Rage PlayStation 3

Rage Product Details

Released on 07-Oct-2011

• E3 2011: Rage to hit shelves in October

  If you’ve been scanning E3 news for any signs of id Software’s blisteringly pretty new shooter RAGE, don’t worry. Bethesda announced last week that the game will be hitting stores around the UK on 7th October – that’s for all three of the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions.

  We cannot wait for this one. Taking a break from the likes of Doom and Quake, id’s turned its attention to a futuristic wasteland on a planet Earth that’s been decimated by an asteroid impact. Gangs are rampaging the wrecked streets of cities, mutants have staked out the hills and canyons, and it’s up to you to make sense of the landscape, taking on quests, blasting enemies in the face, and zipping around in dune buggies.

  All of this should be delivered with id’s amazing new engine, which will make Rage one of the best looking games we’ve ever seen. If you’re a shooter fan looking for something different this year, then, this is one game you should definitely have in your sights.

• Doom 4 to follow Rage

  id Software post-apocalyptic shooting-and-driving game RAGE will be hitting the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 this October, but the team behind it won be getting much of a rest, according to Eurogamer. According to a report the website is running, as soon as Rage is out, everyone gets back to work immediately on Doom 4.

  The news came via an interview with John Carmack conducted by Gamespot. The id coding genius is eager to keep the momentum up, apparently. "As soon as Rage ships, the core tech team moves over to start making things happen on the Doom 4 project," he said.

  Work on Doom 4 was started back in 2008, but things have been quiet for a while. "We were really feeling the pinch before this,said Carmack. f you've got 50 people working on a project, it's not useful to have all of them on day one on there; you really want to have a smaller team building things. Then at the end now, we would have a hundred people on the team."

  Doom 4, like Rage, will be targeting the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Wee expecting plenty of scares and lots of shotgun shells, but as soon as we have anything more concrete, wel let you in on it too.

• RAGE Preview

  Against The Machines

  At the start of this century, if you hadn't heard of id Software then you couldn't in all seriousness call yourself a gamer without risking the scorn of your peers. The Texas-based developer invented the first-person shooter with Wolfenstein 3D on PC and acted as the tip of the technical spear for years to come with revolutionary new games like Doom and Quake. Technical director John Carmack became so influential that his theories on game graphics actually began steering the research and development of the people making consoles and PC video cards.

  Fast forward to the present day though and it's quite reasonable to expect that a younger generation of gamers have never heard of Carmack or id Software, or at the very least have never played one of their games. It's been six years since Doom 3 came out on PC and the original Xbox, and apart from a few iPhone games the studio's been quiet since, busily beavering away on RAGE (Xbox 360, PS3, PC), its first new game in half a decade and its first new game concept in nearly 15 years.

  Call of Beauty

  At first glance RAGE is absolutely stunning in visual terms, as those of us who remember id Software would know to expect. Like Call of Duty, the game runs at 60 frames-per-second meaning that it displays twice as many individual images per second as most of the FPS games you own, making it look ultra-smooth and despite that feat it looks better than Call of Duty too. It will make you wonder why other console games don't look like this, and if you play it on a high-end PC then you will know why you spent all that money to own one in the first place.

  Set among canyons and futuristic shanty-towns on a dust-strewn, post-apocalyptic Earth under a baking sun, it's ridiculously detailed for as far as the eye can perceive a sea of unique and gritty textures depicting ruined industrial machinery, gas stations converted into homesteads and, if you scratch beneath the surface, warrens of tight and violent tunnels and tower blocks half-buried by sand and decay.

  Back to the Future

  Your character has been in cryogenic sleep since a meteor smashed into the Earth over 100 years before the start of the game, and your first few minutes are spent waking up, being ambushed and then being rescued by the locals, who ask you to repay their kindness by killing a bunch of bandits at their nearby base. From this point on the game is like a more directed version of Fallout you tool up in town, buying weapons and ammo, then head out towards your objective and, when the door closes behind you, work your way through a traditional FPS level.

  What makes it work is a mixture of the brutal weaponry and the gadgets you can build from the shiny discarded materials you find littered around the environment. Weapons-wise you get the classics machinegun, shotgun, rocket launcher, crossbow but with interesting alternative ammunition types that allow you to play around with your dumb enemies as a lion plays with his food. You can fire a mind-control bolt into an enemy's head, for example, then take control of him and walk him up to his friends and detonate the bolt to take them out.

