Rage Review

RAGE is hands down the best graphically built game I have ever seen on a console.  The Xbox 360 has never seen such quality as far as graphics go and the gameplay has the most stunning detail I have ever seen on consoles.  Using id’s own engine to run things, everything is super smooth with detail put into every nook and cranny of the game. RAGE, developed by the pioneers of First Person Shooters, is a quintessential FPS embedded deep in the roots of the genre. You might not find heavy RPG or other elements here, however you will find is pure, unadulterated FPS action.

At the beginning of the game, you learn that an asteroid has landed on earth and not made a pretty sight of it.  You play as one of the few ‘gifted’ people that were secured in space age, looking for ‘arcs’ to ensure your safety. Now you are looked at like an outcast, and most people don’t take to likes of you very fondly.  However, you begin to earn people’s trust and learn that there is a reason that you were kept safe all these years.  Along the way you will meet some interesting people and factions.  The story, however, is not one to thrill you even though it is probably one of the developer’s more interesting ones.  But you’re not really paying for a fantastic story here, you are paying for one hell of a shooter.

First of all it’s amazing to see just how each enemy moves once hit or killed, which of course all depends on what weapon you are using and what kind of bullets you’re packing.  Don’t worry, the trusty shotgun is back and people lucky enough to have pre-ordered the game will get the double barrel shotgun which packs a punch no matter what ammo you have in there.  There are plenty of different weapons you will have an opportunity to use through out the game.  There is a Sniper, a pistol and one weird looking cross-bow, and all of these can all be upgraded. Most weapons can hold multiple kinds of ammo, like for instance the pistol has bullets with an added pulse just to give you that extra punch watching an enemy go airborne.  It also has ammo described as ‘bullets within bullets within bullets’ not to mention the bullet with a grenade on the back of it- it is quite a sight to see enemies fly when you have that on the shotgun.  There are plenty of other bad ass weapons and ammo including mind controlling ammo, but one of the coolest additions to your arsenal is the Wingsticks.  These things will chop heads and limbs off but unfortunately they are not boomerangs so you will run out of them… good thing too, you wouldn’t want to loose any fingers trying to catch those bad boys.

The game is three discs long on the Xbox 360, but the third disc is strictly multiplayer.  You can actually push through the game fairly fast if you want to, but there is no fun in that.  RAGE has a bunch of added mini-games in it, including a card game that involves you collecting cards through your journey.  There are a few other mini games that are more skill based one button kind of games.  Along with those you have a plentiful amount of side quests that can be quite rewarding.  As you play you find things that are nearly priceless to absolute junk, but thankfully junk is labeled that way with their in-game description ending with “Just sell this.”  It is important to collect all the crap you can find because what you don’t sell for money you can use to make things… useful things.  You will need schematics to be able to make things, but you can create anything from Wingsticks, to Lockgrinders (opens locked doors, sometimes hiding valuable items), to bandages that can be used to heal you in the heat of combat.

Something that unfortunately won’t be ignored is the games comparison to other games in general, especially other post apocalyptic games like Fallout 3, which seems to be a trendy theme recently.  RAGE is a first person shooter and should not be judged or seen as anything else. While the developers have added elements to the game that you might consider to be in the style of an RPG, these are just added bonuses to one fantastic first person shooter. The one disappointment I had was that the multiplayer mode does not have a versus shooter mode, which only leads me to believe that it is part of id Software staying true to their roots. Instead they have brought a whole other aspect to their FPS world and that is dune buggy warfare. During the game there are races and once upgrading your buggy you will be fighting to survive in it with mounted guns, etc. This is the online mode you can play, which is split up into three modes with one of them obviously death match. The other online aspect of the game are co-op missions, where you can play with up to two people and are separate from the main game.

Between the single player, the co-op mode and the 4 player online racing madness, RAGE is definitely worth a buy in my opinion.  You can’t go wrong, in fact it is almost a shame that so many games picked on the whole post apocalyptic theme because id had been working on this for quite some time.  This certainly shows in all the detail in everything from the character models to the landscapes.  Everything is upgradable, you can fine tune you buggy online with plenty of customization and as I said before, you will be blown away by the graphics in RAGE.  It is a good idea to install all the discs to your hard drive as it will run smoother and cut down on load times.  If you are looking to pick a good shooter, then you don’t need to look anymore, because RAGE is one hell of a ride.