Rage is one of the first games in a long time that I’ve been excited about, but instead of boring you with my excitement, let’s get this show started.
Story and characters
The game starts with a cinematic – epic music and all – depicting two things: an asteroid heading towards and eventually hitting earth, and people in a circular laboratory-like chamber putting on high-tech suits and climbing into pods. There’s no explanation of who the people in the pods are or why they’re being put in them.
Next you get treated to a sequence that announces that everything is not okay in the pods anymore, and you get unceremoniously let out into the big bad world where you take about 4 steps before being jumped on by some bandits.
A kind-hearted soul rescues you by slaughtering the bandits and takes you to his home in the nearby town. He proceeds to give you a mission with a “choice” to ‘Accept’ or ‘Decline’; except you can’t really go any further unless you accept. You get given a gun and some equipment and you’re told to go shoot some people. Why? Because Stone Cold Dan Hagar said so.
So far, there’s no explanation of who you are, where you are, or even what year it is. These questions don’t get answered further into the game, and it makes the player’s character seem like nothing more than a paper cutout.
The rest of the story is as linear as can be, with undeveloped NPCs, and the biggest revelation being that there are two main factions; The Resistance and The Authority. You’re told that you don’t want to be caught by The Authority because they’d do bad things to you.
Throughout the game, it feels like you’re just another spectator – that you’re watching the story from the outside. It’s disappointing, because so much could have been done with the characters and their “new” world.
Gameplay
At its core, Rage consists of two things: shooting stuff, and driving around. Rage does these two things brilliantly and with gusto.
You get a wide range of guns over the course of the game, from your everyday pistol to a plasma-firing machine gun. There are also throwables to be used, like grenades and the ever-important wingstick (a 3-bladed high-tech boomerang). The guns are upgradable and can use different types of ammunition that are better in certain types of situations.
The guns look familiar, but each has been tweaked in some way, making it fit in with the overall setting.
The actual gunplay is great. Each weapon in your arsenal is used during the game, and you won’t often be able to finish a mission easily without switching between at least two or three of them.
Extra constructable items like gun turrets or robots can make a difficult section quite easy, just because of the extra firepower and distraction (not to mention that the bots are quite a cute pet to have around).
Rage does away with the trend of stacking a level full of chest-high walls and making you run from one to the next. Instead you have lots of rubble and debris in various shapes and sizes all over each level that can be used for cover, as is fitting for a post-apocalyptic shooter.
Over the course of the game you get a few vehicles, from a basic quad bike, to a weaponised buggy that can take a beating.
Your vehicle gets you from point A to point B, but you also get to have some fun along the way by blowing up bandit cars, and being rewarded for it.
The vehicles are upgradable with armour, guns, and equipment, and you need to make sure that you have ammo for your guns and that your car is fixed up before heading out into the wasteland.
There are also tons of side-quests and mini-games to discover.
There are games based on the two core components of Rage: racing and shooting stuff; and there are others like a board game that involves mostly luck, a card game that requires some luck and some skill, and the old 5-finger fillet. All of them are optional, but doing them can be advantageous as they can give you money for better equipment, or upgrades that you wouldn’t otherwise obtain.
Graphics
Graphics is an area where Rage really shines. The overall environment, character models, guns, ammo, equipment, cover; absolutely everything looks superb.
Each part of the game world looks, feels and plays different, but all of it still fits within the overall theme. Missions can take place in ruined buildings, underground, or in wide open spaces outside, but no mission feels like a repeat of a previous one.
While missions are linear, with there really only being one path to your destination, it’s still fun to explore an area to make sure there aren’t little hidden caches with ammo or unique items (like bobble heads – seriously, what is it with post-apocalyptic games and bobble heads?).
The lighting is also done very well. There are sections where everything is lit up like a Christmas tree and you can see everything there is to see, and then there are other sections where the only thing you can see is the mutant trying to eat your face.
The game has had some trouble with glitchy graphics. I played it through on an ATI Radeon HD 5750 with the latest drivers according to Steam (Catalyst version 11.9) and there were sections that had some horrible graphical issues (tearing and weird flashes mostly).
It wasn’t unplayable, but it took some getting used to. The newer 11.10 Preview driver took care of most of the issues, but there was still some tearing.
If it wasn’t for the graphical issues that are only (partly) solved with bleeding-edge drivers, Rage would get a top score for graphics.
Sound and dialogue
The ambient sound and music are well done and really helped set the mood. The best example of this is the sound in the Dead City section: high-pitched violins and creepy mutant sounds set the tone throughout (the tone being pants-crappingly eerie).
Other sounds (gunshots, explosions, engine noises) never stuck out or seemed out of place, which is a good thing.
The voice acting is generally good, though the dialogue itself wasn’t particularly enthralling.
One thing worth noting with the dialogue system, is that you usually don’t just click on a person once to speak to them and get your quest – you have to click on them once to hear that they need something and then again to actually get the “option” to ‘Accept’ or ‘Decline’ the quest. It’s irritating, and I often found myself waiting for the NPC to continue, only to realise that I had to click on him again.
Conclusion
After the credits rolled, I spent some time thinking about whether or not the ending was abrupt (other reviews I’ve read have characterised it as such). The fact that I needed to think about it should have been my first clue. It’s not.
Abrupt implies that it’s sudden and unexpected and it’s fairly clear that pushing that last button would indeed be the end of the game.
However, the ending does come off as unfinished. What happens to the main character? What happens to all the people that have helped him along the way? What happens to my car? Why did the Ark survivor cross the wasteland? These are important questions that need to be answered and they aren’t. The ending isn’t abrupt, but it’s still unsatisfying.
The graphics are fantastic, the story and characters are paper-thin. Throughout the game, I was aware of this, and I said to myself “I don’t care, this is fun”.
The gameplay, the guns, the upgrades, and even the side-quests and mini-games were all enjoyable and it all added up to a big pile of fun.
Rage is around 10 hours of game-time if you don’t do all the side-stuff. I spent 13 hours finishing it, but I only tried some of the optional content to see if it was any good.
For fans of id Software, and the post-apocalyptic genre, Rage is a worthy addition to your collection. Others may want to wait for it to go on special before buying, but I’d still say that it’s worth getting – it’s just so much fun.
Rage review (PC) << Comments and views
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