Games Thrist News Gamers Thirst For

So near, yet so far.

The last Final Say Nick dissected Deus Ex: Human Revolution and explained why it’s a true sequel and that “Eidos Montreal have not only kept true to the spirit of Deus Ex, they have reignited it!”, adding, Warren Spector would be proud!”

This week, he takes a look at RAGE.

RAGE notes. Written By Nicholas ‘Nick’ Mirabito

NOTE: I decided to get the PC version of RAGE for obvious reasons. id, after all are a PC developer. Or should I say were….. 

The Good:

1: I have always said what makes a good game into a fantastic one is the small little details. The small things 99.99% of developers don’t bother with. No game has put a smile on my face as much as RAGE has! The attention to detail is AMAZING! For instance, the AI is constantly talking to each other. One mission I was taking cover and one enemy said throw a grenade, so another threw a grenade. Then another guy said hey watch where your throwing those things! Then the enemy who through it said oh crap! Then a small countdown, 3,2,1, BOOM! Ah that is hilarious! Hey watch where your throwing those things, what a classic! Can’t remember the last game I played where it was what the AI said that had me cracking up laughing.

Another example of the attention to detail in this game is if you shoot a water bottle water slowly trickles out. Shoot a steam pipe and steam explodes outwards. Just the attention to detail, the small things that most developers ignore because they think eh no one would notice that so why bother. We do notice!

2: Explosions look AMAZING especially the fire effects.

3: The sound effects are again amazing! Almost every game out there they lack the volume, the punch a gun gives off. Not rage though. Each weapon sounds like the real thing, and there is a really nice rattle sound to the machine gun too as you can hear the piston rocketing back and forth, and the shells tapping on the ground. This really is a game that MUST be played with 7.1 surround sound! Another thing RAGE does that a lot of games don’t is properly differentiate the sound of each weapon.

I’m sick of picking up riffles and having them sound exactly the same as every other weapon! Every weapon in rage has its distinct sound, they sound exactly how they do in real life. They have just enough punch, volume, pitch, in fact this has probably got to be the best sounding game I have played this gen! That will change when Battlefield 3 hits, god the beta was amazing! Even the vehicles in this game sound really good, in fact the engines in this sound better and more varied then bloody GT5! Bit of a worry.

4: It really comes in handy how you can pick up multiple items at once. Most games make you pick items up one at a time so if you want to pick up 10 items your sitting there for ages pressing the interact button 10 times. RAGE though 1 press and it picks up everything.

5: The art style looks really nice. There are allot of post apocalyptic games out there, but this looks A by far the best, and B the most realistic. I have always said since when does a post apocalyptic setting mean colour has to disappear? Well, rage proves that cliché wrong! The texture detail may look crap, which will detail below but just the general art style of the game is beautiful! Only if the next fallout looked like this.

6: The gameplay is typical id, exactly what you would expect from them. It’s hard to put your finger on, but something id does it just makes the combat so much fun. There are allot of shooters out there, but I have not had this much fun playing one since, well, gears 3 actually but it’s been a great month. Minus gears 3, this and resistance 3 and I would not of played a shooter I really enjoyed since last gen!

7: A lot of games have a really bad habit of putting you up against bazillion enemies, then letting you take 2 steps, then putting you up against a bazillion more. Cough KZ2. Rage gets the pace perfectly. You fight 6 or so enemies, and then move on for a decent amount of time till you fight another 6 or so enemies. Nothing infuriates me more then when games make you wade through a million enemies, and you feel that you’ve spent hour’s just killing 1 wave of enemies. It’s really important to get a games pacing right, and I think I’d have hit that Mickey on the head 100%.

8: The level design is very good. There is not enough variety in areas, but the level design itself is very well done. There is enough cover to sit behind, every area is fairly open allowing you to pick and choose where to go, where to fight, it allows a little tactics which is nice.

