanche Studios - known for the Just Cause series and the underrated Mad Max game released in 2015. Id take a supervisory role for the game's shooting, and the shooting is the best thing about Rage 2.