Rage is an absolute Masterpiece
Publisher: Bethesda
Developer: id Software
Platform: Xbox 360
Rated: Mature
Released: October 4, 2011
Visuals:
The visuals for Rage are absolutely picture perfect and when I see visuals like this in a game it is just plain perfection from the detail of all the locations and the all round environments in this game and the detail to every single character in this game was just looks amazing and they look so god damn life like and I personally was speechless when I saw the visuals and how well they ran on the 360 and that includes my own and I will point this out to you the player if you have already own this and have not got around to playing it yet install this beautiful game to your hard drive because with a game that is visually stunning like this game is you will want this game installed. So the detail the post apocalyptic world of earth is just absolutely stunning and id software was not kidding when they said the new engine they were using was going to make the game's detail's look really life like and they did and the detail's to every location in this game and from the moment you walk out of your ark chamber you will be introduced to a superbly beautiful looking world as you travel throughout the wasteland as you go from little outskirts settlements and make your to to such settlements that are a little bit more enriched with people and stuff you can do and the visuals in most of of these location's just looked amazingly great and these big settlement are not that big to explore which can be a good thing in some ways and in other ways maybe not and the small settlements are all in very well detail and I'm just going to straight and just say that the environment's of the wasteland and all the settlements that are in it are just spectacular and even the the dead city which as been abandon and is filled with some grotesque mutants and you get to go through this abandoned city two times. So the details to every nook and cranny in this is all done well to the tee.
The detail to the character that you are going to play as is and you really only get to see what he looks like at the beginning of the game in the opening cinematic just before you are released from a capsule named The Ark and then you are titled The Ark survivor and this point is the only time you get to see your character for the rest of the game but the detail to all the other supporting character's in this game is are done very well and they all are very life like and the textures to them were just amazing and made every single (NPC) in this game even all the bandits, mutants and the authority and even all the settlers across the wasteland that you get to meet in this game they all look great from the detail on their faces to the details of they're clothes and and weaponry that they are carrying or in the mutants case some of them have blades and stuff like that but most of them do not have blades an stuff like that and so my point is the visuals for all the non-playable-character's in this all look great and the detail to them are just remarkable. So in short for the visuals for this game and they are just plain amazing and are just beautifully masterful and are the best visuals on the 360.
Audio:
The audio for Rage is just great and every inch of the of the audio in this game is just superb from the great voice work, to the musical score/sound track and even the sound effects of the all the different types of weapons and the explosions it is just all great sounding and is spectacular. So I'll start with the easy and simple part of the audio portion of this review and that is the sound effects of all the weapons and the explosions in this game and the explosions in this game are all great like they all have that Dolby surround sound feel when blow up a couple of bandits or blowing up some dynamite and that is just with some of the simple explosions and when you blow up a enemy in a dune buggy or sand buggy it has a different sound but it's not like a surround sound feel but it still is a great sounding sound when you blow up an enemy dune buggy or sand buggy. So the sounds of all the weapons in this game are all great from the starter pistol you get at the beginning of the game to the sniper rifle or even the Gatling gun you get and if you get the alternate fire that the gun comes with you get a BFG power up with and those two weapons have great sounds those two weapons but every gun and swing sticks all sound great and the sound of the cross bow you get and when you get the electrobolts for that weapon and shoot it at an enemy that is in the water and you can just hear that enemy fry weather he is standing in water or not and if their is two of them in the water it just double the sounding fun and if you enjoy the sound of popcorn popping or the sound of bacon sizzling you enjoy the sound that goes on when you fry those pesky bandits and even the mutants that you come across and I personally used this weapon a lot and when I had enough electrobolts and even though that weapon sound awesome well again the sounds the electrobolts electrifying you enemy all the weapons sounded just as great or just as awesome.
The voice over work in this game was just amazing and even though the main character does not have a voice which is one of the only problems with the audio part but the rest of the game's voice over work was just spectacular and from the moment you are released from The Ark you are just introduced to a great ensemble of a voice cast from John Goodman as Dan Hagar ( Roseanne and other great roles) to Claudia Black ( Stargate: SG1 and Pitch Black and some other good roles) and their are some other notable voice talents in this game like Phil LaMarr from ( Mad TV and some other video game roles ) and the voice work in this game is some of the best from beginning to end and it is just superbly great. The sound track and the musical score is also pretty great in this game and made all the action and some of the suspenseful moments in this game that much more great and helped the overall feel of the audio for this game really well and is just great. So in short for the audio for this game from the the great Dolby surround sound effects to the superbly great voice talent and even the sound track/musical score was great and in one word is that the audio for this game is just amazing.
