RAGE Review (8/10)

RAGE was one of a handful of promising titles that managed to meet a healthy critical reception in the midst of the packed Autumn of Gaming last year, yet failed to make any substantial impact in the charts. What with this bleak midwinter of little-to-no new titles on the horizon for quite some time, should you pick it up? Comparisons to Fallout through the post-apocalyptic world id Software have created were always going to be inevitable, but surprisingly, the development team manage to provide a completely new take on the genre, adding strongly effective elements of horror and isolation that for me have never shone through in Bethesda's own franchise. The visuals- animated beautifully to the point that you might wonder if this was made by the same guys who did Red Steel 2 for the Wii back in 2010- certainly add to the stylistic tone of the plot, a dark adventure spruced with hints of comedy and charm throughout that will easily please RPG fans in its 10-20 hour duration. Moreover, the gameplay engine is a vast improvement on Bethesda's structure for its futuristic role-play, relying on the player conserving ammo for the most powerful battles, while travelling the nuclear-war ravaged landscapes of America in buggies, constantly on the look-out for enemy raiders and hazards. By keeping the player on the edge of their seat, constantly surveying each tactical option of a conflict to ensure maximum damage to their adversaries and minimum waste of ammunition, id goes where very few teams have dared gone before, mimicking zombie greats like 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead in that it will truly feel as if your character is being hunted from all angles, with little chance of escape. That a developer can still give us such a compelling single-player experience in the midst of dominating shooters like Call of Duty, Battlefield and Gears is a wonderful achievement, placing this much closer to the realms of Batman: Arkham City, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Portal 2 in terms of 2011's roster than towards the tepid first-person shooters that unjustifiably swamp our charts nowadays, but sadly, there are some notable shortcomings in said experience that hold it back from reaching the ranks of the former group. Firstly, there's the ammo system- although I mentioned it added to the feeling of isolation and sheer tension, id Software seem to have taken things a little too far, turning the player into the worst of scavengers just to make it through a single mission, and this approach to gameplay does wear thin after a few hours of play. Also, the driving mechanics are lacklustre, failing to match the Gran Turismos or Ridge Racers of this world by any strech of the imagination, and thus making the inclusion of such a compulsory mode feel rather counter-productive towards the title's overall appeal. Furthermore, despite the plot being strong in most respects, the lack of an empathetic cast of characters to connect with at any point (we mostly get cookie-cutter moulds descended from long-mocked games' past) ensures that we can never totally feel drawn into the game world, and if I'm being brutally honest this shortcoming would, for me, be the factor that holds the game back from necessitating a sequel. RAGE is one of those one-off Marmite wonders: you'll either love it or you'll hate it, but whatever your final stance on the game turns to be, I'm sure you can get some fun milage out of it on the way to finding out.