id has a legacy of first person shooters that not only helped define the genre, it perhaps single-handedly sculpted its defining aspects and tropes.
It's not unsurprising then that after so many years of silence and hard work on their latest franchise, the stakes were bigger than the distance I tend to keep from Activision.
But did Rage hold up to the hype? Unfortunately the question is more, could Rage ever really stand up to the hype?
I could sum the PC version of the game up in one brilliant picture:
The PC version of Rage is Fubar, and although game releases for that particular platform very rarely ever went smooth, this one has already been listed in the PC annals of a complete cluster fuck due to a lack of correct drivers, and textures looking like they're from the prehistoric year of 2000.
As a game reviewer this gives me a lot of mixed feelings. The technology behind the engine is certainly phenomenal and that is because id took huge risks to once again provide genre-defining graphics, ...
Yet, the amount of problems on the PC release beg the question if enough development and QA went into that platform in the first place?
The end-result is pretty damning for id.
During the Eurogamer Expo we were shown a few early passages in the game, and it looked a vibrant open world. The comparisons with Borderlands and Fallout were never far away, and perhaps by this time it's a reference that's been overdone already.
But playing the game, it doesn't take long to realize the open world and large vibrant wasteland, is nothing more than an optical illusion. At its core Rage is still a corridor shooter, except its walls give you the impression that there's a whole wide world lying open .... in vain.
It's a very fine optical illusion and I think very few would mind playing through it, but I was still reminded of a self-mocking and ironic quote from a Gearbox dev during a preview of Borderlands 2 saying "Our artists did a lot of research, they actually found out there's other colours in the palette"
As amazingly deep and colourful as Rage's characters are, as brownish pale and montone the colour palette in Rage is.
And that brings out another important aspect of Rage. You can compare Rage as a genre-game with an identity crisis. It's a shooter combined with both racing sequences and quite a few what we would call RPG elements such as quests, fleshed-out character personalities, ...
But it's like with Mr' Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where the shooter element keeps the RPG elements in check. The world is open but the game still holds your leash tighter than a Beegees pants. Heck, tighter than David Cameron's vagina. And before any Indigned Conservatives start spouting nonsense. Of course he doesn't have a vagina, he's an asexual lizard after all.
But anyway, they included a linear story that still feels generic and bland, etc ...
Rage is more of a cautious attempt of flirting with other genres, but being afraid of stepping too far and for that reason doesn't go as far as it should go.
The good news is, as a shooter Rage is still an id game at its best. You have a vast arsenal of over-the-top and unique weapons that each sound and fire as they should. My favourite being the sniper rifle with a bang and kick as it should be. Additional props also to the Wingsticks, which can be compared to sharp boomerangs you can use when the enemy closes in on you. And don't think Rage makes the mistake of having your melee opponents run into you in a very British queue all lined up to be popped in glee. They're insidious critters hopping and rolling in to claim your head all too eager. As AI goes, it's incredibly good. Also great is the fact that the bullets have a kick and you can see the effects of the impact on your opponents. Shoot them in the leg and you'll more often than not see them hobble towards you instead.
The shooter elements in Rage are all great, and graphically it is a stunning game. But it still doesn't detract from the fact that with the lazy writing, short time-span and too many old clichés in there, it can only be a decent to good game.
Rage is as potentially wasted as its wasteland setting.
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