Rage

This review is for the Rage "Anarchy Edition" Version for the PS3.

I've been a Big Fan of ID Software since the early days of Wolfenstein and Doom Franchises, My favorite being Doom3. Their games have always been fun, engaging, exciting, and at the same time a little terrifying which gives you even more of a thrill. This is ID's First New Title Since either Doom or Quake franchises along with sporting ID's new Game Engine ID Tech 5 and released under ID's new Publisher and Owner Bethesda.

Background: The Best way I can describe the game visually is if this game was made into a movie it would look and feel like Mad Max: The Road Warrior with the characters and FPS Feel of the Doom 3 Video Game. The games mechanics and interaction feels like and updated version of a Computer Game that I used to play as a teenager back in the Mid 1980's for the Commodore 64 called AutoDuel (This was also released on the Apple II, Atari 400/800 as well). In the game you play as a post apocalypse character that goes from town to town in a Modified Post Apocalypse vehicle (Similar to Rage) to undertake missions, Races, Gambling and so forth. With the money you earn you can upgrade your vehicle or weapons and sell items back that you may not need. Of course the game did not have the FPS aspect to it but their are a lot of similarities to the other aspects that I mentioned between AutoDuel and RAGE.

Plot: In the year 2029 the asteroid 99942 Apophis impacts the earth and wipes out most of humanity (This is an actual asteroid that at one time in 2004 had been predicted to hit the Earth in 2029 but after scientist had gathered more data it is now has been predicted to miss the earth instead, do a Wikipedia Search for "99942 Apophis" for more information). However before the Asteroid impacted the earth The World Leaders decided to create several underground safe havens called "Arks" so after the impact the people that had been in Frozen Stasis would be able to re-build the earth. 106 years later your character awakes from his stasis tube to find that everybody in his Ark has died (Except himself) and the characters particular Ark was heavily damaged which caused the Computers monitoring the Ark stasis tubes to subsequently malfunction with the exception of your charters (Their is no explanation why other than the obvious it was most likely damaged by the asteroid's impact), On top of that due most likely to the malfunctioning stasis units your character has no memory of who he is and what his objectives are. So Now wondering out of the damaged Ark the Survivor attempts to get his bearing until attacked by the new Residents of the Area, The Survivor is summarily saved by a passersby heading back to his settlement by the name of Dan Hagar (Voiced by John Goodman). On the way back to his settlement Dan explains how after the impact had world has basically turned into a post apocalyptic world in which humanity has been dived up into different territories and the most technically advanced of them being the "Authority".

Game-play: As mentioned earlier the game play is for the most part a First Person Shooter (FPS) with Third Person aspect on the Driving Mechanics of the Game. You will start off on small nearby missions in which you will earn weapons, money and most importantly reputation with the more missions you complete. Once you have obtained your own vehicle you will begin exploring the other settlements outside Dan's territory. Along the way you will get to gamble, Enter into Races, Be a contestant on a Thunderdome like reality TV Series called Mutant Bash TV and take on side jobs. You will be able to upgrade your vehicle's parts with "Racing Certificates" won in either Races or on the Bounty of the Bandits you take out for the towns local Bar owners (Why you can not use cash to upgrade your vehicle parts is beyond me).Ultimately your adventures will lead to the confrontation with the games antagonist called the Authority.

Plus Side of the Game: There are tons of cool things about the game I do not know where to begin with.

- The ID Tech 5 game engine is awesome, a vast improvement over the ID Tech 4 engine with the characters being very life like. The Graphics overall are just breath taking. The AI's are a lot more interactive and when facing them in combat are a lot smarter than I had played in previous games.

- Great Choice of Weapons that can be either found, brought, or even modified.

- I love the racing aspect in the game. If you like running into things and causing damage with your car this is the game to do it with.

Minus Side of the Game: There is just one big problem I have with the game and surprisingly enough it not with the game play itself, that is the lack of continuous auto saving.

- The Auto Archiving feature on this game will only kick in once a chapter (If your lucky). While it does have a Manuel save option it can be very time consuming to stop playing, go into the menu, and wait about 30 to 60 seconds for the game to "save". So if you forget to Manually save at a certain point in your progress if you die without saving manually you can conceivably start back at almost the beginning of the chapter (This is why I primarily gave the game a 4 instead of a 5).

- On the minor side the game tends to have long loads times between going to the next chapter.

- The Slight on the game itself is that even through it is theoretically "Open Ended" , The game still controls certain aspects on what you can backtrack and explore on your own.

Special Note: Before accepting the final mission in the RAGE Campaign which is the attack on Capital Prime to upload the awake codes of the other Arks, insure you have completed any side missions, Jobs, Races, or trophies. Once you accept the mission when you have completed the level you will see the story end and the Game Credits after which you will not be allowed to return into the game to complete of the previously mentioned objectives (Unlike "Infamous" which will let you to continue on after the actual "campaign" of the game has ended to complete the side objectives).

The Difference Between the "Anarchy" and "Standard" Editions of Rage:

In addition to the different Weapons, Vehicles, and Armor types that are already present in the "Standard" Edition of Rage you get the following extra Items almost from the Get go...

- The Double Barrel Shot Gun (My Favorite, A nice carry over from the Doom Franchise).
- The Rat Rod Buggy - Similar in the insides of the Buggy from Standard Edition, a nice bonus is if you upgrade either the buggy or the Rat Rod with a better part, the other other vehicle is automatically upgraded (Example: Buy spiked performance tires for the Dune Buggy the Rat Rod is automatically upgraded with the same part as well for no extra charge).
- The Crimson Elite Armor - A "All-In-One" Armor that combines the special abilities of the other 3 armor types that can be chosen in the Rage "Standard" Edition.
- Fists of Rage -You get "Spiked" Gloves that go over your Hands if you want to inflict more damage with your fists.

The Wasteland Sewer Missions - This is a additional 9 side missions broken into 2 parts each that is not accessible in the "standard" version of Rage that takes place around just outside of the different territories and settlements (I.E. Wellspring Entrance, Hagar Territory, subway town, etc...) that has you finding and looting the sewers for valuable junk that the mutants collected in the 1st part, then getting paid for going back and exterminating the Mutant Menace from the Sewers in the 2nd part. In the Anarchy Edition Case should be a one time Redemption Code in order to unlock this level as long as you brought this game new. I would advise not picking up a used copy of the Anarchy Edition of Rage since the code will either be missing or no longer valid.

If you were to download the Anarchy Edition content via the PSN (for both the Wasteland Sewer Missions and the extra Items of the Anarchy Edition) it would cost $12.00 altogether if you wanted to upgrade your existing standard edition copy of Rage to the Anarchy Edition level. Please take into this into consideration when contemplating which Edition to buy. If buying new you will end up saving overall on just paying to the $5.00 to $6.00 extra on the Anarchy Edition.

Overall: Other than an ambiguous ending that screams SEQUEL and despite the annoyance of the games save feature, A great new entry into the ID Software franchise, pure fun to play, I would highly recommend this game for anyone who loves a good FPS and Racing Death matches. I'm looking forward to when ID releases the follow up game.