Single Player Review
The best way I can describe Rage is Borderlands with better A.I. and prettier environments, but without the loot driven RPG experience that made Borderlands fun and addictive. You see, while Borderlands allowed you to level up, get new abilities, and experiment and find new weapons, Rage takes a more traditional FPS approach with a small amount of basic weapons and a light crafting system. In short, most of the time I was playing Rage, I wished I was playing Borderlands instead.
Rage is by no means a bad game, in fact if you're looking for a competent shooter with pretty environments, you can do far worse, but since most of the game is spent in linear shooting mode in enclosed rusty environments, the open pretty environments.....are just there. They're welcome, but it would be much more welcome if we spent more time exploring them instead of just being able to look at them between shooting sections.
The shooting feels satisfying enough and the A.I. is really good. If you experiment with different weapons and craftable items/ammo, the game can be pretty fun. The amount of experimentation and craftable weapons are very limited, however, and pretty soon the game becomes repetitive. None of this repetitiveness wouldn't be so bad if it felt like you were building towards something, but Rage never gives you the feeling that you're building your character or heading towards anything meaningful.
The story is pretty much non-existent and the antagonists that are said to be coming after you, really don't feel like a threat at all. With little to no plot, very limited RPG elements, and repetitive (though fun) shooting, Rage becomes a shallow experience overall.
There's also car combat and racing. The cars control fairly well, but the A.I. doesn't put up much of a fight and it lacks the adrenaline fueled fun that most racing games have. You'll mostly do this just to grind for car upgrades.
I spent a little over 9 hours playing Rage. I did every side quest I could find and did a good amount of racing. None of what I did in Rage had a lasting effect on me and I can safely say this is more suited to be a rental than a purchase, unless you want to give the multiplayer a try (I didn't). Hopefully 'id' can make a better shooter in the future.
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