See many people compare it to fallout. I think the world and exploration will be quite similar but the RPG elements will obviously be toned down and the action shooter elements turned way up.
E3 2011: Rage Exclusive Hands-On Preview - How It All Works, The Authority, and E3
Rage is id Software's unique new postapocalyptic shooter and driving game. We get an exclusive hands-on look before E3.
Rage is the highly anticipated postapocalyptic action game that's being developed by id Software, creator of Doom and Quake. This unusual game combines first-person shooter gameplay, racing, and exploration on a planet that was absolutely devastated by a falling meteor, but it wasn't always clear exactly how the game would work. Until now. We recently had an opportunity to visit id Software's new headquarters in Richardson, Texas, to see for ourselves not only how the game is coming along, but also how you'll progress over the course of the game. Please note: This story contains minor plot spoilers.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo demonstration of Rage will consist of five portions of the game: "find buggy parts," an early-game mission; Mutant Bash TV (we've covered this section of the game previously and found it to be a life-or-death game show reminiscent of the classic arcade game Smash TV); Dead City (the mutant-filled city we've also visited previously, at last year's QuakeCon event); the Authority prison, an all-new area we decided to explore extensively in this session; and "Dusty 8 Rocket Race," a series of vehicle races.
Since we've seen most of the other areas and have also seen how some of Rage's races work, we started with the early buggy mission to get a better sense of how the game begins and then spent most of our time playing through Dead City and the previously unrevealed Authority prison.
We began our session in the spacious office theater of id's new offices, playing the Xbox 360 version of the game on a huge cinema-style screen (which we highly recommend as a way to play all games, if possible), with id creative director Tim Willits at our elbow to help walk us through the game (which we found to be more of a take-it-or-leave-it proposition). All kidding aside, the game's creative director helpfully pointed out that Rage will be structured around the wasteland--a sizable outdoor area that will provide many opportunities for exploration but will also serve to guide you toward specific indoor missions, which id refers to as "instances." Instances, Willits explained, will represent "more of the traditional id game experience," with plenty of directed, close-quarters combat--though as we'll explain later, Rage's gun battles aren't exactly the same as what you might expect from a Doom or a Quake game. In other words, throughout the game, while you'll usually have the freedom to putter around the wasteland, you'll generally always have somewhere specific to go on your to-do list.
Rage apparently starts with a tutorial area that runs through the basics of the game's controls, as well as how to use a wingstick, one of the game's most basic, low-tech thrown weapons. As we've explained in our previous coverage, this crude-looking and unassuming sliver of scrap metal acts as a boomerang when thrown and will return to your hand if it has an unobstructed path back to you. However, against poorly armored humanoid enemies, such as bandits and weaker mutants, a well-armed wingstick toss can be an instantly lethal attack that cleanly decapitates its target. With a couple of these in our inventory, we were ready to get started playing the game--just as soon as we took a moment to familiarize ourselves with the console interface.
Spend about three seconds poking around Rage's interface, and it'll become pretty obvious that this isn't just another arcade-style shooter that gives you 10 different guns and puts you on the hunt for health packs lying on the ground. Instead, pressing the select button (or back button, in the case of the Xbox 360 controller) opens up Rage's multi-page inventory screen, which includes all items your character has picked up sorted by their purpose (whether they be crafting components, usable items, or junk items you can sell for cash). If you have even the slightest interest in exploring environments and poking around, you'll pick up plenty of items as loot from fallen enemies, hidden valuables locked behind secure doors, or just remnants from before the world, as people knew it, came to an end. When we asked how much all this stuff would weigh down our character, Willits quipped, "I love [Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3 lead producer] Todd Howard, but I hate encumbrance." Yes, even though the game's exploration and loot discovery seem highly reminiscent of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games and Fallout 3, Rage won't have any kind of inventory encumbrance system to slow you down.