  Inspect A Gadget

  The gadgets you gather include lockgrinders for breaking down doors to weapons caches and other secrets as well as spider bots and RC bomb cars, which can be remote-controlled to flank and explode entrenched enemies. You also have something called the Wingstick, which seems destined to be a favourite it's a boomerang blade that you can throw to decapitate enemies at distance. If it misses them on the way out, it can always strike on the way back.

  In between these regular shooter levels you get to mill about in towns learning more about the events since the meteor struck, as well as taking part in dune buggy races. This other aspect of RAGE sees you competing in organised races and deathmatches to earn credits that can be used to upgrade your buggy with guns, mines, rockets and armour, so that you can roam the Wasteland outside without too much risk of injury.

  Anger Management

  It also forms the basis of the game's multiplayer, which is similar to old-school PS2 game Smuggler's Run or even Twisted Metal players race to checkpoints to score points while blowing each other up with weaponry. There's no traditional FPS deathmatch here, surprisingly, but there are FPS co-operative campaign levels that allow you and a friend to play around with RAGE's diverse arsenal and gadget toolkit together.

  We've played nearly six hours of RAGE now and we're probably a quarter of the way through it's a huge single-player game with lots of added multiplayer benefit too, suggesting great value for money. It's also one of the most visually attractive games you'll ever play, and whether or not you know who id Software used to be, RAGE ought to give you a firm sense of what they bring to the table: gorgeous, ultra-violent first-person shooter gameplay with a terrific sense of fun at its core.

  HOT:
  - Unbelievable graphics
  - Hilarious alternative ammo types
  - Great gadgets like the Wingstick

  NOT:
  - No online deathmatch
  - No campaign co-op
  - We want Doom 4!

• RAGE Review

  Anarchy in the UK

  Back in the day id Software was a household name in video games on a par with Mario and Sonic, and even if you never played Wolfenstein, Doom or Quake there's a good chance you know what they were about. But the Texan studio has been quiet for a few years, so its latest first-person shooter, Rage, arrives as something of an unknown quantity for many. The good news is that it should put the team back on the map.

  Set in a post-apocalyptic American wasteland where a sinister military government called the Authority rules over the remaining humans, it sees you teaming up with local settlers and eventually the resistance movement to tackles bandits, mutants and your oppressive overlords. Story isn't the game's finest feature in fact this is a surprisingly shallow game in narrative terms but it makes up for it elsewhere.

  Anarchists' cookbook

  Graphics, for instance. Thanks to an amazing new engine, Rage has no repeated textures at all, so every surface of the world is uniquely painted and detailed (no wonder it took so long to finish development), smothered in rust, sand and scraggly vegetation. It also runs at 60 frames per second the same as Call of Duty to ensure smooth visuals and responsive controls, which is critical in a first-person shooter.

  The structure of the game sees you picking up missions in hub towns and then driving to locations in the wasteland using a range of buggies and cars that you earn in races, and it's a good, varied mix of styles. Driving is springy and enjoyable, with lots of little diversions and collectables, and the shooter missions are extremely well constructed, flowing cannily through the rotting, decrepit and mutilated interiors of old cities, factories and hotels.

  Masters of Doom

  The combat itself is where Rage really comes into its own though. Your basic weapons are well conceived and executed, but the alternative ammo types transform them. The shotgun is already meaty, but pop rockets turn it into a grenade launcher and pulse shots let you zap your way through enemy armour, while even the basic pistol gets things like fat boys one-shot-kill slugs that boom out of your surround speakers like nothing else.

  There are gadgets too, built using recipes and ingredients gathered in the wasteland. These can be activated with your other trigger finger and include the wing stick a three-bladed decapitation boomerang and remote control bomb cars, which you can manoeuvre into the midst of enemies and then detonate. It's hard not to have fun shooting your way through Rage's levels because you're constantly inclined to play around with your arsenal and use new things you find rather than just storing them away for fear of wasting them.

  Legendary

  There are some weak spots in the campaign some of the racing missions are quite dull, for instance but in general it's an enjoyable 12-15 hour rumble with lots of side content that's worth investigating for the rewards it brings. Just don't expect War & Peace from the storytelling and you'll have a good enough time.

  Online is a bit different to what you might expect, with no competitive multiplayer shooter modes to speak of, but that's not to say you'll have nothing to do. Quite the contrary there are nine Legends of the Wasteland co-operative missions for two players, which offer alternative takes on existing levels and represent another 2-3 hours of entertainment, assuming you only go through them once.

  There's also the driving-based Road Rage multiplayer section where you can compete in several variations on checkpoint races and capture-the-flag, and this is more than the sum of its parts thanks to excellent power-ups and great level design.

