Despite its graphical mastery, RAGE severely lacks in all other areas - The ultimate in style over substance
What makes this game even more disappointing is that first impressions are largely very good. You step out into a vast, barren world as an unknown ''ark'' survivor and are immediately shown the dangers present in this world. And what a beautiful world it is, everything looks crisp and sharp with environments being tremendously detailed, it really does look the part. The same goes for enemy designs, whether fighting mutants or human enemies they don't look out of place at all and are very believable in the post-apocalyptic setting. The combat is generally pleasing, but is far more exciting when facing up to tens of mutants crawling out of every crevice imaginable as opposed to the stale feeling of a long, drawn out battle with human enemies (it can sometimes take an entire clip of an assault rifle to kill just a single enemy). Killing enemies can be as varied as you like, with the player being able to create turrets, sentry bots, RC cars and a variety of ammunition types for each weapon; it's a nice addition and a welcome change from the sometimes mindless shooting sections.
Sadly though, the style and occasionally enjoyable combat aren't enough to save this game from a sea of flaws. Make no mistake about it, this game is purely an FPS, I may be mistaken but I thought this was a game which would have RPG elements alongside the shooting, but no, there's no choice in this game whatsoever. You play as a nameless, choice-less and speechless character who is seemingly a yes man for anyone he comes across. You get told by various (uninteresting) characters to go somewhere, blast some bad guys, pick up an item and return to them; this is the premise of the entire game, from first mission to last. For all the potential variety in the combat there's nothing of the sorts in the plot. Most of the NPC's are crude stereotypes and we never see enough of them to develop any kind of relationship and care about them as you're either whisked off from one area to another never to return or come across potentially interesting characters too late in the game for them to have any kind of character development.
The lack of story and interesting characters may just have been forgivable if there was an epic ending, or one which really made us think about what we had been doing for the past 10 hours, but this was one of the most anti-climatic ending to a game I think I've ever seen. All it consists of is a trip to some facility, the press of a few buttons and fighting off a newly encountered enemy (why are they introducing new and very weak enemies at this stage of the game?) and hey presto! Roll credits. No boss fight, and no cinematic ending to explain what the hell just happened was laughable in all honesty, I felt cheated by how cheap the ending actually was.
RAGE also teases the player into thinking there could potentially be an open world to explore, but there isn't. Everything in this world is there for a reason, there's nothing to explore just for exploration's sake which would've been nice to have in a potentially interesting world; but sadly, everything that exists in the world of RAGE is there to tie-in with the main quest, or occasionally dull side quests. Speaking of dull side quests, the driving and all missions that accompany it are not exciting in the slightest. The races you're able to do throughout the game are repetitive and lack any excitement whatsoever, much like driving from one place to another whilst questing; the game tries to spice things up by providing jumps and bandits to keep the player entertained but they do little to alleviate the boredom of driving across the wastelands over and over and over again.
In short then, if you like your video games to be shallow, but action packed (save from the numerous driving sections) then this is the game for you; but for those of us looking for a little more depth and, you know reason for shooting the bad guys then avoid this unless you can pick it up super cheap - I paid £9 for it so I guess I can't complain. Nevertheless, this was a thoroughly underwhelming effort for a game which had a lot potential than was served up.