Hands-on with RAGE and its Lobotomised Badgers (360)

My first experience with RAGE at E3 2011 had left me with mixed feelings about the game. I loved the wonderful post-apocalyptic wasteland setting and the intense FPS action but the dumb enemy AI and the undercooked vehicle races were a big disappointment. The game felt disjointed with the rough and ready driving sections sitting uncomfortably alongside the far more accomplished and polished FPS levels. Here’s what I wrote about my hands-on with RAGE back in July. Now, under the watchful eyes of id Software’s Creative Director Tim Willits, I got to experience RAGE on normal difficulty from the very beginning.

RAGE follows the tried and tested first-person shooter formula with the vast majority of the first hour acting as a glorified training level. This gave me time to rigorously learn each of the core skills to survive. Run. Shoot. Cover. Reload. Shoot. RAGE was not a complicated game. The plot does its best to add intrigue and complexity to what is a classic id Software shooter. Not that I’m complaining as this is exactly what I wanted RAGE to be. A shooter.

Hey, I’m over here!

All of the enemies that I encountered early on in the game turned out to be very shouty mobile targets. At this point the entire existence of said enemies was to train me to blow their heads off. But they were very predictable with their shouting and attacks. By predicable I mean the instant I was spotted by an enemy they would scream something along the lines of “I’m going to kill you” and then try to kill me. This just alerted me to their presence, revealed their location and gave me a heads-up to find some sort of cover before getting shot. It also removed any semblance of apprehension and anxiety when entering large, open areas as I just waited for the yelling to start before finding cover. No shouting = safe.

After the verbal abusing, they proceeded to attack me in one of two ways; a suicide run straight for me or by taking pot shots from a distance. The occasional enemy did display some attack avoidance skills and would cheekily somersault over my bullets. Alas, that was the extent of their ingenuity as the remaining enemies continued to demonstrate the intelligence of lobotomised badgers. At least during the time I was playing the game there were no Jurassic Park ”clever girl” moments from any of the enemies.

One aspect of the game that was much improved from E3 2011 demo was the use of vehicles. They felt a lot more integrated into the fabric of the game. I started off with a crappy looking quad bike being my only way of getting round the huge world. It was pretty damn nippy too especially when I pressed the boost button. POWAR! There was also handy mini-map at the bottom of the screen complete with a glowly breadcrumb trail showing my route to the next mission checkpoint. Excellent. Riding around on the bike was a lot of fun and did make the thinly-veiled FedEx missions much easier to tolerate.

3, 2, 1….Clear

I did discover a few new niggles. When I ignored the game’s narrative and attempted to venture off the main path I got a verbal warning from a NPC before being killed instantly by a shot to the head. This felt a bit harsh considering all I was doing was wandering around admiring the scenery. But, no I was to be confined to the narrow corridor of plot. What is this, Final Fantasy XIII?

When I died later in the game, funnily enough as part of the plot this time, I was presented with a daft mini-game which involved a mixture of skill and quick reactions to use a defibrillator to shock my heart back to life. How well I performed determined how much of my pre-death health bar I retained courtesy of a shock to the chest.

The first time this mini-game popped up, I thought “What the hell is this?” Between dying instantly for not following the plot and now being forced to die as part of the plot, RAGE’s narrative feels like it’s over the place. If I died again by wandering off-plot, would the mini-game reappear?

I can’t say I was a fan of this mini-game at all. If you get shot too much you should die. That’s it, none of this resurrection bullshit. Game over man, game over!

Summary

RAGE is a fun game to play. If you can forgive dumb AI and the brutally unforgiving plot mechanics you’ll find yourself fighting for your life in a classic post-apocalyptic world where almost everyone wants to kill you. RAGE looks to be another great shooter from id Software.

RAGE is scheduled for release on the 7th Oct 2011 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.