Game Review: Rage

Billy O'Keefe - Mclatchy -Tribune News Service

Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360

Also available for: Windows PC

From: id/Bethesda

ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, strong language)

Price: $60

John Carmack is to game programming what Steve Jobs is to consumer electronics, so when a new game releases under his watch and brings with it a new game engine over which he also presided, it's a bellwether moment for the future of game design and technology.

And if you don't care about any of that, "Rage" is a pretty good time as well.

"Rage" will draw superficial comparisons to "Fallout" insofar as it's a first-person, open-world shooter set primarily in a post-apocalyptic wasteland teeming with mutants, oppressive authority figures and some colorful settlers bent on fighting both groups back.

But where "Fallout" functioned as a role-playing game whose storytelling and scope compensated for shoddy shooting mechanics, "Rage" is a pure action game that borrows from but doesn't lean on the wasteland motif. Ammo is copious, your inventory bottomless, and while you will gather materials for purposes of engineering some nice special items and weapons (drivable RC car bombs, for instance), scavenging never feels as central to the experience as it did in "Fallout."

More to the point, though - and thanks to that shiny new engine - the action in "Rage" is polished in all the ways "Fallout's" wasn't. Beyond the occasional lengthy load screen, "Rage" feels supremely polished, looking great (artistically as well as technically, thanks to some inspired post-apocalyptic town designs) and purring at 60 frames per second without a hiccup and regardless of how big the environment is or how many enemies are crowding it. Controls are similarly dexterous - a good thing, because while authority figures display some intelligence in their shootouts with you, the mutants have zero qualms about rushing you at top speed. "Rage's" weapons and movement always feel crisp, and death never comes because the game's technical limitations fail you.

That goes as well for the driving controls, which comprise a surprisingly large portion of the game. "Rage's" open wasteland is significantly more perilous than its smaller environments, and while you're welcome to traverse on foot whenever you wish, it's much safer to grab a buggy, outfit it with missiles and take your chances with that. "Rage's" vehicles are built to leap large gaps and withstand a beating on the way down, which lends itself well to some exhilarating chases and shootouts against teams of enemy vehicles across rocky terrain. All that's polished about the shooting applies similarly to the driving: It's fast, smooth and extremely responsive even when physics make you pay for driving too recklessly.

"Rage's" driving controls are so good, in fact, they comprise the entirety of the game's simple but enjoyably mindless competitive multiplayer (four players, online only), which plays like a cross between "Twisted Metal" and wasteland "Mario Kart." The omission of any kind of competitive shooting component is bound to disappoint, but in its place is a suite of co-op missions (two players, online or split screen) that allow you to live out the tales of other characters you meet in the single-player campaign. Given how engaging "Rage's" characters often are, that's a worthy trade-off.

Either way, the campaign, at 15 to 30-plus hours long, is "Rage's" centerpiece. Structurally, it's flat, with pedestrian objectives and missions that introduce a constant need to backtrack between your current town and the wasteland. Taking on multiple side missions at any given time is highly recommended, as it allows you to complete multiple objectives before doubling back. But even in this instance, it's pretty clear "Rage's" story would get pretty old pretty fast if it didn't have such a terrific game engine to keep it going.

----

----

More games news

Game reviews

Copyright 2012 by Mclatchy -Tribune News Service