  All the Rage

  It all adds up to a fantastic package. It's not quite as polished and well-rounded as a Call of Duty, but the core first-person shooter gameplay is much more entertaining moment to moment and less reliant on spectacular set-pieces to sustain your interest, making Rage one of the best shooter campaigns of recent years.

   

  

  RAGE On:
  + Fantastic weapons and combat.
  + Interesting gadgets like the wing stick
  + Enjoyable online multiplayer

  enRAGEd:
  - Not much story to speak of
  - No online competitive first-person shooter content
  - Slight pop-in from new graphics tech
  

• id's Shooter Evolution

  id and the evolution of the shooter

  This week sees the release of Rage, and the enormous post-apocalyptic shooter marks id Software's first game since Doom 3 back in 2004. Why is this a big deal? Because without id, there arguably wouldn't even be a first-person shooter genre. Not only did the Texas-based studio invent the shooter as we know it today, it's been behind almost every technical advance the genre has made.

  
  

  Id first came to prominence with Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. Essentially a maze game with guns, its shamelessly pulpy wartime romp was eclipsed just eighteen months later when id dropped Doom on an unsuspecting world.

  
  

  The first 3D game to include staircases and multiple floors, Doom also set the precedent for outrageous amounts of gore in shooting games. With a rogue's gallery of hellish creatures just waiting to be carved into sticky red mush and satantic symbols galore, the game acted like a dog whistle to those who would portray games as a fast track to teen damnation.

  
  

  Not that many players cared too much about that. They were too busy finding the secret areas hidden in the labyrinthine levels, and blowing each other to bits as the giddy world of multiplayer deathmatches rose in popularity. Doom was so successful, and so ubiquitous, that long before the term "FPS" was used, first-person shooters were simply known as "Doom clones".

  
  

  Doom showcased id's dedication to the homebrew tinkerers and bedroom pioneers. The game's engine, id Tech, was designed to be as open source as possible and was coded in such a way that fan-designed levels and campaigns could easily be distributed and added to the game. This approach to fans and shared technology has continued up to the present day, with all versions of id Tech ultimately finding their way into the hands of enthusiasts.

  
  

  Doom was also instrumental in revolutionising game distribution, offering the first chapter as a free shareware demo, with the rest of the game unlocked after purchase. The company retained this system for its next major release, Quake, in 1996.

  
  

  Popular legend has it that Quake was so eagerly anticipated that the release of its demo version caused the internet to grind to a halt. That wasn't entirely true, but Quake was certainly the first game in its genre to spread its wings beyond the arena of local network matches and start offering online gameplay. It was also, of course, the first truly 3D shooter, with polygon built levels and enemies that offered more depth that the flat sprites and optical tricks that made Doom's worlds feel three-dimensional.

  
  

  Quake swiftly became the default shooter of choice for multiplayer fans, so much so that id took the unusual decision in 1999 of making the third game in the series multiplayer only, ditching the single player campaigns that had been the centrepiece of the original games.

  
  

  By this time, and despite having only released six full games since Wolfenstein, id was very much the pioneer of what was becoming the dominant gaming genre. Unsurprisingly, other developers wanted to use the id Tech engine to give their games that familiar polish. Over the years, games such as Hexen, Solider of Fortune, Star Trek: Elite Force, Star Wars: Jedi Knight and even a scrappy little WWII shooter known as Call of Duty 2 built their worlds on id's foundations.

  
  

  As always, it was up to id to push the envelope, and in 2004 they kept the world hanging on for Doom 3. Teased by impossibly real screenshots of slimy beasts, and eagerly anticipating the return of the masters of the form, the game arrived to a mix of adulation and disappointment. Adulation for its phenomenal technical prowess, but disappointment that the game wasn't really pushing the genre in many other areas.

  
  

  After seven years in development, it seems that Rage may quell those fears that id's role as the pioneer of shooters was at an end. Yes, there's shooting but there are also vast sandblasted landscapes and visceral Mad Max style vehicle races. Deep within its DNA, Rage is clearly still a shooter from the id stable, but it's also so much more than that.

  
  

  Perhaps what is most exciting is what the development community will do with the new id Tech 5 engine, once id has finished using it for Doom 4. Since id was bought out by Zenimax Media in 2009, it's been announced that only developers in their corporate group will get to play with id's latest toybox. Bad news? Not really, since that line up includes Fallout and Oblivion developer Bethesda, as well as Tango Gameworks, the latest venture from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami.