9: AI is among the best I’ve ever seen! Just the way they react to situations, it’s so funny to rush up to a enemy then hear him say oh shit because your 2cms away from him and have a double barrel shotgun pointed at his head. Nice to see a little personality in the game! That’s the best bit about Rage, the enemies almost feel human. Just simply because the way they react to situations. There not cardboard figures moving around, they interact with their teammates, they interact with the world, they interact with you and they react to every situation.

This is the first game I’ve played where I feel like checking behind my PC and making sure I’m not playing online because the AI is that intractable. It’s just so cool to be able to see enemies react to things you do, instead of the usual just standing there behind cover like a stunned mullet. Cough killzone.

10: The animation is, well, for the lack of a better word perfect! The facial animation is amazing. In fact I think we finally have a game where characters react, move, and look more realistic then LA Noire. Just the muscle tone, the wrinkles, the flab moving around on the bash TV bosses face. It’s amazing!

Then there’s the way enemies react to being shot. Most games shoot a enemy and they continue doing what they’re doing they won’t react at all. Shoot a enemy in the shoulder in rage and there shoulder will pin back and they will grasp at it as if hey that hurt! Shoot them in the leg and they will drop to the ground. Shoot them in the chest and they will crown down grasping at their chest. Its again so cool to see AI react to what you do. It is also so cool to watch the mutants do their acrobatic tricks around the level. I just love sitting back and watching how they crawl along the wall, leap to the roof, then back to another wall, before hurling a blade at you. I’m just in awe how amazingly good the AI and animation is in this game!

The bad:

1: Since the game uses 3 disks for the PC version, Bethesda are too tight to pay for a proper 3 slot case so they have used a normal single disk case with a slightly longer pole in the centre but no lock so when I opened my case 2 of the 3 disks went rolling down the stairs. Thanks Bethesda, nice to see you are concerned in providing your products to your customers in as best condition as possible. Might as well send us the disks in a bed o nails!

2: The key codes for this are not what normal steam codes are. Every steam game has the key codes in 5 letter combinations followed by a -. But for some reason RAGE has 3 sets of 3 letters then the usual codes so I thought I had to enter all the 3 sets, otherwise why else why would they be there? But I keep getting told the key is invalid so I tried different combinations and finally got it to work.

3: I’m trying to install the game, tried 3 times now and keep having to install it. First time I installed it I finished installing the first disk then it came up with a message please insert disk 2. Ok no problems that’s easy. I insert disk 2 and the program freezes and locks up. I have to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL bring up the console and end process. 2nd time I tried a steam window popped up saying validating steam cache files. Went all the way to 100% after like 5 minutes but sat there so I thought ok ill give it a while. A hour later still at 100% so I closed it and started it again. 3rd time trying to install it same as before were at 100% but every time I try to re install the game it does the same thing. Not a good start! If the installation process is bugged I don’t want to imagine what the game will be like! 3 hours of trying to install the bloody game, and I still have not started installing the 2nd disk!

4: No SLI support! WTF id!? How can you release a PC game in 2011 without SLI support!? Especially a game that has such high recommended settings and especially a game that is so GPU intensive like this is. Releasing this without SLI support is like Ferrari releasing a new car, charging a million dollars for it, then saying to their customers oh sorry folks you can’t drive it because no one makes tires for this car.

5: No graphical adjustments. Again WTF id!? Sigh, just see above paragraph.

6: Most screen tearing I have ever seen. The game may have amazing graphics, but you really pay for it. Not only in a massive installation size, 3 disks, massive DLC (the sewer DLC that’s locked out if you buy the game used alone was 500MBs!), load times, but you also pay the price in game stability. Frequent frame rate drops, the worst screen tearing I have ever seen and the worst pop in I’ve seen since the ps2 days!

7: Texture detail is really poor, for a console game this would look crap but for a PC game it’s shocking! I can’t believe id went to so much trouble making such a beautiful game, and spoiled it with such low resolution textures. I think the texture system is broken too. You can use dev console commands to unlock higher texture resolutions, but going up to 8K then 16K values 1st did not make any difference they look the same, and 2 it did not have a performance hit which indicates they are not being loaded properly. Obviously 16K textures will have a massive performance hit over the default 4K, but switching between the 3 I see no performance hit what so ever. No increased CPU or GPU usage either. That proves the higher res textures are not loading properly.

