Rage Review (360)

Never has a game’s title so aptly described the feelings I’ve had for it. Rage is ID Software, makers of Doom and Quake, latest and their first attempt at doing something different in a long while. However, Rage’s primary problem is a crisis of identity. It shows signs of ‘design by committee’ and seems the first thing they couldn’t decide on was what game they were making.

Rage tries to be many things. A first person shooter, driving game, mini-game collection, role playing game, and open world game. Unfortunately, it fails in a multitude of ways.

Most of Rage’s first person shooting feels clunky. Most weapons feel loose and weightless and combat doesn’t get interesting until the more advanced weapons. Most enemies either take cover or running straight at you, making gunfights feel bland.

Rage has many minigames. There’s a luck based dice gambling game, a music rhythm game (this seemed glitched as each of the five waves had the same notes), a ‘war’-esq collectable card game, and a version of five finger fillet. None of these is terribly good; they’re just brief, shallow distractions.

The ‘RPG’ elements are limited to looting corpses and picking up random items. You can sell these items or learn recipes to make stuff you’ll likely never use.

The driving is the only thing that resembles anything remotely fun and amounts to maybe ten percent of the game. Races are mostly optional, but you can participate to get extra parts for your cars.  Otherwise, driving is only done in the two overworld locations getting from linear mission to linear mission. So much for ‘open world’.

The third of the game’s three discs has multiplayer racing and co-op missions, but these don’t help raise the experience beyond mediocrity.

Even Rage’s story is weak. ID Software’s titles are never known for their stories; Rage is no different, despite its feeble attempt. It has a razor thin plot, some of the least compelling cast of characters ever, and the story feels like the prolog for something greater, but it ends abruptly.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: In the not too distant future, humanity goes underground in vaults arcs to survive a nuclear holocaust asteroid colliding with earth. Some stragglers left on the surface pick up the pieces; others go crazy from radiation turning them into ghouls mutants. One group of vault arc dwellers, called the enclave authority, use advanced technology to rebuild the government through force. You awaken from your vault arc and eventually join the resistance.

In spite of everything, Rage is beyond pretty. Running at 60fps, it feels smoother and has more detail than any console game – but like most ID games, it feels like the technical demo waiting for someone else to make a game with it.

It’s impossible to recommend Rage. It’s a bland mess of half-baked ideas strung together incoherently. Even its most promising ideas prove frustrating because they weren’t developed into anything fun.

The Good

Magic the Rage-oning: Rage Frenzy, Rage’s card game minigame, is the most fun of the minigames. You’ll find cards in the world and collect them to boost your deck, but it’s unfortunate there aren’t more cards, unique cards, and online play.

The Bad

The Thing Resembling a Story: Rage’s story reminds me of a zombie. It gets up, shambles around, don’t really go anywhere, then keel over.

The RPG mechanics: The collecting of stuff, in-game economy, and crafting systems are very ‘me too’ but shallower than most.

An Empty World: If you spend tons of time building nice outdoor environments – put some content into them. Even worse, don’t have a message pop up that says ‘HEY – LET’S DO A SIDE MISSION NOW’ – it breaks the immersion you’re working so hard to create.

The Ugly

This is ZZzzzZZZzzz….: Rage is late to the party. By six or seven years. Released earlier in the 360’s lifecycle – I might feel differently, but compared to shooters, Rage doesn’t play well and attempts to compensate in other areas for it’s primary gameplay mechanics feeling sloppy. Rage commits the greatest crime of ANY entertainment medium: It’s boring.

Final Recommendation: There are other, better FPSes out there. Pass on Rage.

Notes: Our copy of Rage for Xbox 360 was provided by Bethesda for the purposes of this review. Campaign was completed to 100% on normal – played all of the mini games and a bit of multiplayer.