  
  

  What's most interesting about id Tech 5 is that it is no longer just a tool for making first-person shooters. Speaking with CVG in 2007, id's Steve Nix explained that it was their goal to see id Tech used in as many genres as possible. "The way the rendering works, there are no more texture limitations. Any game can take advantage of that," he said. "In a massively multiplayer game, texture constraints are a big problem. Even a fighting game where you're trying to get the ultimate detail in a smaller arena, texture limitations tend to be one of your number one limitations. Not only do we think people can make games outside the action-shooter space with our technology, we encourage it. We'd actually like to see those games made."

  
  

  So would we, Steve. So would we.

• RAGE Review

  Rage Review

  Dangerous new world
  A post-apocalyptic first person shooter with role playing elements, Rage (PC, Xbox 360, PS3) is the new game from id Software, creators of the classic Doom and Quake franchises. It sees your character awake from an underground cryogenic sleep to find the Earth transformed by a massive asteroid impact, presenting you with Mad Max style desert wastelands filled with tribal factions fighting each other to become the dominant force.

  Youe going to need to make friends and cash to survive in this hostile environment, so the game revolves around a quest mission structure which sees you running errands that generally conclude in high-quality shootouts with bandits or over-the-top boss battles. Money and collectibles acquired on your travels can be spent on guns, or combined using a crafting system to produce increasingly useful constructions, from bandages to more hi-tech weaponry.

  Post apocalyptic worlds are no stranger to the shooter and role playing genres, but Rage manages to stand out in a number of ways. Featuring subterranean mutant dens and vast, sun-kissed canyons with amazingly detailed settlements, it arguably the most believable and beautifully portrayed yet, with every location and colourful character you encounter oozing personality.

  Gun happy
  As expected given the developer heritage, Rage finely tuned gunplay is one of the game star attractions. There a nice array of weapons, enabling stealthy to all out assault approaches, from throwable bladed tools to crossbows, pistols and shotguns that pack a mighty punch capable of turning foes to minced meat. Youl also get friendly with robotic gun turrets, remote controlled bomb cars and mobile spider bots.

  Bandits and mutants are your regular targets for most of the game, but in later sections youl come up against the more technologically savvy Authority, an organised military force that exerts the most control over the wastelands. There a pleasing amount of variety to combat scenarios, with some enemy types charging blade-first towards you, others free-running across walls quickly and unpredictably, and some happy to bide their time, retreating and taking cover in a bid to gain a tactical advantage.

  Road rage
  Rage world is a large one and youe a busy character, so you use vehicles to get from point to point. Like the gunplay, the vehicle sections are satisfying and over the top, with buggies and other motors offering arcade-style driving with plenty of opportunities for flips and big air. You earn tokens to upgrade vehicles by participating in race events or destroying bandit cars, and can deploy the likes of shields, mines and auto-turrets to defend your transport from attack.

  Vehicle-based gameplay also forms one half of the Rage multiplayer component. Combat Rally sees you take race challenges online to compete against friends, while Legends of the Wasteland is series of two-player co-op missions based on the stories you overhear on your journey through the single-player adventure. The multiplayer offerings are a fun distraction, but you can help feeling they could have been a little more comprehensive. With the game gunplay so fun, for example, the lack of online deathmatches is a bit of a strange omission.

  Overall though, Rage is a generous package, even if the conclusion of its strongest element, the single player campaign, feels a little abrupt. Boasting a gorgeous world to explore, populated by a host of colourful enemies to overcome with a great arsenal, Rage varied and engaging gameplay left us safe in the knowledge that a post apocalyptic future would be far from an end of the world scenario.

  GAME's Verdict

  
  

  Good:

  + Great weapons, satisfying combat.
  + Racing is great fun.
  + World is full of personality.

  Bad:

  - The ending could be better.
  - No online deathmatches.
  - Some locations re-used a little too often.

  Review by Tom 'King of the Wastelands' Ivan
  Version Tested: Xbox 360
  Review Published: 07.10.11

  Published: 06/10/2011

• Forza Motorsport 4 accelerates to top of UK charts

  Forza Motorsport 4 accelerates to top of UK charts

  Acclaimed racing sequel Forza Motorsport 4 has cruised into pole position in the UK all-formats sales chart in its debut week.

  Turn 10 Studios' new simulation managed to edge out reigning champion FIFA 12 to top the official GfK-ChartTrack rankings, achieving the best ever launch for an Xbox 360 racing game in the process.

  Forza was one of several big-name new entries in the chart, with new Wii and Xbox 360 release Just Dance 3 slotting in behind FIFA 12 to claim third.

  Holdover hit Rage came fourth, while FIFA 12's football rival PES 2012 made its arrival in fifth place this week.

  Other newcomers to the top 20 this week included the likes of Jonah Lomu Rugby Challenge, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record.

