Critical Consensus: Rage

"Other than finding some vehicle jumps, there's no real incentive to explore Rage's world," writes Raze. "It's largely empty, devoid of life save for the occasional bandit vehicle that accosts you, and heading to an area outside of a mission yields no reward.

"The driving elements are largely poor, with some horrible driving physics, repetitive easy races and a general feeling of 'this doesn't need to be here'. Races are optional, but only if you don't want to upgrade your vehicle, something which becomes necessary later in the game. There's the sidequests, which are occasionally interesting (the sniper missions in Wellsprings for example) but usually involve replaying plot missions in reverse with different enemies. It all feels like needless padding in a game that really doesn't require it."

But the core of the game, the shooting and all that accompanies it, is done with panache and aplomb, feels Raze, featuring "a vast array of weapons on offer, each of which has multiple ammo types" whilst "enemy behaviour is constantly impressive".

However, "while missions are great, there's a disappointing lack of variety amongst them", and the finale is "one of the most anticlimactic in recent video game history." That banality is somewhat lessened by the addition of a more 'arcadey' multiplayer where "score multipliers accompany every kill, and points are accrued for a spot on the leaderboards," but, the racing multiplayer fails to impress.

Less halting in his praise is Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell, who gives id's game eight out of ten, opening by explaining that games simply cannot be expected to be as earth-shatteringly innovative as the prime examples from id's heyday, warning that some expectation management might be necessary for the company's more fervent fans.

However, whilst "that's not to say that Rage lacks heart," the game does suffer from "functional" AI alongside the "wonderful" weaponry - the combination of which "suits Rage because this is a game where your weapon and inventory radials are always overflowing with things you actually want to use, and it's more fun thinking about how to kill next than whether you're being flanked."

for Bramwell, "Rage's isn't quite an open world - it's more like a series of linear FPS levels and fetch-quest locations scattered around dusty highways - but it's a convincing and likeable place." Contributing strongly to that is the megatexture technology which frees up enough resources to " paint miles of landscape with unkempt vegetation, sandy escarpments, smashed masonry, rusting cars, arcane symbols and broken bodies without ever repeating themselves."

"Rage's isn't quite an open world - it's more like a series of linear FPS levels and fetch-quest locations scattered around dusty highways - but it's a convincing and likeable place."

Tom Bramwell, Eurogamer

Those environments are filled with memorable set pieces and locations, says Bramwell, only slightly marred by pop-in and other mild technological niggles.

Interestingly, Eurogamer is full of praise for the game's driving sections, reckoning that the multiplayer examples "should be good for hours of entertainment." A manual saving requirement, seemingly responsible for many lost hours of review progress is the game's biggest flaw, says Bramwell, resulting in a final result which "in contrast to early id games sometimes it makes you feel like you're staring into the past rather than the future."

Whether gamers will show any deference to id's storied history remains to be seen. In what is perhaps the most crowded marketplace in gaming today, Rage may need more than pedigree to make its impact felt.

Other reviews of Rage are available from Edge, The Guardian and Gamespot, amongst others.