If I ever meet Sam Lake, I'm going to ask him how much about this game was actually supposed to be canon going forward. There are some interesting ideas here, particularly about the series cosmology (for want of a better term), but it might as well not exist now that AW2's out.

It's interesting to play a 2012 XBLA game in 2024, though. It doesn't feel like it's from that long ago, but it's a real time capsule in a lot of ways.

It's not quite as compulsively replayable as Vampire Survivors, but A) what is, and B) it's got a monochromatic, desperate vibe that appeals to me more than VS's Castlevania pastiche. With a bit more of a budget, this could really be something.

The definition of a 7/10 game. The weapons are good, but there's a lot in Rage 2 that feels like it had just enough effort put into it to get by. It just sort of exists, which is less than you want out of an AAA game in the 2010s.