8: The graphics are really inconsistent. Some things look amazing, others look like they came out of a ps2 game! Look at the phones and TVs, and then go look at the phones and TVs of deus ex human revolution. Massive difference ay? And lets be honest here, human revolution is not exactly a ground breaking game when it comes to texture resolution. It’s not only certain items either some walls look crap others look great, other objects like doors or tables or cars look crap where other doors, tables, cars look fantastic. It’s a texture loading problem, the texture system is bugged and needs a serious update! Put shortly I’m not impressed id! So much for the mighty id tech 5! To be frank actually I’m massively disappointed! Hell, the mods for doom 3 look better than this! How can a 7 year old id tech 4 game look better then a brand new id tech 5 game!?

9: Other areas don’t load at all! I’m on the first mission, walking down a corridor and enemies start shooting me so I turn left and hide behind a wall and everything is green there are no textures at all! My god, this is officially the buggiest game I have EVER played! And this is after it got delayed a month, I can’t imagine how it would of played if we got it when we were supposed to. I always said becoming a part of zenimax would be the death of id, though they did not have to prove it to me! This makes resistance 3 look like uncharted 2!

10: There’s no sense of speed. You can drive full throttle forever and constantly using boost but you never really feel like you’re going that fast, you’re always spamming boost screaming come on my grannies 20 year old beetle could outrun you.

11: It takes forever to unlock any of the other weapons. Most of your enemies use machine guns but you don’t get access to that for a while, so you’re constantly running out of pistol and shotgun bullets because none of your enemies use them so you don’t have any resupply.

12: The non standard enemies, especially the red armoured goons are WAY too strong. When you shoot a enemy twice in the head, melee him twice and shoot him 12 times in the chest to only have him kill you that’s when you know there’s something wrong. I thought headshots were suppose to be instant kills…….

13: There’s A LOT of cheap kills in RAGE! If I had a penny for every time I died and screamed “oh come on as if!” I’d be, a……. well, you get the point by now.

14: The melee is useless. It’s funny in the loading screens it says don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, melee could save your life. Ah, no it can’t! You have to melee someone 4 freaking times before they die, by the time you melee someone 4 times you would be dead 26 times over!

15: Lip syncing is really off. You can watch someone give a sentence and the audio will stop and their lips will still be moving for a while.

16: The lighting system needs some work. In open areas the game looks beautiful, besides the pop in obviously. But in closed areas there is nowhere near enough light and that causes a funny blue tinge to soak the screen makes the game look really weird. In wide open areas its lit perfectly. In closed spaces like the town of westsprings the lighting system needs some work, it does not display enough light.

17: For some reason every time I fire the shotgun the FPS plummet to 10FPS. Every other weapon is fine, it’s just whenever I use the shotgun or double barrel shotgun the FPS plummets.

18: There Is no map when you’re in the cities or in a mission, only when you’re in the open world racing. So its really easy to get lost, and really hard to figure out where you need to go. If I had a nickel for every time I entered a room walked around looking for ammo or collectables, then turned back and said wait is that the door I entered through or the one I need to go through to progress? If I had a nickel for every time I said that I’d be a multi billionaire by now!

19: The second boss battle does not give you enough time to do what you need to do. For instance the enemy grabs a rock, holds it to block his weak spot, aims and throws it at you. You have to time to fire a rocket so when he throws the rock it just passes by and hits his weak spot. One millisecond too soon and you hit the rock he’s using to throw at you. One millisecond too late and his weak spot close so you can’t damage him. The time from him throwing the rock to the time his weak spot closing is FAR too short! You just don’t get enough time to react ok he’s thrown the rock I can now fire a rocket. Another problem is once you hit him for the first time with a rocket he starts slamming the ground, but again you don’t get enough time to get out of the way. A red circle appears on the ground indicating where he’s going to hit, and it’s almost impossible to dodge it you just don’t get enough time. Also again once he’s stunned you don’t have enough time to run up top and fire at his top weak spot. It’s a brilliant boss battle, just annoying because you don’t get enough time to do what you need to.

