Rage

The game begins with your character emerging from the Ark; a life pod designed to survive the impact of an asteroid. The post-apocalyptic world is now home to a few clans of friendly humans, evil bandits, and mutant creatures. You are sent on quests by your allies to help the clans survival and eventually start taking the war to the Authority who enforce a oppressive government regime.

Although it's is influenced by open world first person adventures like Elder Scrolls, it doesn't reach anywhere near the scale. The world is quite barren and there's only a few towns that you visit. Travelling between them is by vehicle, and all you will see is bandits driving in vehicles in certain sections of the map, and the occasional deployed turret. Your vehicle is armed with machine guns and expendable items can be used like shields, and a shock-wave attack. It isn't like Oblivion/Skyrim where you will see random bandits, bears, wolves etc and come across a variety of ruins and caves that are there to explore. I think the post apocalyptic world is a theme that really lets it down, although there could easily be places to explore with mutants or bandits inhabiting the locations.

The story is virtually non-existent, and the ending doesn't have the length or the tense atmosphere that some of the missions have. Instead you just march in there, gun a few enemies down and the game ends without any sort of boss battle despite some of the previous missions featuring a heavily armoured soldier.

The actual game-play sure makes up for it, since it does well at being a first-person-shooter. There are plenty of guns to choose from, and each one has a selection of possible bullets. Some types deal more damage, while others add effects like explosive or electrical element. The usual handgun, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper are here as well as a crossbow for a more stealthy approach. Secondary weapons include grenades and a boomerang type weapon known as wingsticks which are very deadly. You can also construct RC Bombs (explosive remote control cars), deploy sentry turrets and mobile spider-bots. These are built using a mix of the loot that you pick up from bodies or the environment.

The game mainly relies on manual saves since auto-saves are only done when entering a whole new environment. When you die, a simple mini game can heal you with the defibrillator which can initially be used once, then twice later on, but its use regenerates over time; so the save system isn't too frustrating.

Technically speaking, it's insanely impressive. The graphics are superb and the animation is amazing. The mutants have to be one of the scariest and most agile enemy I've ever seen. They are usually mêlée type enemies so need to charge at you. You would think it is easy to take them down, but they sway and flail their limbs as they charge which means hitting them is no easy task. They also climb up walls and traverse the roof like they are hanging from monkey bars. If you lose them behind cover, they will climb and flip over it. The human enemies will utilise cover effectively, and sometimes just swing their arm out of cover to attack.

I didn't think Rage was supposed to be a scary game, but it does have plenty of moments, especially in the Dead City which is home to some freakish mutants like the large Kraken. Other scripted events occur such as something exploding, the lights flicker, you hear a freakish mutter, then waves of mutants come leaping over the banister and charge towards you; it really is quite an experience.

The music really contributes to the tense atmosphere. It's kind of like a horror film where there's not much music when there's no action, but when danger is lurking, the orchestra kicks in for dramatic effect.

When you are in the cities, you can partake in the race events which can feature time trail, race, and battle events. Winning these can unlock upgrades for your vehicle which can be very handy for taking down the bandits when you are travelling between missions.

Overall Rage is a great game especially in terms of FPS game-play and presentation. However, the story and scale of the game is a major let down and you can't help the feeling that it would have been a 'must play' if it had a larger scale and a more involving story.