In addition to letting you quickly view all the items you're carrying, Rage's inventory menu chronicles all your outstanding "jobs" (in-game quests you've taken), a huge list of stats (which chronicle your weapon use, enemies killed, and many other figures), and any and all crafting recipes you've picked up, such as for bandages (which are created by combining rags with antiseptic), wingsticks, and more-advanced items like exploding remote-control cars, stationary turrets, and spider robots--pint-sized, autonomous, eight-legged robots with built-in miniguns that automatically chase down your enemies without having to receive any orders. This inventory menu also lets you scroll through your weapons, which, in Rage, include the basic settler's pistol, the combat shotgun, the semi-automatic assault rifle, the rocket launcher, the sniper rifle, a fully automatic machine gun you pick up from the mysterious antagonists known as the Authority, and the "striker" crossbow--though weapon selection isn't the end of the story, since most, if not all, weapons have at least two types of ammunition, and some have three or four.
While you start off with only the basic settler's pistol, you can eventually pick up multiple ammo types that will let you really mess around with environments and with your enemies. The striker crossbow, for instance, uses a basic crossbow bolt that silently deals piercing damage to its target, but it can also be equipped with electro bolts that can electrify pools of water, turning them into deadly traps, and can also neutralize the glowing tower shields that some Authority troopers use to absorb incoming fire. Later, you can even find mind-control bolts that briefly give you control of an enemy and let you walk it in a certain direction, such as toward other enemies, before blowing it to bits with a concussive blast that damages other nearby foes.
You can use this inventory screen to manually equip different weapons and ammo types, but the console versions of the game will let you map four different weapons to a diamond-shaped, four-slot quick menu accessed by pressing your controller's right bumper (you can hold down the button and then use your right analog stick to choose a specific weapon, or repeatedly tap the bumper to swap to the next one). In addition, you can map up to four different usable items to a four-item quick menu by first assigning each one to the menu using the D pad and then tapping the left bumper to use your currently selected item. It took a bit of practice, but we eventually got the hang of things.
Once we'd gotten our bearings, we ventured forth into this brave new world to pick up our first wingstick from the helpful members of the Hagar settlement--the residence of wasteland tinkerer Dan Hagar and his ragtag band of misfits. The early part of the game even has a simple shooting gallery minigame to acquaint you with using the wingstick (which again, when equipped, can be tossed with a quick tap of your controller's left bumper) but quickly scoots you out into the desert on your first mission with a word of advice--seek out as much valuable feltrite (the mysterious metal from the asteroid that nearly destroyed the earth) as possible.
120 comments
Looks like yet another generic fps. Can't the developers do something new with the genre? Like realistic view (see body, dynamic head-bobbing, hair, HUD in specs, realistic reloading time, orientation with map and compass). Oh wait, I forgot the ADHD people that can't play anything harder than button smashing games.
One of the best FPS of 2011 . there is no rival for Rage in this genre with this atmosphere.
For all the people who say this game shouldn't have multiplayer, id software created the word "deathmatch".
More recent ID games have been stale but this looks promising. I will def keep my eye on this.
It looks brilliant. I'm just hoping there's no multiplayer. Don't waste time on a tacked on multiplayer when you can focus on creating a deep and compelling single player experience.
im tired of story driven games. Can't wait till Dead Island, Battlefield 3, and UFC 2012 [:
May borrow a little from other games, but it still looks really good. If the campaign is good enough and big enough, I'll probably buy it. Just hope it's not another shooter with a 6 hour campaign and a tacked on multiplayer.
I would like to point something out to all the people saying Id stole this or that from another developer. First off Id invented the First person shooter with Wolfenstein 3D. Second, This game has been in development long before Borderlands was releasedBorderlands released october of 2009 one of the tech demo's for rage was at Quakecon 2007 and that demo was far enough along that work had begun long before. Id jacked up with the last DOOm game, so i get the aprehension but Rage looks like they went to the drawing board and started thinking of how to reinvent the 1st person shooter. Does it have things that other shooters have? Yes, but thats what makes this a genere. A genere that Id invented with Wolfenstein 3D so if your going to claim anyone is biting off of anyone then everyone stole Id's idea it's kind of a moot point http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnkaxuIzGO4&feature=channel_video_title
I think the game looks incredible. Not only the graphics but the combat system/gunplay is phenomenal, just like in any other id Software game since Wolfenstein. I'm very hyped for this!
@xboxgameman But its not original. Its Borderlands after its been put through a graphics update. If anything its more like Borderlands than it is Fallout, but that still doesn't make it original.
