E3 2011 Hands-On: Rage Not As Open World Or Compelling As I Thought

Bethesda did not have the PC version of Rage on display, but did have the 360 and PS3 versions of the game running at a smooth 60 frames per second. That in itself is a technological feat overlooked by most shooters today sadly.Technical Director John Carmack’s design philosophy insists that the player must have immediate control and response, a philosophy I wholeheartedly agree with. While the technology behind Rage is undeniably great,  it was the gameplay that mattered. Rage is vastly different from what you’d expect from an id game. It’s a semi open world with driving, crafting systems, and side missions.

Rage takes place on the “Wasteland” in a sci-fi setting. Your enemy is The Authority that are trying to take over said Wasteland. So, it’s you versus these authoritarian dudes along with mutants too! Who do you play as? You play as an Ark survivor that has nanotrites embedded inside your body. Nanotrites heal you and help you get back up after you die by like defribulator. The Authority’s main plan is to hunt down each Ark survivor implanted with information that when pieced together unlocks all the knowledge of mankind.

The very first 5 missions of the demo, which I played for 45 minutes, orders you to “Find the Buggy Parts.” Long story short, it wasn’t a very compelling mission because it followed the here’s a mission, drive, here’s a mission, and drive format. Oh and there’s shooting along the way, too. During another quest, I noticed  a lot of invisible walls, pop-in, and fairly long loading times taking up to almost a minute when opening doors within specific areas. Also, the navigation on the mini map wasn’t very clear since invisible walls in an open world force you to backtrack around entire hills that you are unable to climb.

Rage tries to shake things up by adding RPG mechanics through item collection and making new items out of combinations of materials to break locked doors open by crafting a lock grinders. This is all done through Engineering which also allows you to gradually upgrade your armor and your weapons with stabilizers. As far as UI, the menu reveals your jobs (quests), stats (weapon use), collectables, recipes, and your gadgets you’ve crafted.

While there are RPG elements, the core of the game to me is the gunplay and combat. The aim mechanics felt really nice and responsive, but had that ADS snap to aiming from other games which wasn’t a bad thing. Ammo is relatively scarce, but not to the levels of survival horror. Weapons that became my favorite included the sniper rifle that took enemies’ heads clean off, and the striker crossbow that pinned enemies against walls. Other than these guns, most of the weapons were standard fare.

The next mission I tried out was “Authority Prison.” The level showcased more varied combat forcing you to use the EMP grenades to take out turrets and security shields. Some of my favorite gadgets were the mechanical spider minions, deploy-able RC bomb, and turret. I found the turret most helpful because the AI would just shooter your RC car bomb out the moment it was spotted. The reason for this is because of the sometimes “all knowing AI.” I was told that AI knows exactly what you have gadget wise, and will react accordingly.

Car combat was highlighted in the level “Dusty 8 Rocket Race.” It’s basically Motorstorm’s overheat boosting mechanic combined with the arcade power up style of Mario Kart. The track was extremely small, had a few “big ass” jumps that weren’t very exhilarating. After a short 3 laps it was over. Hopefully we’ll see larger and more varied tracks since I believe this is id’s first attempt at a kart racer.

In light of all my disappointments, Rage is delayed until October 4 which could be a sign that they will try their best to work on better gameplay and storytelling. Believe me, they’ve got graphics and tech down to a tee with John Carmack at the helm because Rage is one of the best looking cross platform FPSs I’ve seen in a long time. That’s something to be proud of.

About the Author

Andrew Espejo Co-Founder and Editor from Los Angeles, CA. He tries to post what others aren't.