Rage: id Software Takes Shooters to the Next Level

Let’s get this straight right away: Although Rage has all the elements that you’ve come to expect from the technological wizards at id Software, including a graphics engine that pushes the state of the art, silky smooth frame rates, and adrenaline-packed shooter action, this game is in no way just a modern rehash of DOOM or Quake. id has mixed in elements of an open-world shooter, some RPG elements, and fast-action vehicle combat to create a unique mix of action that makes it the most interesting, engaging, and replayable shooter ever to come from the developer.
 
That’s not to say that publisher Bethesda influenced id to create a Fallout 3-style RPG instead of a shooter. Sure, as you explore the post-apocalyptic world (asteroid+earth=wasteland), you can wander around and talk to characters, choosing to take on missions and engage in contests to make money for weapons and upgrade points for your vehicles. And you can even gather items from around the world to craft new weapons, medicines, and fun items like bomb-laden RC cars. All this makes for a far more interesting game than old-school progressing through a series of hallways and paths in a linear manner. You’ll clean mutants out of sewers, blow up underground bunkers, attack raider compounds, and engage in fast-action vehicle battles as you progress through the game. You can even engage in armed races on the local racetrack in order to win upgrades for your own wheels.
 
But at the game’s core, it’s a fast-paced, first-person shooter, with the amazing performance and adrenaline-packed action you’ve come to expect from id Software’s titles. The game’s engine is breathtaking. The textures and objects have a level of detail rarely seen on a console game, with a wide variety of unique settings and items scattered throughout the world. Yet despite being one of the best-looking games yet on a modern console, the game maintains a silky-smooth frame rate throughout.  It doesn’t have the story depth or character development of a Mass Effect or Fallout 3, but that’s not the intent. It’s not an RPG-lite, it’s first an foremost a shooter, with the character interactions and mission tree there to make it more interesting than its linear predecessors.

Rage ships on a whopping three DVDs, with two devoted to the single-player campaign, and a third disc for multiplayer. (Installing all three to your hard drive simultaneously takes about 22GB of space, but you can also install them one at a time, depending on where you are in the game.) If you take full advantage of all of the side missions and race opportunities, you can plan on about 15-20 hours of single-player action in a playthrough.
On the multiplayer front, Rage happily doesn’t throw yet another tactical shooter on the market—we have plenty of excellent choices there already. It has two unique multiplayer modes. Wasteland Legends is a series of nine two-player co-op missions that give additional backstory to the characters and events you encounter in the single-player campaign. Road Rage is a series of vehicular battle games, including pure deathmatch and three rally/capture modes. The action is super-fast, and a nice change of pace.
 
Rage is in stores now, and is a must-have for fans of id Software’s games, and anyone who enjoys a cutting-edge shooter.

import from: http://forums.xbox.com/xbox_forums/b/community_blog/archive/2011/10/03/rage-id-software-takes-shooters-to-the-next-level.aspx