  Next week sees the debut of one of the most anticipated games of the year with the launch of Batman: Arkham City on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with the PC version to follow next month.

  Published: 17/10/2011

• id's Shooter Evolution

  
  

  

  All The Rage

  This week sees the release of Rage, and the enormous post-apocalyptic shooter marks id Software's first game since Doom 3 back in 2004. Why is this a big deal? Because without id, there arguably wouldn't even be a first-person shooter genre. Not only did the Texas-based studio invent the shooter as we know it today, it's been behind almost every technical advance the genre has made.

  id first came to prominence with Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. Essentially a maze game with guns, its shamelessly pulpy wartime romp was eclipsed just eighteen months later when id dropped Doom on an unsuspecting world.

  The first 3D game to include staircases and multiple floors, Doom also set the precedent for outrageous amounts of gore in shooting games. With a rogue's gallery of hellish creatures just waiting to be carved into sticky red mush and satantic symbols galore, the game acted like a dog whistle to those who would portray games as a fast track to teen damnation.

  

  Not that many players cared too much about that. They were too busy finding the secret areas hidden in the labyrinthine levels, and blowing each other to bits as the giddy world of multiplayer deathmatches rose in popularity. Doom was so successful, and so ubiquitous, that long before the term "FPS" was used, first-person shooters were simply known as "Doom clones".

  Doctoring Doom

  Doom showcased id's dedication to the homebrew tinkerers and bedroom pioneers. The game's engine, id Tech, was designed to be as open source as possible and was coded in such a way that fan-designed levels and campaigns could easily be distributed and added to the game. This approach to fans and shared technology has continued up to the present day, with all versions of id Tech ultimately finding their way into the hands of enthusiasts.

  Doom was also instrumental in revolutionising game distribution, offering the first chapter as a free shareware demo, with the rest of the game unlocked after purchase. The company retained this system for its next major release, Quake, in 1996.

  Popular legend has it that Quake was so eagerly anticipated that the release of its demo version caused the internet to grind to a halt. That wasn't entirely true, but Quake was certainly the first game in its genre to spread its wings beyond the arena of local network matches and start offering online gameplay. It was also, of course, the first truly 3D shooter, with polygon built levels and enemies that offered more depth that the flat sprites and optical tricks that made Doom's worlds feel three-dimensional.

  

  Quake, Rattle and Roll

  Quake swiftly became the default shooter of choice for multiplayer fans, so much so that id took the unusual decision in 1999 of making the third game in the series multiplayer only, ditching the single player campaigns that had been the centrepiece of the original games.

  By this time, and despite having only released six full games since Wolfenstein, id was very much the pioneer of what was becoming the dominant gaming genre. Unsurprisingly, other developers wanted to use the id Tech engine to give their games that familiar polish. Over the years, games such as Hexen, Solider of Fortune, Star Trek: Elite Force, Star Wars: Jedi Knight and even a scrappy little WWII shooter known as Call of Duty 2 built their worlds on id's foundations.

  As always, it was up to id to push the envelope, and in 2004 they kept the world hanging on for Doom 3. Teased by impossibly real screenshots of slimy beasts, and eagerly anticipating the return of the masters of the form, the game arrived to a mix of adulation and disappointment. Adulation for its phenomenal technical prowess, but disappointment that the game wasn't really pushing the genre in many other areas.

  

  The id Crowd

  After seven years in development, it seems that Rage may quell those fears that id's role as the pioneer of shooters was at an end. Yes, there's shooting but there are also vast sandblasted landscapes and visceral Mad Max style vehicle races. Deep within its DNA, Rage is clearly still a shooter from the id stable, but it's also so much more than that.

  Perhaps what is most exciting is what the development community will do with the new id Tech 5 engine, once id has finished using it for Doom 4. Since id was bought out by Zenimax Media in 2009, it's been announced that only developers in their corporate group will get to play with id's latest toybox. Bad news? Not really, since that line up includes Fallout and Oblivion developer Bethesda, as well as Tango Gameworks, the latest venture from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami.

  What's most interesting about id Tech 5 is that it is no longer just a tool for making first-person shooters. Speaking with CVG in 2007, id's Steve Nix explained that it was their goal to see id Tech used in as many genres as possible. "The way the rendering works, there are no more texture limitations. Any game can take advantage of that," he said. "In a massively multiplayer game, texture constraints are a big problem. Even a fighting game where you're trying to get the ultimate detail in a smaller arena, texture limitations tend to be one of your number one limitations. Not only do we think people can make games outside the action-shooter space with our technology, we encourage it. We'd actually like to see those games made."

  So would we, Steve. So would we.

  Published: 06/10/2011

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