20: Machine gun is FAR too weak! 3 shotgun shells kills 1 of those scale enemies who spew acid at you, but to kill them with a machine gun you have to empty 60+ bullets into them! What the? Machiene guns need to do far more damage.

21: The bartender gives you money to take out enemy vehicles but it’s always less then what you spend doing so. It’s like a bakery bakes a loaf of bread for 2 dollars then sells it for 1 dollar. If I’m going to do something I need to get something out of it, make a profit not a loss! I end up getting paid say $150 bucks but then end up spending 400+ bucks on repairing my vehicle and restocking my ammo & gadgets. Dunno if its a glitch or not but every time I have done one of these missions I have been paid 50 bucks. The last one I did it said I would get paid $150, but when I completed it and collected my money I only got $50. What the?

22: Every time I get into a vehicle the FPS plummet to 10 and stay there till I get out! I cant understand why though, I’m getting a good 95+ GPU optimization on both cards, and in game running around, blowing up enemies, heaps of fire and effects on screen and I get a solid 60FPS. Remove all those enemies, all that fire, all those visual effects and add in moving scenery and watch the FPS drop by 50! Most games driving drops the FPS, but not by much. MAFIA 2 for instance driving drops the FPS for me by maybe 10FPS. A long way off RAGES 50.

23: There are far too many enemy vehicles trying to take you out while travailing to your objective. I’m spending more money on repairing my vehicle, and restocking my vehicles ammo then I am on anything else in the game! I had to laugh, your mechanic from wellsprings just said to me as I walked in “you got to be careful your spending allot of money on repairs.” Yea, I wonder why! 500 thousand enemies kind of do that. I’m pretty sure it does not take a brain surgeon to figure out 500K enemies attacking you = lots of damage to your vehicle which totals to lots of money spent fixing and restocking said vehicle. There should be 1 or 2 enemies every once in a while and that’s it. Not 6+ enemies every single bloody time you go for a trip down the road! I’m spending more time defending myself against these people then I am doing the missions!

24: The missions don’t feel right. There all the same, just go here fetch this bring it back. Go here fetch this bring it back. The games FAR too repetitive! The missions don’t feel like missions either there far too short. This game is allot like Dead Island. Missions should send you to faraway places, and you should spend at least several minutes getting there then at least a hour before you come back. Each mission in the game is just far too short, you go and grab one item where you should be sent grabbing multiple items in multiple areas. I have found the few longer, not long enough, but longer missions are the ones I’m enjoying the most. This and Dead Island need longer missions to feel like every other game out there. As it is the game just feels like one big set of side missions. Side missions are supposed to be short, send you to 1 area to collect 1 thing, there and back no screwing around. Normal missions though are supposed to be much longer. Send me to multiple areas, to grab multiple objects. This just feels far too much like a bunch of side missions.

25: The save system is up the creek! So many times I have quick saved, and then a while later died and reloaded that checkpoint to instantly die. I’ve spent at least 5 hours screwing around redoing bits I have to redo because I can’t use the latest save because of that bug so I have to use a much older save.

26: 5 enemies clustered together in a small corridor + 1 rocket = 5 dead enemies, right? WRONG! Every single time I blow an enemy up with a explosive he magically somehow forms a shield around his friends. WTF!

27: Enemy damage is really inconsistent. You can go blow 2 shotgun shells into a enemy and he will die. Then blow another 2 shotgun shells into a enemy, die, revive yourself with the defibrillator and frying the enemy you just shot twice, melee him and he’s not dead. So 2 shotgun shots kills an enemy, but 2 shotguns shells, a fry with the defibrillator and a melee does not? What the?

28: The weapons are really cool, but there are not enough of them. And what is there is a slight variation of another weapon you have. The double barrel shotgun a slight upgrade to the standard shotgun. The agency machine gun is a slight upgrade to the standard assault rifle. Then you have a sniper rifle, a revolver, rocket launcher and a bolt gun. Not exactly an amazing fresh new set of weapons. They need more weapons, and they need more fresh new cool weapons. They need a weapon that can take down multiple enemies at once, like the BFG from doom. id are almost as famous for cool fresh weapons as insomniac are, so where are they?

