Rage Review (PC) 

  Rage was the best Mad Max there was before the newest Mad Max game released. Drawing inspiration heavily from the film series as well as other works that were in turn influenced by Mad Max in one form or another (Fallout in particular), there's this odd, circular back and forth tangled web of shared assets and tones that's as interesting as it is confusing. For instance, I was shocked how similar some early enemy and level design in Rage was to the Warboys from Fury Road, a film made some years later. I picked up some Vault Boy bobbleheads and was reminded that the game released in a post Fallout 3 world and had connections through the same publisher. Even the music from Rage is eerily close to the score from Fury Road... That's a lot of outside references, I know, but if you're a fan of the post-apocalyptic wasteland genre Rage is exactly what you think it is. And it's a great addition to the classics that I feel has been wrongly forgotten.

  Having established that Rage is comfortable in familiar genre territory (cars, guns, raiders, scavenging, etc.), how it gets to that point is fairly unique. When as asteroid is headed toward Earth, a corporation called The Authority sends nanobot-infused people into space aboard Arks, which then come down once the fallout has stabilized to repopulate and rebuild. The plan goes a bit haywire and you end up the only survivor in your Ark capsule, and you find a planet that is not quite barren of life but a wasteland dotted with ramshackle settlements and survivors fending off roving bands of raiders and mutants. Okay, maybe that's just a slightly altered version of Fallout's vaults, but still... The high tech science fiction angle allows for a different blend of subgenres; there's some Blade Runner and steampunk thrown in there for good measure.

  Crawling with nanobots means you're hard to kill, aka there's a narrative reason for your regenerating health and second chance defibrillator resuscitation. That also means NPCs are going to ask you to do quests for them. Structured like a modern RPG, you have two main hubs that are full of quest givers, job boards, side missions, and vendors. These main settlements are visually stunning and you can easily get distracted/lost exploring them. There are quite a few minigames to try out, and they range from simple dice rolling gambling games to a full, fleshed out combat racing circuit that could almost be a game unto itself. You can chat and play five finger fillet with the locals, and trading goods is absolutely vital to your survival.

  Most of the main missions will take you to a linear, corridor shooter stage. These are where you are reminded that Rage is made by id Software; the FPS combat and level design is done how only the people who made Doom can do it. While the heart of the shooting is standard, pump bullets into enemies until they die/take cover when you're hurt stop and pop, the flavor and finer details are incredible. Nimble mutants will crawl on the walls and ceilings, rushing you from all angles. Damage is location based, so shooting someone in the leg will cause them to limp toward you utilizing animations that seem so natural I think they've yet to be surpassed. Getting up close and personal with a shotgun results in a screen covered in blood and gore. You have to deal with armor by dismantling it piece by piece or using specialized ammo, and Rage forgoes the trope of enemies dropping ammo that they're weak against; if you aren't mindful to keep yourself stocked up at all times you can find yourself in some desperate situations. And the levels themselves are the finely tuned yet artfully gussied up mazes that you expect from the creators of those other legendary one word franchises.

  You'll also spend a lot of time in vehicles. Starting with a utilitarian ATV, parts of the wasteland are gated by deadlier enemies that require hardier cars with heavier weapons attached to survive. The driving is serviceable; on par with an average arcade style racer, but not quite as tight as you'd want in a dedicated car combat game. You earn upgrades by participating in the circuits in town, with races escalating from time trials to rocket and rally types. The AI is lackluster and they end up being very easy or frustratingly robotic depending on the type of race (rally is kind of bullshit). Still, as a sort of game within a game, the dedication to fleshing out the vehicle portion is admirable (still waiting for you, modern Fallout...).

  The main drawback to Rage is the glaring technical issues the game suffers from. It's a real bad PC port of a console game. The graphical options are severely limited, so you'll have to experiment to find the combination of poor framerate, muddy texture pop in, and/or horrific screen tearing that works for you. My modest PC would be considered a super computer five years ago, but even with helpful mods and running the unsupported 64-bit version of the game that should alleviate the issues, it's schizophrenic at best, a slideshow at worst. These issues have plagued the game since launch, and have unfortunately been the main contributing factor to why Rage is (somewhat) unfairly maligned and is a borderline obscure title. That's a shame... if any game deserves a remake or a full blown sequel, it's Rage.