I remember playing RR as a kid with my brother and cousins. A racing game all about motorcycles, where you can use chains, bats, and pipes to gain the lead; yeah count me in for that game. But as I continued to get deeper and deeper into the 2017, open world Road Rage game I noticed something about my nostalgia. I noticed my nostalgia began to turn to boredom and emptiness.
Let’s first dive into the open world of this new Road Rage. It’s not fun. It’s empty. When it comes to games there’s grinding and then there’s repetitiveness. Can you guess which one Road Rage falls under? Everything I did in the game felt as if I wasn’t making progress. Sure, if I wanted to I could ride off away from the mission and get involved with another bike gang to beat the crap out of each other. But even this got boring.
It’s no secret where this version of Road Rage seemed to draw its inspiration. Look no further than the modern day GTA games. Biker gangs, violence, and running off-mission to cause your own mayhem. Yeah, pretty much sums up a GTA game. Though, where GTA succeeds is where Road Rage falters. RR lacks the continuity GTA is known to have throughout the years. Completing the missions in GTA feels satisfying, whereas completing missions in Road Rage leads to nothing.
One would think a game based on getting around a city on a motorcycle would be user friendly. Well, one would be wrong. The steering mechanics are an utter nightmare. Many times, throughout the game, I would find myself trying to turn or simply brake, yet instead I would crash into a building. Which then lead to me falling out of the world or map. Due to these bad steering mechanics, I’d found myself failing timed missions over and over again. Rather than being fun, it was more of a chore.
I hate being negative about video games, or anything for that matter. I know the team at Team 6 has put a lot of people, time, and money into this project. It hurts to say negative things about the game. However, with a game as bad as this, how am I supposed to care about it if the people working on it didn’t. It’s truly a shame this game turned out the way it did, because it could’ve had potential. Yet, potential can only take a game so far without depth. And its depth in which Road Rage is lacking. Not even nostalgia can save an empty feeling. Unfortunately, Road Rage is a disaster. It’s a badly designed game, utterly broken, and unplayable in many cases. The game tries to cover an alleged open map and a certain freedom of action that is fictitious, when its technical section does not allow it. After all its flaws I was hoping the Nick of yesteryear would find something to enjoy in the game. Alas, nothing in the game made it enjoyable for me.
