I'm sorry id Software. I was wrong about you.

When Bethesda gave me an opportunity to get hands-on with the first few hours of RAGE at QuakeCon, I walked away from the game unimpressed. Sure it looked pretty, and there was no denying it's core shooter radness, but those two factors alone are staples of id Software - components they surely couldn’t fail. The quest bridging, dialogue, and even the driving, however, left me thinking this would be a failed attempt on the old developer’s part to join the modern age of gaming.

Most of these woes stemmed from how the game serves its greater parts to you from the outset, the best example of which comes in the form of a quest that rewards you with your first shotgun. Getting this quest is a bit arbitrary in and of itself as you have to accept it to even progress the game forward, but the biggest let-down here was that the first enemy I came across in the quest had a shotgun, and after dispatching him, he dropped it. Much to my chagrin, however, the weapon vanished, despite his body laying out in plain site for me to loot.



This simple example left a pretty sour taste in my mouth, and even after I asked id’s Tim Willits why that was the case, I didn’t buy his response that being able to loot weapons broke their reward and currency system, which they’d apparently worked very hard on making balance correctly.

Other problems then began to stick out in my mind even more. The game’s dialogue, for example, had no real dynamism and the game-world’s friendly NPCs were as wooden as the pop-up targets you fire your first Wingstick at, leaving the game, for all intents and purposes, lifeless, despite the narrative trying to sell me on the idea that even a catastrophic global event such as an asteroid impact transforming the world forever, couldn’t kill off the human race.

And finally, the driving and racing component, complete with unfair rubberbanding, the ability to game nitro and a severely lacking drift mechanic, sealed the game’s fate, initially, for me as a Fallout/Borderlands knock-off built more to show off id Tech 5 than usher id into the modern age of game development.

I’m sorry id Software, I was wrong about you.

Apparently, all it takes is a little perseverance and the fruits of id’s labour truly shine, revealing RAGE to be more than the sum of its broken parts, and rather a shining example of a developer bucking anything modern for a design template built from year’s and year’s of development knowledge and a desire to play a challenging shooter, and not just some [ostensible] on-rails shooting gallery.



Where RAGE wins is in enemy AI and level-design; married in such a way, combat feels unparalleled in the current landscape, even on console. We’ve dabbled with both the PC version and console version (this review is based on a 360 playthrough), and somehow, without compromising either platform, the game still delivers the same challenge across both. This is because twitch gaming can, in fact, work on console if the controls are right, which id have nailed to perfection here. But it’s also about AI, cover and tactical recourse through weapon selection, player buffs and beyond. All of which is delivered in RAGE with great success. A game-changing component, for example, comes with weapon and ammo selection - something that could have been a real chore, but is handled with aplomb thanks to some clever design.

On the Xbox 360 controller holding down the RB-button will bring up both a weapon and ammo select pop-up, however, both sticks are now assigned to each selection graphic, respectively. This means, if you remember where you assigned weapons and ammo, you can, in less than a second, change weapons and ammo-type without so much as a dent on the combat experience, leaving the visceral action unhindered and entirely open to your own tactical devices.

Moreover, as mentioned, level-design plays a large part in both arena and corridor combat, as well as leaving the player feeling like they’ve actually progressed -- meaningfully -- through the game. Usually, even after a mammoth trek, you’ll wind up somewhere near where you began, which makes it much easier to access your vehicle and be on your merry way, but factors such as locked or currently inaccessible doors means you’ll often be revisiting ‘dungeons’ again, but it honestly never feels like a chore, and their variety, once the game opens up, really keeps the experience fresh and diverse.



Interestingly, this leaves the game’s narrative in two lights. On the one hand, the aforementioned dialogue, scripting and overarching story really aren’t much chop (but let’s face it, this has never been id’s strongest point). On the other, the atmosphere of each environment, their pacing (across overall gameplay), visual identity and enemy-types make for great on-the-fly narrative of a different kind. Much like walking into an open vista from a narrow, visually confining corridor to a massive jaw-dropping set-piece (of which RAGE is replete with), the game constantly tells a rich and oft deep story from a visual perspective. It’s par for the id Tech 5 course, of course, but it never gets old, especially on console where you’re often left gawking at the game in sheer wonderment the team even managed to get such a large game looking this good.

