Gamescom 2009: A First Look At RAGE

Simon Williams talks up his Gamescom favourite, id Software’s RAGE (all caps because that’s the way the games industry likes it), a post apocalypse open world shooter/racer/RPG.  It’s kinda cool…

A couple of weeks ago I was able to sit down with the creative director Tim Willits and lead designer Matt Hooper to see a good forty minute demonstration of RAGE, which coincidentally is the first game built on the brand new id Tech 5 engine.  First off all lets just say that right from start the engine has proven to be absolutely fantastic. Colours, vivid colours jumped out of the screen offending my ocular sensory devices with their brilliance; and the attention to detail was so complex, you could just get lost in it.  Moving forward I can only hope that development houses give id Tech 5 the same chance they gave the Unreal Engine 3.

Okay, back to the actual game.  In RAGE, you play a man who was placed into the “Cryo-Ark” that was built to preserve life after an asteroid impact.  The problem is that while you and the other people were slumbering away waiting for a chance rebuild society, more surface dwellers survived the astronomical impact than were expected.  In the time since the crash, they set up towns and settlements without any centralized law or rule.  Worse?  You’re the only survivor from those deposited in the Ark and so you’re alone in a world full of anarchy, mutants, bandits and very fast cars.  Sounds like a game I’d enjoy.

Whilst showing off the cars and some combat, I got to see one of the in-game towns called Wellspring.  Each town will have it’s own look and feel and in this case Wellspring had a more western feel about it as opposed to other towns which I was told can range from punk like to eastern influences.  Dialogue with NPCs in these towns is simple and you won’t be going through dialogue trees like in Mass Effect.  Instead people will just talk to you as you approach like they would in real life. Starting with calling you stranger, they will become more friendly with you the more you visit their town.

Towns feature all the usual staples of post-apocalyptic luxury such as bars, clothing stores, weapon stores, racing venues, and car part shops.  Here you’ll also be able to pick up side missions, get paid for hunting mutants and can even partake in some mini-games.  One such game involved a small group of people huddled around a game of dice, and it seemed pretty fun.  Sure I don’t expect it to be Triple Triad, but then again what mini-game is?   In fact, the first character I was introduced to was called Crazy Joe, an NPC who communicates with wild hand gestures.  In terms of motion capture and animation, his mouth moved like you’d expect from a human – not the shoddy lip-syncing we’ve become used to in titles such as Halo.  In terms of interaction I’d say the developers have nailed it with this demonstration alone.  It – being interaction and immersion.  The detail I was able to see on Crazy Joe applied to every person you’ll meet in every town, they all look and dress different.  This world lives.

Matt told me that they don’t use the phrase “open world” when describing the game, instead they call it “open but directed.”  That translates to open exploration of huge pieces of land on your way to the core content, which is directed from point A to point B.  Showing off some of the weapons in RAGE such as the ‘Wing Stick’ was a pretty cool thing to watch, this weapon is a sort of boomerang that serves as a synthesis of ranged and melee weapon.  Also on display were the usual pistol, shotgun – hey this is id after all,  a machine gun, and a crossbow.  Usual fayre with the typical id stamp of approval for headshots and stuff!  I liked it, and I know you will too.

Unlike that other post apocalypse game, the guys at id decided that it would be best to be able to get from one end of the wasteland to the other without having to walk the whole way and that’s where vehicles, and vehicular combat in particular, come into play.  You’ll be able to upgrade your cars, add new weapons, armor, a dash of paint and when you’re done you can store them in a garage and all of these are earned by completing races.

I was also given a look at a ‘Seek and Destroy’ mission for the sheriff of Wellspring in which some mutants have been terrorizing the wasteland with remote controlled bombs, and the player gets sent in to take them out using their own weapon of choice.  The remote controlled bombs are reminiscent of the remote controlled cars in the Grand Theft Auto series, or the remote missile in Metal Gear Solid.  There was a mutant in a room behind some bulletproof glass and Tim, who was showing this portion of the game, sent a remote controlled bomb into that room and then killing the mutation with the detonation.  The combat is both innovative, whilst retaining a certain classic design aesthetic.  To sum it up, it’s solid first person shooter gameplay but what else would you expect from a studio like id Software.

Lastly, the guys demonstrated another in-game feature called Mutant Bash TV, and its owner is disgusting, visually, personally – pick one!  You need to fight on Mutant Bash TV in order to get the owner to sponsor you in the car races.  Wearing its similarity to Mad Max with pride, I swear I heard someone shout “Thunderdome!” as the character was led into the stadium.  The potential sponsor, an obese slob who seems to have fused with his chair years ago, tells the player he will get sponsorship if he goes into the arena to do one thing…well two:  kill or be killed.

In an industry filled with duplicity and redundancy the comparisons make themselves: Is RAGE cashing in on the success of, or even ripping off, Fallout 3?  Matt Hooper responds, saying:

It’s confusing for us too, but the game is so different. There are no stats [in RAGE] and we do love [Fallout 3].  And that’s our sister company now, right?  I think people get confused due to the open world, but I think that when you see the game you will see it’s a different take on this type of game.  It’s a different story, it doesn’t look the same.  There’s a lot more colour and the gameplay is totally different and [Fallout 3 doesn't] have the vehicles.  It still seems weird to me that people draw those parallels but I get it, it makes sense.  But hopefully after people get to play the game they will say “Oh yeah this is something totally different.”

To which Tim Willits added:

And to me if it sells more, I’d be more than happy!

RAGE seems to be a combination of several games such as Fallout 3, Motorstorm and Doom – all thrown in a huge smelting pot and that’s certainly not a bad thing.  Some games try to copy whatever else has been selling that year, but sometimes there are games that merely take inspiration from popular sources of success such as certain gameplay elements, and then build upon them.  RAGE looks to be an huge improvement on anything which has come before in this genre, and the thing is that whilst id Software hasn’t set a release date yet, I’ve come away thinking that even in this unfinished state it’s one of the best games I’ve seen this year thus far.  Consider one copy sold id Software.