Gameplay:
Singleplayer:
The single player gameplay for Rage is pretty great from the games mechanics to the story which is pretty good as well and I'll start with a brief moment with the story and you the play will be playing a guy buy that will come to life from a cryogenic sleep in side a capsule that that is named The Ark which you will be awakening from and you will be know as The Ark survivor and if my memory serve's me correct you are dubbed this for the rest of the game, as you go through meeting the people ( settlers) of the wasteland and even come across bandit clans and even hordes of mutants and then you have to take down some of the faction members that are called the authority and they're plot in this game is to hunt down you the Ark survivor as you are trying to keep a low profile helping all the settlers of the wasteland and even helping out a small group of freedom fighters that are against the authority and I'll leave the plt lines and the story at that point. I talk about the gun play and some of the other gameplay mechanics and the gun play in this great game just fun as hell and is quite smooth and so is the overall gameplay for this game and so gun play is some what familiar with such game like Bioshock, Borderlands and their are some elements of Fallout 3 and all three of these game that I just mentioned are all great in their own right but this is Rage and it does have some gun play that is similar to Bioshock with killing your enemies with a shotgun, a settler rifle to a sniper rifle to even the stalker crossbow in your right hand and having your left hand free to throw grenades and even throw a little boom-a-range thing that as three blades and is called wingsticks and throwing these little beauties is fun as hell and if you use one or two of these wingsticks you can stun some of the bigger enemies in this game and as these bigger baddies are stunned you can just unload on these things until it's down and your character can carry about four primary weapons at a time from a pistol, to a shotgun, to some of the assault rifle's you come across in this and many more weapons. Their are some little devices in this game that can help you out in this game from time to time and these little helpers are a turret that you can set up, sentry bot and a r/c bomb car that you can hide around a corner and send it out to kill a group of bad guys.
The single player will keep you busy for about 15-20 hours with on normal and about 20-30 hours on the harder difficulties in this game and even with all the main story quests and with all the side quests that are in this and this games gameplay is a good mix of first-person-shooter and role-playing-game and yes this game has more of an FPS element then RPG ones but the RPG element is their with an economy and building and upgrading items throughout the game and so this game can kind fall in the same genre as Borderlands in the Role-playing-Shooter and the great thing with this game is you can play this game with any approach you like and like you can run and gun it or you can approach it with some stealth element or you can just take your time and enjoy this game how ever you see fit. Oh their is a driving element in this game as well and you drive dune buggies or sand buggies and atv's and the vehicular combat is a mix of the Twisted Metal series and Blood Drive that came out last winter so you might like or you might not like and their are some races in this game where you do not have to play but you have too at least do two races to progress the story and the other races are optional. So with everything I could talk about with the single player's gameplay so I guess I'll talk about the one problem in this game and that is this game does not have an automatic save system and in fact this game only saves automatically when you enter a new bandit hideout or re-enter or exit from hideout to wasteland or from wasteland to the major settlements and vice versa, so save often manually and I had no problem saving manually but for some you it might be a problem. I almost forgot that when you die once the game will put you in a little defibrillator mini-game where you can get your characters hart back up and running and you can electrified the enemy or enemies that put you down and they will most likely come close to confirm the kill and as that happens you should be up and watching the one or two enemies that thought they killed you you be watching them get fried. So the single player in this game is quite amazing and is an absolute blast to play and it should keep you busy for some time and remember save often.
Multiplayer:
So the mutiplayer for Rage has local and on-line play with a co-op mode and that you can play locally with a friend on your couch in split screen or on-line with a friend or with some random person and this mode is called Wasteland Legends where you can you can play with one friends at home on your couch or on-line with one of your friends from around the world or some random person that might have a head set or not and this co-op mode is a level based mode that will take you and a friend through most of the locations that you have visited in the single player but with new and completely missions to complete. The other mode is vehicular combat mode called Road Rage where you play on-line with up to four players and you can play in such vehicular combat modes are Chain Rally where you can take Rally Points and chain them together for you to increase your score, can also try Triad Rally and you have to capture three consecutive Rally Points to score points, and you have a mode called Meteor Rally where you got to collect fallen Meteors and drive them to capture zones to score and this similar to a mini-game in the single player when you are exploring the wasteland from time to time and the last mode is called Carnage which is a free-for-all and all you have to do here is kill the other players to score and win the match. So I enjoyed the co-op mode but I was not to fond of the vehicular combat mode and even thought this was some thing new for this genre it was not for me but you the player might find this fun. So the multiplayer for this game is fun and is not quite unique but it is new to the genre and can be fun if you are in to vehicular combat then this is for you and the co-op part of the multiplayer is fun for anyone who is interested in co-op and so the multiplayer is just plain fun.
Overall:
The overall for Rage is that it is a absolutely visually stunning from the environment of the wasteland to the great detail to the characters and with great audio from the amazing voice work, to the great sound effects, to the great sound track and musical score and the audio is just amazing and the gameplay from the superb single player to an absolutely fun multiplayer this game is one of the must have game's of the year and is completely worth the $60 dollar price tag. I forgot to mention this in the single player part of the gameplay is the A.I in this game is just great and you have to try to predict their movements as some enemies come at you in like a parkour style of movement as you try yo tee up a head shot and they will try to dodge your bullets in these same movements and the same goes with all the different enemy types as you just have to approach every action with some sort of strategy which makes this game amazing and is absolutely worth getting. So in short for the overall of this game is that it is a definite must have and remember to install this game so it can run with absolutely no problems and so it can run on your system perfectly and also remember to save often. Sorry if I mentioned some spoilers I try not to that and if and if I compared this game to the three games that I mention in this review it is just reminded me of those game game and there were others that this game reminded me of those were the three came the closest but again this game is still worth checking out.
10 out of 10