Of all the names to give a game RAGE definitely isn’t the first t come to most peoples minds however id aren’t most people. Yes the developers of Doom and Quake (as the box art so kindly reminds us) are back with another (hopefully) mindblowing game, i found it strange how the box doesn’t mention some of id's latest involvements such as Wolfenstien (360, PS3) and Brink (360, PS3) but ill just overlook that for now.
Anyway RAGE is a first person openworlded, linear corridor, racing, RPG game. This may make you feel slightly confused but there is no need. RAGE opens with a very visually impressive cutscene where a meteor hurtles through space passing planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, meanwhile people are being put into cryogenic sleep and sealed in big metal underground vaults (anyone else getting a Fallout vibe here). The meteor inevitably crashes to Earth creating a barren wasteland on which nothing has any hope of survival....or does it?You play a nameless man (i would like to stress no character customisation, looks like Brink took it all) who was cryogenicly frozen only to be awakened to find the world to be as pretty as Brighton on a Saturday night, Literally, the game looks stunning with smooth textures and amazing character models but its bogged down with 10 tons of brown and some grey spattered about here and there. The game is broken down into 2 open world areas which contain 1 main civilisation city and many linear areas where quests take place. In the open world areas you can drive buggies which don’t exactly abide with health and safety standards. They bump around the road with excellent handling, loosing parts of them as you drift round corners, nitro off a massive dirt pile or get shot at by bandits. Races can also take place in the main cities to earn upgrades for your car such as miniguns, better tyres, nitro etc. The linear areas are where the majority of the gunplay will happen, the guns handle nicely and all have various ammo types and upgrades to suit each player. You have a wide arsenal ranging from a badass pistol (not quite Halo) all the way up to the weakest rocket launcher ever. Enemies react well to you, they also seem to adapt to your playing style, my weapon of choice was the shotgun so enemies would attempt to get as far away as possible (well the ones that didn’t charge at me anyway) so varying your gameplay style throughout is essential, when death has struck an enemy the deaths are nice, they could either drop dead where they stand all the way to continuing to run until the brain gets the message.
The characters are all very friendly and seem to be very accepting of you which helps you to build a bond between you and them. The way characters interact with you is nice too, if you look a character in the face they look back at you and give facial expressions as acknowledgement of your existence. The animation is nice as well, the person acts like a real person such as pacing up and down whilst talking to you, slamming fists on desks and reacting to in game events that you have recently encountered (such as races or major plot occurrences).
The graphics are some of the best I've seen in a long time and make the game feel like its had effort put into it, the soundtrack is good but I often feels as if its not there either because it isn’t audible at the current time or its just not playing.
The story will last you a good 8-12 hours if you do some of the side quests and explore a little too.
The Co-op is a little lacking in RAGE, it takes the linear levels from the solo campaign and makes a arcade style gamemode out of it, most points wins, score multipliers and the likes are included. This feels nice however I would have rather had full co-op compatibility with solo campaign like Borderlands. The online multiplayer is good as well but only having 3 gamemodes and all of them racing ones makes it feel pointless and a chore at times. I would have liked to have seen some TDM gamemodes and the likes included alongside the racing ones.
Overall RAGE is a good comeback for id, the shooting is great, the racing is great, actually I cant think of something that doesn’t have good points about it. It os one of the best games of 2011 without a doubt and I would love to see id pull a sequel out of the bag in the near future.
RAGE – 8/10
+Great Gameplay
+Good Multiplayer
-Bad Story