It’s not just massive set-pieces and varying environments that pull you in, either. There are tiny touches that make an otherwise lifeless world feel alive. Walking under dripping water, for example, washes your vision with stunning water distortion and droplets. Get into a fire-fight near water-pipes and your bullets will penetrate them, spouting water -- dynamically -- from each hit-point (these aren’t persistent though). Mini tornadoes of dust carry loose paper in towns, while explosions create a dynamically animated mess based on the environment it occurred within (there’s no destruction model though).

Equally, enemies react to where they’ve been hit better than any game before it. The shotgun returns as a class hero here (this is id, after all), and it’s spread is best represented in the Mutant Bash TV segments where the unpredictable, and veracious mutants often trip over, fall back, or keel in pain at only being partially hit by your shotgun. Animation, physics and AI reaction -- throughout the experience -- are, in my opinion, second to none in the shooter space, and the game is all the more visceral for it.



This pacing is helped massively by the game’s driving sequences, and its friendly towns, especially Wellspring. Most of the time these only serve a purpose in vending or as quest-givers, but it’s nice to be able to return to a friendly place every once in a while, and most of what the game offers outside of the core shooter experience bridges from here.

There are plenty of mini-games to play, and the races themselves offer reprieve for the weary gunslinger. However, a fully upgraded vehicle can mean the difference between a comfortable commute between settlements and dungeons, and near death on the road. You can’t just buy upgrades though, because you need to earn racing certificates to have anything meaningful pimped to your ride. This is a clever move on id’s part, because it would be easy for many to just ignore driving, beyond the requirement to travel between towns and dungeons, and so you both learn to play the game in entirety, and appreciate the subtle upgrades your car can acquire.

Racing can actually be fun, but suffers from the rubberbanding I mentioned earlier. The best thing here though, is to just not take it seriously, and plow through it as an added mini-game, which makes more sense in the construct of the rest of what’s on offer from a peripheral perspective. The vehicular bridging then, is more of a means to an end, but remains enjoyable, and the more powerfully kitted out your ride is, the more fun it becomes to coast into the wastes, to waste the enemy.

Despite all of the above though, there are a few missed opportunities with RAGE. For one, there’s no day and night cycle, nor any changes in weather. With equally large games like Red Dead Redemption fleshing out their game-worlds with such dynamism, it just seems like an obvious oversight on id’s part, and the water effects they have embedded are stunning, so rain could have added to the id Tech 5 showcase here, while creating a much more ‘open’ world in which to exist.



Boss battles are also pretty lax in comparison to the challenge of regular AI. Predictable, and easy attack patterns meant I cut through them, even with my difficulty setting at Nightmare, with ease. Bosses in general appear to be a major pitfall for developers these days, but in RAGE they’re especially easy, which is a shame, because most of the bosses are either ridiculously large, or ludicrously interesting to engage, which is another missed opportunity overall.

Finally, the touched upon wooden NPCs, and lifeless as a result, game-world is the biggest missed opportunity of all. Enemy AI is, at the worst of times, still incredibly animated, so it’s vexing to not have the same level of engagement with the friendlier places, or people, of the game. Even just basic NPC tasks and day-to-day routines would have opened up this component immeasurably, but alas, t’was not meant to be. The game’s load-screen Survival Tips suggest you “talk to everyone” to get the most out of side-quests and peripheral story, but when they barely move or animate as it is, it becomes more of a chore than anything else; like reading a series of sign-posts instead of actually talking to other humans.

At its core though, RAGE is a triumph for id Software. The game’s strengths far outweigh its shortcomings and for shooter fans looking for a challenging, visceral experience that isn’t akin to shooting fish in a barrel, you’re going to find it here. id Tech 5 looks incredible, across all platforms, and the team’s elevation in level-design, art and AI are the best they’ve ever produced. Despite following post-apocalyptic trends, RAGE stands on its own and could have been oh-so-much more with a bit more love in the aforementioned shortfalls - here’s hoping the next installment addresses these and adds more to everything they did right. Definitely worth the investment.