Any game emanating from the hallowed halls of id Software is always going to be an event of epic proportions. But with a long four years between the announcement of Rage and its appearance in our living rooms, clamour for more and more information has been a constant. Lucky for all of us then that id have in no way shape or form left us regretting the wait.
To sum up Rage in the absolute simplest of terms, would be to say it’s a close stable mate of the fondly loved Borderlands. Like Borderlands, Rage offers a semi open game world to explore (at least once you’ve knocked off the first couple of tasks and you’re first introduced to the big city of Wellsprings) with numerous story specific tasks, as well as token money and inventory building secondary tasks and jobs that are picked up all over the place.
Unlike Borderlands however, Rage has an incredibly satisfying FPS style to things. This being id, just about all the games weaponry packs a satisfyingly meaty punch. The assault rifle, at least until you purchase a few additions and more powerful ammo types, feels oddly underpowered however. But with so many weapons available, you can easily avoid using it for the entire game length. The shotgun in particular feels almost astonishingly powerful, with gushes of blood practically blocking your entire view for a few brief moments after a particularly up close and personal head shot.
That’s not even mentioning the Wingstick. This modified boomerang style handheld device can be gleefully tossed towards enemies with an instant kill almost always the end result. A particularly clean kill might just see the Wingstick fly its merry way back into your waiting grasp, keeping your ammo levels at a lofty level. They can, however, firmly lodge themselves in the brain of your enemy, brutally protruding from the now deceased individual in a manner befitting the games mature age rating.
All that would be for naught if the enemies you were up against had barely a brain cell between them. Lucky then that even on the middle difficulty setting they’ll show enough intelligence to avoid confrontation when the odds are stacked against them. While some will essentially rush head long towards you, even these simplistic of opponents will duck and weave their way towards your ample frame, making a swift kill always a tricky task.
Equally as impressive are the way they’ll fall lifeless to the ground once their lives have expired. They will tumble and clatter to the floor in an almost brutally realistic fashion, which while slightly shocking to witness, does make the entire world feel so much more solid and full of life. The one sure fire way to know you’ve committed a solid kill is to witness your enemy drop their weaponry. Numerous times towards the start of the game in particular were we submitted to unexpected barrages of gun fire from an enemy that had been dumped on their behind, but were a long way from calling time on their lives.
It’s not all on foot action in Rage however. With a fairly large and ever expanding world to explore, there needs to be a swift way to traverse from area to area. Luckily weapon packed vehicles are the norm in Rage. Vehicular physics are of the slightly floaty and bouncy model seen within the likes of Motorstorm, and fits Rage absolutely perfectly. Simply driving from one area to another is relatively exciting – much more so than a tedious loading screen in any case – but add in all kinds of weaponry and you’ve a real exciting thrill ride. Opponents can come thick and fast out in the wilds, so it’s thankful that you’ve ample weaponry to purchase and unleash. Like the FPS gunplay it’s incredibly satisfying, and consistently feels like a well designed and produced area of the game.
Rage is an eclectic mix of styles. There’s frantic FPS style gunplay, thrilling racing, and even vehicular combat. But there’s more than a few nods towards traditional RPG gaming fare too, with upgrades to purchase, different ammo styles for almost all guns, and the ability to build items to help you progress. In a less well designed title all this could be a touch too much. In Rage however it all slots together absolutely perfectly.
Visually too this is quite a striking title. Although some textures can take a second or so to fully load in on our Xbox 360 version of the game, there’s little doubt that Rage must be pushing the current generation of consoles quite hard. While it might be a short step below the likes of Gears of War 3, praise has to be levelled towards those in charge for designing and putting together such an attractive and solid game world. Despite the colour scheme mainly consisting of browns and greys, there’s a sense of life to the game world of Rage that few titles can come close to recreating.
Special praise also has to go to the voice acting. It’s universally well suited to the game, and brilliantly performed. Again, such high levels of production only go to further make Rage a game world that you’re more than happy to populate time and time again. While the story of a post disaster earth may not seem anything fresh or different, there’s few titles out there that manage to push all these characters and locations to the forefront of your brain so regularly.
Xbox 360 owners will need to take note that a full installation for the games entire three discs is a whopping 22GB. Installation does come highly recommended as it shaves off masses of time for the few loading screens – which are some of the shortest we’ve seen in any game out there at the moment, nevermind one with such a huge game world – that appear, but help texture load considerably. Time to delete some of those old demo’s you’ve got stored on your creaking hard drive perhaps.
A quick mention for the save system. This is no checkpoint ridden easy ride. No, it’s all about constant manual saves, with barely an auto save or checkpoint to be found. You’re certainly encouraged to make sure to save as often as possible, as finding yourself losing your life within an unexpected fire fight can easily set you back half an hour of game time if you’ve not been paying attention to your saves. You have been warned.
Finally, Rage also comes with two online modes. The first is Combat Rally, a vehicle based free for all which takes place in an arena; The second, Legends of the Wastelands, allows players to go co-op in certain side missions which you hear of while playing in the main campaign. Combat Rally is particularly different, moving away from the overcrowded FPS multiplayer genre and adding it’s own twist, a welcome one at that.
Taking everything above into consideration, Rage has been well worth the wait. So much time and dedication of so many talented people have helped to craft an incredibly enjoyable experience. While its tale may be nothing particularly new, the methods in which it requires you to reach the conclusion are put together so expertly that it all comes together to create a game that simply has to be experienced. Id Software has certainly not lost its golden touch.
Rating: Excellent
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RAGE is slated for release on October 7th, 2011. You can pre-order here (360), here (PS3) and here (PC).
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