I have to admit, before I saw RAGE I didn’t know much about the title beyond the basics. You can take this as either I wasn’t particular bothered about the title or I just wasn’t doing my job properly or both. However, I was given the chance to have some hands on time with RAGE at gamescom. Now for better or worse I have another title to look out for this holiday season.
I played RAGE for an hour on the PC. As I’ve mentioned in the past, PC gaming isn’t my strong point. I’ve only really had a computer/laptop capable of running for the past 6 months so my experience with using a mouse and keyboard is limited. Thankfully what I go to play seemed to be almost a full build and I started straight from the beginning so I had the chance to get the grips of the controls and as the hour went on I got more and more competent. Then again this is a shooter so the controls aren’t as complicated as your typical PC RPG. However, starting from the beginning brings in another problem. Since RAGE is an open world game, you can’t get a great impression of what to expect. Especially if the bulk of my time were tutorial missions. Within an hour I got up to the part were I gain the main buggy and a sniper rifle. I was told after the sniper mission I can leave that starter area ,and then the game will really open up to me and can pick my main profession. What I really needed was another hour or 2 to really get a feel, and apparently I’m not alone in that assumption. As I was told that other journalists expressed similar remarks.
Still, I was able to get a good feel for what to expect and some of the quirks of the game. You start coming out of a cryogenic pod with little to no knowledge of why you are there only that you came from a place called ‘The Ark’ an underground shelter. As soon as you leave you encounter bandits, you are saved by a man named Dan Hagar who sends you back to his safehouse. He helps you get started, but of course for a price. Run a few errants for him, clear bandits from this, collect that. Your usual mission types. I did a lot of backtracking, as there were only a handful of areas on this part of the map. So mission variety wasn’t at it’s best, but I hope this is something that improves as the game goes on. You get to areas/safehouses via vehicles and this is where a good bulk of the game will take place. But during this part of the game it’s mainly exploring areas by foot. Vehicle controls feels fine, if a bit floaty. If you hit an object at high speed or simply roll it over, your character will come flying out rag doll style. I must say that first time it came off was rather humorous slapstick but at the same time felt a bit off.
The weapons on offer were pretty basic, but since this was the beginning, I can forgive it at this stage. I got a pistol, shotgun and a sniper rifle. Along with a weapon called Wingsticks which work similar to boomerangs. I personally didn’t see many uses for them at this stage, but it’s still nice to see something different at this early point in the game. You also have a crafting system in which you can make bandages, a machine that unlocks doors, among other things. So far I only encountered 2 enemy types, mutant bandits who charge you with melee weapons and your typical bandit who bombard you with gunfire. From what I could tell AI seemed pretty decent and each time I reloaded the enemy acted differently depending on what I did. Speaking of reloading, if you die you can use a defibrillator to revive yourself and shocks enemies within a certain radius of you. However, this needs to be recharged, so you can see this more like a second chance perk. There is one small thing that annoyed me during combat. When using a pistol a headshot didn’t always instantly kill an enemy. Not a big deal but something that is a little game breaking.
I’m glad I played this on PC, because the game looks stunning. Backgrounds and places in the distant just like amazing. The art direction is great giving a very less cartoony Borderlands feel. For such a good looking open world game you are going to get some technical issues. I didn’t find any bugs or glitches but there was the occasional frame rate drop. Despite this, RAGE is easily one of the best looking games I’ve played so far.
RAGE took me a little bit to get into, at first I wasn’t really feeling it. The opening mainly consists of backtracking and generic fetch quests. But as the hour went on I was having more and more fun. I was sad when I was told to stop, I could have easily carried on playing for a few more hours. Like I mentioned before, it’s hard to get a real gauge on how the game will progress from only an hour and in this case the opening hour of an open world game. What I was shown can only be the more boring linear part that slowly helps you get the grips of the world of RAGE. But I still had fun with what I got with RAGE. If you are a fan of open world shooters, you should give RAGE a chance.
RAGE is coming out October 4th for PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