29: The levels get really repetitive, you visit so many different areas but they basically look the same throughout the whole game. Where are the varying environments of resistance or killzone 3? It kind of gets boring killing enemies in the same looking locations hour in, hour out.

30: The defibrillator mini game is different for PC, it’s too hard. On consoles you link the nodes up that decides how much health you regenerate then the bars swing back and forth, and they rebound so you have heaps of time to time it perfectly. On PC though you don’t get to line up the nodes, all you do is watch the bars go across and when they meet you have to react quickly and hit E. The closer they are when you do so, the more health you regenerate. And did I mention they do not rebound? On ps3 every time I do it I regain easily 70% at least. On PC I don’t think I have got above 40%!

31: There is nowhere near enough mutants in the game. There by far the most fun to fight, as I said above I just love sitting back watching them do their acrobatics. I hate fighting the mech soldiers, there not as fast in your face as the other enemies there more sit back cover campers. The games at its best when you have both the infected mutants hurling blades at you, standard mutants clobbering you, and the TNT mutants trying to kamikaze you. In those sections your adrenaline rushes it’s so fast paced. Allot more fun than the sit back and snipe me heavily armoured mech guys.

32: The audio takes a while to load when driving. Stamp on the gas and then engine noise comes awhile later. Let go of the gas and the engine noise stops immediately. Stamp back on the gas again and same thing takes a while to come back in.

33: Bloody game keeps locking up! 8 times now it has totally frozen, not even CTRL + ALT + DEL works, I have to reset my PC to get back into the game.

34: One of the missions the objective marker refused to update. I was told to speak to the major I did it updated to speak to a sewer inspector. I spoke to him and that’s where the objective refused to update. I had to reset the game it still would not update so I contacted Bethesda customer support and the frankly brilliant solution was to load an older save file. Yay lucky me I get to play another hour of the game I have already finished just to fix that up. I have to say, you certainly can’t tell this game has been published by Bethesda! Sigh. WTF is this id? I’m seriously thinking of selling my PC and putting the cash towards my new car, I’m just so sick of wasting 99% of my free time trying to get games to work, when I should be spending that time playing them.

35: The game is SUPER easy to break! One of the missions for instance once you start your suppose to go back up to the top and enter the garage. I did not, I fast travelled to westsprings and because of that now my mission objective marker won’t display. It’s ridiculously easy to break the game!

36: On one of the later missions in the game you have to leave your vehicle to destroy a generator to access a bridge. The second you do so authority tanks come rushing in firing shells that kill you in 2 shots. So how the hell am I suppose to outrun tank shells, and destroy these people? Your vehicle is quite a fair way away, no way in hell you could go back for it. So you have to sit and destroy 2 of them and pray they don’t hit you twice. Yay, how fun!

37: The ending mission is, well, in Adam Sessler’s words “the most uninspired final level I’ve ever played!” I was really disappointed by it. id always have big finales for their games, they always go out with a bang, and tie in the events of the game down. So I was expecting exactly the same for RAGE. I was really looking forward to sitting back and seeing how the game would go out with a bang. To sit back and see what my actions in the game have done. But you don’t. The game just has a massive abrupt ending leaving you feeling like you have accidentally purchased a unfinished version that for some reason has the credits in it. I feel like I have gotten on a 200MPH train, and then suddenly went from 200MPH to 0. Where’s the excitement, the pizzazz? A massive fuse to a nuclear bomb, but where’s the boom? There was supposed to be an earth shattering boom!

38: This has to be THE most uninspired story ever inserted into a game! Whole game you spend your time pissing off the authority as much as you can, so where’s the ramifications of that? The game just ends so abruptly, it feels like Bethesda stepped in and said hey guys it’s time to finish off. It feels like id said oh crap we won’t be able to put what we planned in, quick guys just whip something up over lunch so we can send it out. I saw the lightning. I was expecting the thunder, a massive bang. All I got was a……. is that all? Nah can’t be! I must have got an unfinished version of the game! Almost every game out there has a really bad story, but at least they tie in the events of the game and try to come to some sort of conclusion.