Wow, everyone commenting here seems to be acting very harsh toward this game. Come on people, it IS original, yes it does look a bit like Fallout 3, but look what rating that game got...9.0!
game sounds pretty interesting :) i hope everything works out well for id with this one n so what if it sounds like fallout 3(GOTY wen it was new) or borderlands(think it won some sort of award as well maybe not GOTY but another award) those r two games i can c that comparing this game to would make it bad....o wait so would ppl be happy if it looked like bad games or games that fell short(homefront)
Sure some may complain the game doesn't look "original"... ... but I compel you to name a game that is COMPLETELY original. You couldn't have the games we have nowadays without the games we had for the past decade... and a decade ago you couldn't have those games without the early 8bit, 16bit, and 32bit eras... Every once in a while you do get things in games that are revolutionary, but overall you never are going to get a game that completely upends systems, architectures, game designs, and technologies of previous games. Sure this game has a lot of terms and concepts from games like bioshock, earlier quake/doom games (obviously), valve games, wasteland-type games from recent years..... Oh, and what about the plethora of art, literature, and film references too? Huh, what about all those you ask???------> I can't wait to play this!!! =) that's what.
it actually doesn't look too bad but it better be worth tha hype otherwise im gonna be displeased
its been many years in development i sure hope this will give us a visceral shooting and rpg experience. Id hate to walk away with a sour taste in my mouth like most modern shooters have been doing lately.
@countofhell4321 I really recommend Metro 2033 if you liked Bioshock 1. And if you haven't played Bioshock 2 I recommend that too. In Bioshock games I just loved the atmosphere, it was unique and that was what made them so different and better than many other shooters, at least to me, and same was in Metro 2033. Shooting wasn't the best in FPS games but the creepy atmosphere in metros was just awesome.
I like Quake IV, Doom III, RoE, Quake 1, Quake 2. I think all of ID's games as well as second hand developers they are TOTALLY BRUTAL, FAST, DARK, HORROR and BEST FPS games i ever played. Q4 was developed by Raven ( they did the 1st expo to Q2 on pc the reckoning ) but the WHOLE GAME looks LIKE IT WAS DEVELOPED no other then ID SOFTWARE. So what's the deal about anyway ? I don't understand. Wolfi2009, sure good in some way but VERY CASUAL. Leichenfaust44 ruleeezz. Anywhere i look, i see only CoD, BC2 and other WAR FPS stuffs. Im stuck with these. I need something different. Something SPECIAL and GOOD stuff like Bioshock1 is. Im still not very excited about Rage, but im looking forward how will it run on PS3.
This game looks and feels so awesome just from the trailers. I can already tell im gona be spending many days and nights playing this non stop. I think its awesome they are doing a sort of pre-quel comic for it too. Im gona get my hands on those. I CANT WAIT!!!! so hyped for this one.
@krelmmaster Quite a few people would say they came pretty close to disappointing with Doom 3. But I get your point, and it appears they've learned their lessons from that game.
@CHROMEFLAMIN Actually, id's name comes from the Freudian theory of how the mind is structured - the id, the ego, and the super-ego are all theorized to be different components of the human psyche. And id actually was involved in Wolfenstein 2009, as well as Quake 4 - they just took an executive producer role, and served as consultants rather than actual developers.
They went all the way back to Smash TV!? Dam! Ok basically what that means is, if you've ever wasted hours dying and cursing at Smash TV and actually beat it, you're a true die hard game veteran who should be a dad right about now (also means that your gaming experience is off the roof, you beat any candy {little kids} a$$, and easily get annoyed by their ranting in MW2). Back to the matter at hand - Rage is gonna be sweet...
i used to love id. but since zenimax media acquired them, the first person shooters don't come out often and when they do : not good (wolfenstein, especially). i'm not going to judge a game I haven't played, and i'm definitely going to give this one a try, but don't blame me for being skeptical. get ready for the promotions (i'm strictly the video game) : three-issue comic book series on dark horse, iphone apps, novel, etc........
This look better than most of the crap they are releasing these days. It looks alot more fun than modern borfare 3 at least.
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Game Info
- Release Date: Oct 4, 2011 (US)
- ESRB: MTitles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older.
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