Review: RAGE

                                                        So a big rock hit Earth

Developer(s)                 id Software

Publisher(s)                 Bethesda Softworks

Platform(s)                   PC, PS3 & Xbox 360

Release date                October 2011

Genre(s)                       First Person Shooter, Action, Adventure

Mode(s)                        Single Player, Multiplayer

Rating(s)                      ESRB: M, PEGI 18

                                                        Running flow of blood, Graphically impressive.  

Why all those hate on the game!?

Due to unforeseen events at work, I’ve been busy for the past several weeks so I had to push it back. This is my fourth week but things got subsided now so here we go!

Enough from my sorry a$$ excuse, I’m here to give my thoughts on this game and for those who’s on the fence (especially for PC gamers) on whether to get this game or wait for the update/price tag to drop, here’s for you.

                                                          Believable Facial expression + Nice Voice acting = win.

Presentation:

  

It’s basically flat & straightforward that has predictable plot but interestingly enough to keep you occupied. It’s about a group of selected humans casting themselves to be sealed in a chamber called “The Ark” in order to survive from an asteroid attack on earth which will pretty much destroy humanity and any life on the planet. You are one of the selected ones and augmented a special technology in order to survive the aftermath and restore civilization once again. After more than a hundred years, you’ve woken up in the Ark only to find that people around you in the Ark are dead. As you open the door for the first time, it felt like opening the vault back in Fallout 3 for some reason. The Environment has so much detail on the wasteland, from towns to NPC personalities. Generally it’s a world worth exploring.

Knowing id software, they make great qualities of FPS games in terms of gameplay way back when I first played Wolfenstein 3D on DOS & it was the first game I played and finished in the genre. So a bit of the developers’ history there has assured me that RAGE will be huge and in fact it did big.

                                                   Don't miss her, she will give you the best supporting weapon in the game

Graphics:

This is a touchy subject, there’s always bugs creeping up on PC games at launch it wasn’t as bad as Dead Island’s though. Setting those glitches aside, the details of the atmosphere is impressive, each towns and cities has their own feel to it, and facial details of NPCs are spot on believable and didn’t felt like obvious puppets. However the bad side (soon to be patched) was the frame rate & textures. To set an example, I noticed that whenever I turn around fast I noticed that it takes milliseconds to recalibrate a blurred section in order for it to be visible. Also to add that there were very limited options on setting your display in the game. It may disappoint for those who wish to put the graphics to its optimal use but none the less, the game is still playable and no game breaking there for me.

                                                               A good looking Bike

Gameplay:

One thing that I don’t doubt about id is their gameplay. Knowing that they’ve been so long in the industry and yet they still wows their audiences with epic experiences including with each weapons. That also includes this game, gun battles still driving me crazy in a good way (which reminds me with my run on DOOM 3), AI enemy movements are almost unpredictable specially for the agile ones which I personally call Crazy Monkeys, I’m used to those who stick their heads out and be easy targets but the enemies in this game are pretty hard hitters to the point that they don’t want their heads to be blown off by your awesome weapons. Luckily, there are other supporting weapons to assist you which one of them is the Wingstick, a three edged boomerang that can wipe an enemy in one hit (mainly the enemy’s head) and that helps a lot whenever I have a hard time killing annoying Crazy Monkeys. Aside from FPS, it also has a driving gameplay; I was surprised on how fluid & responsive it was in terms of controls. The world is full of racing tracks so each town has events on race battles in order for you to earn extra cash.

                                                    So this is how my player looks like with the Crimson Armor 

Audio:

As far as how the voice acting goes, it didn’t come any shorter than awesome. And I thought Dead Island was good but I guess I was wrong. At some point of the game, there are areas where I was impressed to see & hear dead bodies with flowing blood and flies all over, it helped to give me that creepy feeling.

                                           I went like "Good Lord that's a huge Boss!" 

Overall:

RAGE is a game to be loved from what it is, personally I don’t prioritize the graphics as long as its playable and fun, just like BRINK, this game is also a breath of fresh air for me away from military based FPS games like Call Of Duty & Battle Field. Aside from the huge Single Player game, the multiplayer is there to add some extra flavor to the game isn’t broken & fun to play with friends. This game is for those who love the genre (FPS) as single player focused and not for those who expect it to have some heavy RPG elements. As long as it’s playable, its fine but for those who love to max out its graphical capability, you might get disappointed but on a brighter side, they will patch it soon (PC version). For a price tag, it's questionable for its graphical side but overall it's worth the price.

Score             8.5

Pro(s)

Huge

Graphically impressed

Awesome voice acting

Cool weapons

id’s AI enemies never gets old

Fun multiplayer

Con(s)

Missions felt repetitive

Loots are sometimes limited

Graphical & texture issues