Rage Review (PS3)

A couple of years ago, I asked id Software’s Creative Director Tim Willits why they were calling their new game “Rage”. He replied that it was simply in keeping with their previous titles, such as Doom and Quake. This is not the response that I was expecting. Not that I was hoping for a game based around unrepentant anger, but I was hoping for a little more reasoning behind the title. Unfortunately, after playing through the main singleplayer campaign, I am sad to report that the finished game follows suit.

Stylistically, the game world presented is exactly what you would expect and nothing really very different from Fallout 3 or Borderlands. I will say, however, that although they may look great in screenshots, nearly every area feels like a “level” and not a real place. Later areas and enemies are reminiscent of Valve’s Half-Life 2 and I have to assume that id Software intended it as an homage to the franchise, because otherwise it just shows a complete lack of imagination.

I love the Mad Max movies and the post-apocalyptic genre, and ever since Outlander on the Mega Drive, I have been hoping for a modern game that lets me live in that world. But the driving elements are about as deep as they were in Borderlands (which is to say, not very) and they just feel really tacked on. There are racing events that you can take part in in each of the town hubs, but I found them to be extremely arcadey and simply not all that fun. It’s a far cry from a setting like Mad Max’s wasteland.

One quick aside: I think the whole “cowboys in a Sci Fi” setting is rarely, if ever, well-executed. Most of the characters just end up sounding like bored rednecks, and honestly it’s a motif that should be done well or not at all. Developers take note: it is neither believable or compelling. One scientist character shows a little bit of life and inspiration, but like many of the other talking heads, he’s just there to move you on to the next checkpoint.

I encountered a similar experience to Nick’s “narrow corridor of plot”; the game gave me a mission briefing screen for one of the first tasks in the game. It’s a yes-or-no question and out of curiosity, I declined, just to see what would happen, but I couldn’t do anything else. I was just stuck in a backroom with no way out. It’s a little disappointing that the game doesn’t even acknowledge it in a humorous way, and aside from some “job board” side missions that you can do for cash, the rest of the story missions were the same.

Although it’s never significantly challenging on the default setting to warrant keeping lots of saves, it is nice to be able to save anywhere like most FPSs on PC. The trouble with the PS3 version is it takes so long to save and involves quite a lengthy process of going through menus in order to do so. At least the game moves you swiftly along to its ending. In addition to the resurrection minigame mechanic as mentioned in Nick’s preview, there’s also very little backtracking through levels and at the end of a “dungeon” (which is probably the best way to describe them), you will find a convenient shortcut to keep you moving swiftly on. Thank God for small favours.

Graphically, the Id Tech 5 engine looks great, except that the PS3 is plagued by the same texture loading bugs as other platforms and as of November 2011, hasn’t been patched. Quite frankly, the effect makes the engine feel a bit broken. Looking beyond this, the game does have some nice graphical splendour (once the damn textures load). Curves look smooth and beautiful and they’ve certainly gone beyond “having three triangles for a nose” for character models, and though some of the by-hand animations were a bit wooden, others were fantastic.

I also had fun shooting the weapons. They have a decent amount of variety and the ability to craft and switch up ammo is a nice touch, but like a lot of the “customisation” elements, it isn’t very deeply implemented. When I first saw the video of the electified crossbow bolts, it reminded me of Bioshock and I had hoped it might be more tightly integrated into the environment. But let’s remember that it’s a desert wasteland, so opportunities to find enemies immersed in water are a bit more slim than they might have been in an underwater dystopia like Rapture. So in practice, you have a few set places to use some of the different kinds of ammo, but the rest of the time, they’re not needed to overcome any obstacles or to complete any specific challenges, they’re really just there to provide some small variety.

As you travel, you’ll pick up lots of glowing items (perhaps they’re irradiated?) scattered about the levels. Some of them are purely junk for sale in the various shops, others can be cobbled together to make some signature items… most of which you’ll use and then quickly get bored of, even when they’ve been “upgraded” further on in the game. The little robots and sentry guns are kind of fun for a while.

There is also a card battling game which to me was abhorrent, and a few other mini games scattered about, which are similarly pointless. They seem to be there purely to give you a collection mechanic and for a moment you get the impression that Rage is a much deeper game than it appears to be. Don’t be fooled though, nothing would have been lost if those elements had been removed entirely.

As I reminisce about my experiences, I get the overwhelming feeling that Rage is one of those games that’s not quite sure what it is or should be. Perhaps I simply expected too much of Rage. It wants to be something new, but really only succeeds on where its legacy lies. If it had come out ten years ago, I probably would have said it was a solid shooter, but with stiff competition from studios like Irrational, and even Bethesda’s own studio that produced Skyrim, I think Rage fails more often than it succeeds. Again, I feel bad for maligning a game where Id Software obviously tried to do something a little differently, and it’s easy for a consumer like me to criticise someone else’s hard work. But if they were going to try to forge new territory, it probably would have been a stronger choice to really go for it, rather than produce something that appears as a half-hearted but desperate attempt to stay relevant. I wouldn’t recommending Rage at current prices but should it drop below £15, it could be worth a purchase.