Rage

Rage – 1^st person shooter and atmospheric gem of a game

I’m increasingly amazed by the calibre of graphics and gameplay titles have these days. Not only do games look and feel more realistic in their detail and scripted storyline, but they are improving in every other level at a frightening pace.

Rage starts out with a great looking intro worthy of Halo or similar stellar cinematic games. Swiftly it develops into something which is a mixture of adrenaline fuelled racers like Motorstorm and all the best elements of other 1^st person shooters. Alas unlike its more powerful counterparts, this bloodthirsty game follows a very linear storyline which moves you through room to room and one scene to the next in what would be arguably a bit of a fancier version of a duck-shoot; the only difference is rather than ducks you’re shooting mutants who hit back!

Moving is done automatically; the only control you have is over the targeting, firing and dodging on screen. You have the option of either using the tilt or tap function for aiming. From my personal experience, I would advise against using the tilt controls as they proved less than effective and on frequent occasion became stuck allowing me only to pan from left to right and not tilt up and down (which usually resulted in taking more damage than was necessary). It is possible to recalibrate the tilt controls through pausing and shaking the handset, but this did break up the games atmospherics and became more than a nuisance.

On the plus side, the commentary in what became something of a Running Man style game, is really quite good and the graphics are pretty special. Blowing the heads off mutants and then going into overkill to leave nothing much of the body definitely keeps you baying for more. With the extras that keep you on your toes, ranging from hitting all the targets deployed around the levels and picking up extra ammo and cash proves to add to the excitement and challenge.

Overall this is a great game which is only hampered by the restrictive movements and rigid ghost train style movement from one room to the next. But in fairness, it does push all the right buttons firmly and will keep your itchy trigger finger happy for quite a while.

Positives

Superb graphics

Good storyline

Atmospheric

Negatives

Very rigid scripted movement

Tilt control proved unreliable

4 stars