Rage Review Rewrite

RAGE review by G1 Stealthmaster86


It's been years since the Godfather of the First Person Shooter genre created a new game. Can this new IP from the creators of DOOM and Quake show what made them legendary in the first place or do they need to pass the torch? This was played on the PS3.


Developer: ID Software
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
System: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
ESRB rating: M
Release Date: October 4, 2011




STORY


I love stories in games. I hate to be so blunt, but I would take anything that is given to me and I would be intrigued by it. I'm probably the only one that greatly enjoyed the Story in Gears of War. I only wanted to play Modern Warfare 3 just to see if they finish up what they started in Modern Warfare 2. Story is one of the reasons why I love the Uncharted games so much. Having said all of that there is nothing worth liking here. I know they want to make the world come alive with its characters and setting. I know they want to have this mythology that can be used later on. I get all that, what I don't get is how half-assed everything is. Just when the story starts to pick up into something much more interesting, it ends. There is no reason to do the things you do. You go around this small world and do tasks for random folk. From saving a town to go through a gauntlet. The worst part about it is that once the story does pick up, it's the same fare as with most RPGs. This Authority, that is the name of the main villain, not even joking, needs to be stop so we need you do to do all these tasks. The task them selves sets itself up thinking that something grand is going to happen. By the end of the game as I watch the credits rolled I think of it was all worth it. You don't even see your guy leave the area he is in. The game can be completed in a good 10 to 15 hours depending if you do the side quests or not. Seeing how that the story really doesn't go anywhere till the last 2 to 3 hours there is no point into anything.


GAMEPLAY


Well if the story sucked, what about Gameplay? Thankfully, the gameplay is worth it. It's got all the standard flare that ID is known for. It's got great weapons, even if they are in the generic side. You got your AK, shotgun, and the revolver. What it lacks in weapon type it makes up for it for ammo. There are a few ammo types for pretty much every gun. There are armor piercing rounds and one that will make the guy you killed blow up in a chunky bloody mass. It's all very satisfying. In a time where pretty much every game has the iron sights, which I have no problem with, it's refreshing to see what FPS games was like before it. You can go iron sights, but it's much more fun not to. Don't worry about missing, where the aiming reticle is pointed at, that is where the bullets will go. There is this one weapon, the wingstick, is fantastic. It's a blast to use both a gun and the wingstick. It's possible to get it back after its used, as long as it's not broken. Unlike the past games it's not all shooting all the time. ID decided that car combat was the way to go in a Mad Max like world. Once you drive around it becomes apparent that this is Twisted Metal: ID Edition. Playing the car combat minigames and driving around the boxed canyon made me want to play the new Twisted Metal. It's an awesome sight to see the finale car explodes in slow motion as you drive past it. It made me feel like I am an action hero badass. In the midst of all this there is a light, and when I mean light, I REALLY mean light RPG element into the game. It's not like most RPGs where you use a certain weapon and the weapon gets more powerful. No, you buy your upgrades to your car, armor, and weapons. Even still, the armor and the weapons is not worth the price. When it comes to upgrades, the only thing that will be worth while will be your car upgrades. It makes driving easier and less likely to be killed. The only thing you should be focusing on is ammo. All your money will go to your ammo, and even still you won't be out of money to buy things. There is an online mode, but I really didn't bother with it. It might seem that I wasn't the only one.


GRAPHICS


This is what ID does wonders. Yes, it's a boxed canyon in the middle of nowhere. I think this is why it's so small, it is to get as much detail as possible. Rockstar did it in Grand Theft Auto IV. But, unlike Rage, Grand Theft Auto IV is bigger. The black magic doesn't come in until you realize that there are rarely any frame rate drops. The game runs at a 60 frames per second and it never really stalls. There are some screen tearing, but it's only noticeable if you look for them.  The particle effects, the smoke, the fire all has this comic book feeling from them. It gives it a nice visual look. The animation is the true star of the show. Each person is animated in a way that gives them weight and personality. While, at a distance, the game looks great, but if you get closer you see the glaring flaw within the game. It sort of feels like you are going through a time machine at times. Far away you see what gaming has becoming, A big beautiful world. Up close, Textures that reminded me of the PSONE days. It gets distracting. 


SOUND


Sound is a hit or miss. While the sound of the guns feel powerful and the voice acting is pretty good, John Goodman is tragically underused, still the sound is really nothing to talk about all that much. Each character does have something to say. You can talk to someone and they will tell you a little bit about themselves. It would be interesting, if it wasn't the same as with every RPG. The world around you has a sound coming from somewhere and it never really shuts off the sound. There is a glitch of some kind that when driving around the sound of your chaingun does not register and you are left with nothing. It happens more times than it should. Everything about the sound feels like there should be more to go with it. The sound of the guns are almost varied to a degree. It can't escape the generic sound those guns make. There are three types of sounds a gun can make. Soft toy sounding guns, a medium generic sound, and a powerful pop of each round fired. This, sadly, falls in the toy category. It has this weird mixture where the guns feel fine and the sound of it isn't.



DIFFICULTY 


The Difficulty is kind of a joke. As long as you have the cash, it's almost impossible to run out of ammo. You can get your AK to the max and still have enough for the shotgun. The better the ammo the higher the price, but I felt that the standard AK did the trick on most everyone. The enemies are a lot faster than they look. They will use their surroundings to there advantage, set traps, and ambush you when you think they are safe. They know what weapons you are using and shout them out to warn the others. Some will flee and some will yell for help. It keeps the dynamic of the gun fight fresh. When I was done with the game, I checked out Nightmare difficulty to see the diffrence between the two. It felt that there was no difference. You can die quicker in Nightmare, but everything else is set. All you would need to do is to kill everyone quickly before they see you. The ammo is in a fixed price. If you played this on normal the price will be the same on nightmare. There is this new mechanic they did add that if you are fallen you can enter this mode where you are using a defibrillator to yourself, kind of like the movie Crank. Do the minigame correct and everyone around you dies. I think this is where the difficulty kicks in because of it's recharge time. Fallen before the recharge time and you die. If you wanted to you can just set tight and wait the defibrillator to recharge before completing the quest.



REPLAYABILITY


After you beat the game there is no reason to go back at all. The story is non exsistent, the world itself is small, there is not much to do when you are all done. The worst of it all is that after you finish the last mission you cannot go back and complete the side quests you might have missed. Which is a shame because despite a few glaring flaws there is a world that has potential. I hope that ID would take what they have learned and make it bigger and better than before. As of right now, there is not much to go back to.


CONCLUSION 


ID Software has made an interesting game. It's a game full of promises. And while those promises are not really there it does offer a ray of hope that in the next game it will be fully realized and we can explore the world more and the mythology they have created. If there is one thing to take that ID needs to fix, its the story. Don't just end it when it is starting to get good. Keep going, or at least have a much better ending. The world is there, they just need to make it better next time. It's not a bad game. It's well made to an extent and it's refreshing to see a new IP from ID software. Not the greatest thing ever, but not horrible.




6/10 RENT IT


PROS
* Gameplay
* Variety
* Graphics at a distance


CONS
* Sound
* Story
* Graphics up close
* John Goodman is wasted