They say here is the start, here are the events, here is the end and this is why the events of the game happened, and why it ended the way it did. RAGE does all that, until it gets to the ending, then it just says thank you come again. No explanation, no tying the events of the game together, just thank you come again. Some will say obviously, there trying to set up for a sequel. But that is not the point. The point is setting up for a sequel does not mean you don’t need to tie the games events together. Every single game you make, no this is with EVERYTHING you need a conclusion. You don’t go on a mindless rant and not have a conclusion, something that ties everything together. Setting up for a sequel has nothing to do with having a conclusion for what is the first of a probable series.

Look at Mass Effect 1 and 2. There part of a series, but every single one of those has had a ending of its own ending the 39: story of the game and the sequel continuing the big picture. RAGE does not, RAGE just ends like you have not played the past 15+ hours, you see a random cut scene which makes no sense what so ever and thank you come again credits roll. I have always said, and always will say story is THE MOST important part of a game! If a game looks amazing, sounds amazing, if the AI is amazing, the level design is fresh and new, the art is beautiful and unique, these are all extremely important. But those mean nothing, and I really do mean nothing, if your game does not have a good story. Are you going to be sitting at home saying hey I might go play a bit more of that game, the art is beautiful? Or I can’t wait till I get home so I can continue playing that game because it looks as silky smooth as a baby’s bottom? No, of course not! You’re going to be saying hey I might go play some more of that game because I can’t wait to see what’s next.

That is why story is so important, because it is the ONLY aspect of a game that keeps people playing, keeps them coming back, and keeps them thinking about the game even after it’s finished. Assassins creed for example, why did Desmond do what he did at the end of brotherhood? Was the psychiatric ward in Alan Wake real, or fantasy like you were told? This is why story is so important, because it is the only aspect of a game that keeps people thinking about the game months before they have traded it in!

40: Thing I missed the most with RAGE is the technical prowess of the company. This is what id are famous for. Amazing graphics, amazing detail, amazing scale, these things are to id what fast beautiful cars are to Ferrari. So to see them missing in RAGE is like, well, buying a Ferrari which looks like a San Yong, and has the top speed of a Toyota Yarris! Yes the world is big, yes there are some detailed parts in the game. But the extremely low texture resolution, the constant screen tearing, the constant freezing, the constant frame rate issues, it’s just not what you would expect from the company that has released amazing games ever since their creation! Every single game id has shown has shown us what games will do in the future, they have up showed every developer out there! id to technology, to what is possible, is like Mercades S class to cars. As Jeremy from top gear says, if you want to find out what your every day car will have in 10 years time you only need to look to the current Mercades S class.

So I was expecting the same from id, I was expecting to play RAGE and it blow every game released this gen out of the water! But it did not, in fact I don’t have enough time to list every game that was more technically impressive then RAGE. Not what you would expect from the fathers of PC gaming, fathers of shooters, and the pioneers of technical prowess! id have always lead the industry, so what the hell happened!? Bethesda, that’s what happened! 

41: There are zero cut scenes once you complete your objectives, so it can be really confusing what you need to do next. Most games give you a objective, say its blow up the generator so you can unlock a door. Once you blow up said door you would get a cut scene showing you which door you unlocked so you know where to go next. RAGE on the other hand does the same, except no cut scene. So how am I supposed to know which door I unlocked? I have to go backtracking for half an hour till I reach a dead end? Nope not this way, back another half hour. Is it this way? Nope back another half a hour, is it this way? Ah, finally! Come on id, is a simple cut scene that much to ask!?

