Rage(quit)

I remember seeing Rage for the first time in the gaming magazine back when it was released. It looked so cool! Unfortunately I never got to play it back then, and I just kept wondering how great game it had to be. And then I forget the whole thing for a while. 

Until some time ago Rage was on a sale on Steam and I got it. And forget it again until the beginning of 2022. Finally, after almost a decade, I was ready to play this game that made so big impact on me years ago even though I never even tried it. And it was awesome, is what I would love to say. Unfortunately, Rage isn't awesome. Its not even okay. This game is... missed opportunity. Mediocre looter shooter. And so on. 

It's painfully clear that this game is over 10 years old now. Gameplay is kinda clunky, and in-game menus for example are straight from the early 2000s. But at least the story and world are passable?

Nah. Story is pretty straight-forward copy of Half-Life 2's campaign but without all the charm and depth that HL2 has. And characters... Well, they are your typical and stereotypic FPS ones. Lots of muscle mans machoing and women that are clearly written (and modeled) by men. Especially main character of the games The Scorchers DLC, Sarah, is something from 90s media that we didn't need back. 

But yeah, even though characters and story are not Rages strengths, they do their job. Somehow.

Rage is a hybrid of open-world sections and more traditional straight-forward maps, which is both its biggest strength and weakness. Open-world parts are boring, you'll be driving a car from one place to an another in a canyons, so open-world aspect isn't even so open-worldly. There's some fighting, but most of the time I just drove away from enemies to get to the next mission. World is your typical apocalyptic wasteland, so there's not even anything to look at. On-foot sections at least are little bit better mostly because a big arsenal of weapons, which make fighting fun. Unfortunately too many times enemies just became bullet-sponges, which is okay in some games, but when you can headshot most of the enemies and not others, it's... not fair. At least in my opinion. And yeah, most of the places you visit are pretty generic.

I almost stopped playing Rage for these reasons. I was about halfway through and didn't touch the game for about a month, and when I returned it was still as bland as before. And then begun the second act and I found myself in Subway City, which looked shiny and interesting. But after exploring it for a while I realized that it's just more of the same, just in a little bit more interesting casing.

I accidentally became a boundary breaker.

Yeah. This is not a great game. But you wanna know what I really, really liked in Rage? Nail gun with rebar as an ammo. That might just be one of my favourite weapons ever on video games. Its so powerful and fun, though slow, which forces you to aim your shots perfectly and do some sneaky tactics to not die while reloading. Most of the other weapons are pretty good too, but I found myself using nail gun almost all of the time. 

*SPOILER ALERT*

I fought my way through the campaign, just because I wanted to see what kind of mysteries where waiting. Maybe there would even be a big and epic boss fight! But no. Last level of Rage is a sci-fi tower (Citadel, anyone?) with previously mentioned bullet-sponge enemies, and the climax is.... pressing few buttons, short cutscene and fade in black. And then you are thrown back to the wasteland with a little congratulations message and opportunity to finish any (very boring) side missions. 

I have never felt so angry after finishing game. Like, what just happened? Was this all for... that? Did my actions matter? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

And that is why I'm so negative about this game. It forces you through repeative missions with a promise of something interesting happening at the end, but it never delivers. It's a slap on face.

I had to Google if this could be really that. And yes, unfortunately it is. In Reddit players have said it's the worst ending ever in any video game and share many of opinions I shared in this blog. Even Polygon wrote an article about Rages ending. It feels that developers ran out of the time, or spend so much time on the visuals (which still hold up pretty good) that they forget to finish the most important part of the single player game: the campaign.

I really wanted to like this game. Unfortunately it's a shallow Borderlands wannabe without the charm that game has. It tries, but in the end, it really doesn't matter. 

I wonder if Rage 2 is any good?