Rage is the latest offering from PC gaming darlings ID Software. When it comes to creating a visually stunning game, they’ve set the bar and surpassed themselves time and time again. Does Rage have the substance to keep you coming back, or will it’s good looks only be enough for a quick fling?

Story

Basically – earth is hit by an asteroid, and the survivors went on to form various encampments and factions. Towns, Bandits, Mutans – all that good stuff. Some people were kept alive inside arcs (Aka pod-thingies), which is where you awake from to discover what’s left. I couldn’t help but think of it as a less-climactic version of leaving the vault for the first time in Fallout 3. (There won’t be any more Fallout 3 references or comparaisons, I promise!)  You aren’t overwhelmved with cutscenes to shove any futher plot points down your throat, most of that is gained from conversations you’ll have with NPCs that you encounter in this futuristic steam-punk world. As such, you can really absorb as much or as little story as you want. We’ll mention it again in the sound section, but as a lot of the story comes from the conversations you will have – excellent voice acting carries more than it’s own weight as far as keeping you interested.

Gameplay

Rage is kind of like a melting pot of modern game design tropes.  It borrows heavily, but never feels like it’s blatantly ripping anything off. Plus, coming from a developer that paved the way for an entire genre and more, that’s more than forgivable. That being said, the game doesn’t really seem to carve out it’s own lasting identity – however that’s not a damning criticism, how many games manage to do that?  The game is fairly well-paced. The moment things start to drag-on is often when something new is introduced, which is nice aside from the fact that it was starting to drag on in the first place. There’s a lot of variety in the game play, you’re not just just running around in a post-apocalyptic desert killing mutants – not exclusively, anyways.

The combat system for vehicles works surprisingly well. Back to the days of Twisted Metal on Playstation, I’ve never been a fan of any vehicle combat. Speaking of vehicle combat, tank levels are one of my least-favorite parts of any game (Why can’t they just be FUN?! EVER?!)… but that’s another story. Rage manages to make it very intuitive to hop into a vehicle and cause some damage. Nothing ground breaking, it simply works well. There’s a system in place to upgrade your vehicles, there’s even a racetrack!

The overall flow of the game feels very tight, especially for a somewhat open world game. There’s a lot of going from point A to point B and a lot of the time it feels like you’re doing it just for the sake of doing it. You never get the feeling of total open-ness, but you also never feel lost or overwhelmed. It really comes down to personal preference.

Most importantly for a first person shooter is the shooting mechanics. ID knows how to make a shooting game, the controlls work great and all the core mechanics feel polished. Aside from shootin’, you’ll be talking to NPCs in one of several towns, playing different minigames, doing missions to help out the different factions you’ll encounter, upgrading your vecicles, upgrading your weapons and armor, and a lot more. The upgrade systems in place are all great, and feel very well balanced in the sense that you won’t ever feel like an absolute beast who can tear through everything – but if you do get to a part that’s too tricky, a few upgrades is usually all it takes to tip the scale in your favor. There’s also a crafting system in place, giving value to all the little junk you’ll find around the world by allowing you to turn it into useful items.

The multiplayer modes aren’t what you would necessairly expect, they’re all vehicle racing and combat. It’s kind of like a wasteland Mario Kart that’s been awake for 3 days.

Aesthetics

For a game that takes place in the future, there’s not too much futuristic to see here once you get out into the thick of things. There are some areas you’ll come across that are a lot more advanced than others. With different factions working against each other, it’s only natural that some of them will excel and others will be coming at you with rusty old weapons.

The scenery in Rage is excellent, thanks to a great art style. The engine provides very nice textures, and a blistering 60 frames per second so it looks great.

Sound

The most memorable element of sound in Rage would have to be, for me, the voice-acting. After having just finished the most recent season of Damages, it was a nice surprise to hear John Goodman have a role. The character design and voice work carried a lot of weight where the script felt a little cliche at times.

Some of the vehicle sounds were kind of lackluster, but you try to imagine these vehicles put together with scrap parts in a dystopian future and it starts to make a little more sense. The sounds of the guns themselves were powerful and really added to the feeling of just tearing it up.

The orchestral score in Rage was great, and added an intensity and urgency to a lot of areas in the game.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of travelling, but some fun vehicles make that a lot more bearable. Everything’s done very well, and this game has a lot of variety. If you’re looking for an RPG shooter that puts a larger focus on the gun play and shooting, Rage may be right up your alley.

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