42: That brings me on to my biggest gripe with the game. Everything feels rushed, cheap. It feels like id spent so much money developing the engine that the game itself had to make do with as little time and funds as possible. Far too little in fact. The no cut scene or abrupt ending are perfect examples of this. Not to mention the multitude of bugs! Another prime example can be found from both John Carmack & Tim Willits. John told OPM UK in 2010 “Doom 4 would release earlier then RAGE”. Then shortly later Tim Willits said “Well we’ve got Doom 4 going on right now below our feet here, the Doom team are all sped up and working on this technology base. I’m not really at liberty to discuss much about it, but it’s going full steam ahead right now.”

He then adds: “It shouldn’t take as long to ship as Rage. It’s already in the pipeline and we feel good about it.” That there just goes to show how much influence and effect Bethesda has had on the game. It’s quite obvious id wanted Doom 4 out before RAGE because the latter needed more development time, but Bethesda had other ideas. One thing’s for sure though, the game reeks of cost and corner cutting, and it has REALLY hurt the game!

Conclusion: This has to be one of the hardest games ever released to rate! It does so many things so badly, even things you would expect the developer to do perfectly especially since it’s their trademark. So I confess I definitely have gone into this with preconceived notions, and because of those I may be being a little harsher then I should. But that said…..

It’s definitely one of the hardest games to rate because it does so many things so bad, but then it does so many things so well in fact better then the bad things are bad. So do 5 really good things make up for 20 half bad things? How many bad things or good things does it take to cancel out a really good or bad thing? That’s why I am having trouble putting a rating, or a clear cut short sentence on my impression on RAGE. Simply because it does so many things that drop my jaw, but then it does even more things but they don’t have the same impact as the good things. What’s good is a 10/10 good. What is bad is only maybe a 7/10 bad it could be a lot worse. So the bad is not as bad as what the good is good if you know what I mean. The good stuff is as good as it can get, but the bad stuff could get a lot worse in short.

So please don’t get me wrong about this. EVERYONE needs to play RAGE! It does so many things games don’t do, the AI for example how they scatter and duck and react to where there shot when there shot. It does so many things other games don’t, and probably won’t for a long time. It does things other games do but it does them 10 times better. But then it also does not do things a lot of games do. Everyone needs to play RAGE, it’s as simple as that! Missing out on RAGE is a crime! I guess the best advice I can give on it is forget what id do. I think my preconceived notions have hurt my thought of this too much. I was looking for too much on the technological side because that is what id is famous for. If insomniac did this game I would be flabbergasted because they don’t do gameplay and tech this well. But since its id, the tech just does not stand up to their expectations.

The gameplay is absolutely amazing, no one does shooting as good as id. Not even close! Funny enough the weak point, the things they have always struggled on is where they should shine. But where they are famous for is where it is really lacking. Going to consoles has really hurt id, I just feel they were crying out for more power to really show the world what they could really do with RAGE.

If they were to bring up the technological side of the game up to the level the gameplay is, then I’d be saying this is the best game since Wolfenstein 3D! But as it is, it’s only maybe a 8 in total. Gameplay is perfect! I can’t think of any area they could improve the gameplay. Level design is really well done, only problem there is the lack of cut scenes after each objective completion. So I guess the best I can finish up with is for gameplay RAGE gets a 10/10. >But as a overall package I can only give it a 8/10 simply because of the bugs, performance issues, freezing, lack of graphical oomph, and not doing what id is famous for, Which is giving us a game from the future. You look at every id game, there like the Mercedes S class. They do what games of the future will be doing.

Graphically though, there’s games that blow it out of the water and into next week no matter which platform your talking! That is what’s hurt me with RAGE. The gameplay is top notch, but the graphics, the polish, the scale, the things id are famous for and to be frank industry leaders for is where it’s lacking. id were the daddies of FPS, and I’m happy to say they still are! But, please, if there truly is a gaming god. Take id away from Bethesda! Otherwise doom 4 and the rest of ids games will be just as fun as RAGE, but just as disappointing visually and polish wise.

I LOVE RAGE! I just wish it looked and ran as smoothly as it should. In short RAGE is an amazingly fun game, with amazing AI. EVERYONE should play it! The bad things may outnumber the good things (42 to 10), but they are so small their near insignificant to the positives of the game. So close to perfection, so close to being the best game id has ever released! But yet so far.