Attendu de longue date par une multitude de joueurs, Rage ne déçoit pas. Techniquement très réussi et malgré une fin un rien décevante, il vient parfaitement souligner le fait qu’il est encore possible de proposer des jeux de qualité sur nos consoles vieillissantes sans décevoir les joueurs PC. Le titre d’id Software fait donc partie de ces jeux que vous vous devez de glisser dans votre machine en cette fin d’année chargée. Pour faire simple, Rage : l’essayer, c’est l’adopter !

Four years ago Rage, the new franchise from the daddy of Doom and Quake, looked a breath of fresh air; cutting edge technology, RPG-enthused gameplay, exciting post-apocalyptic universe... and just about every other bullet point that's now commonplace on the boxes of most first-person shooters.
 
Id Software's taken its time constructing Rage, and as a result its setting and game engine aren't quite as thrilling as they perhaps would've been had it made it onto shelves before the Unreal Engine and Fallout/Borderlands/Enslaved/Resistance/Metro invasion.
 
But that's not to say the extra construction time hasn't paid off; Rage's bashed-up world is by far the most believable and beautifully decayed of the army of Mad Max-alikes in the shops today, while id Tech 5 offers genuinely Epic-topping gasps, like characters (friend or foe) that almost challenge Half-Life 2 in the personality stakes.
 
 
 
Beyond that, there's another unexpected benefit of Rage's five-plus years sat in the garage; in 2011 it's taking to the track as one of the sole representatives of a brand of shooter that's been criminally under-represented in recent times - a single-player focussed behemoth with core mechanics polished to their satisfying best.  
 
And in the multiplayer modern war-fest that is this Christmas, id's game could well prove to be one of the best solo FPS offerings of the year.
 
APOCA-LOVELY
Rage's story sees your player character wake in the distant future when the planet's been levelled by an Asteroid the size of New York City.  
 
Your protagonist is one of the lucky few who were cryogenically stored in underground pods known as Arks, and now, stumbling from your sleeping pod like a half-cut student on a Tuesday afternoon, you discover the surface world managed to survive beyond the apocalypse - but it's a very different place.
 
The planet is now basically a page out of any number of post-apocalyptic movie scripts, with various tribal factions fighting each other with clubs and cyberpunk guns, in an effort to come out on top in the desert wasteland that Earth's become.  
 
Bandits and mutants are your shooting fodder for most of the game, while later on the technologically savvy Authority change up the gameplay with their bullet-absorbing armour and holographic riot shields.
 
On paper the Wasteland is nothing we haven't seen a dozen times before in the likes of Borderlands and Bethesda's other top shooter, Fallout 3. But id's polish shows through in the gorgeous sun-kissed canyons and amazingly detailed settlements, with every environment telling a story and feeling more believable than the rival games.
 
 
Much like the other granddaddies of FPS at Half-Life house Valve, id is masterful at constructing game spaces that feel lived in with back story and character, like the mutant-infested streets of the Dead City or a RC bomb-car factory, which houses every construction process from chemicals to sticking the wheels on.
 
Id's overarching plotline might fall a little flat in the end (more on that later), but the world of Rage oozes personality - as does its cast of characters, with their stunning, intricate animations and impressive face mapping.
 
WINGING IT
Rage's similarities with the other cyberpunk shooters extends to its quest mission structure, which as you'd expect has you running errands for new friends in the wasteland and with the XP systems and skill trees of its peers absent, concludes instead with guns, cash and pats on the back as reward.
 
Rage's quests more often than not involve high-quality shoot outs, ridiculous boss fights and generally annihilating your way through a bandit settlement with a shotgun.
 
And how marvellous that shotgun is; we forgot just how accomplished John Carmack and co are at manifesting a satisfying boom stick, and Rage's version is up there with the most enjoyable guns in any of their games, sporting a meaty bark, decent range and a kick that'll send most baddies flailing in a bloody ballet spin through the air.
 
As is traditional from the makers of Quake, Rage's arsenal is the biggest of its big bullet points, and we imagine the development team spent years obsessing over every sound effect and hit animation to get each feeling fantastic fun to use - and they are.
 
The pistol (with the right ammunition) feels like a hand cannon, the crossbow sports a savage snap and every impact and exploding grenade is given extra oomph by id Tech 5's solid 60fps frame rate.
 
 
Another trait nicked from the 'there was a nuclear explosion here recently' genre is the huge amount of tat you'll collect in Rage, with every mutant den and underground bunker cluttered with tins, cogs and beer bottles to fill your inventory with.
 
You can opt to flog these initially useless trinkets in town for gun money if you wish, but further into the story you'll discover the game's compelling crafting system, which has you combining scrapheap ingredients via various collectible schematics.
 
The system works well, and can be used not only to keep up your ammunition and auto-healing bandage stocks up, but for more advanced constructions like robotic gun turrets, RC bomb cars and even door mechanisms to unlock previously inaccessible areas.
 
ROAD RAGE
Completing the list of Mad Max clichés are of course Rage's vehicle sections. Well, they're a bit more than sections actually - unless you fancy walking across the desert while makeshift tanks blow you in half, they'll take up about a third of your game time.
 
The good news for the shooter stalwarts concerned you'll have to perform more laps than headshots is you only need to enter a vehicle race a few times to complete the story. The other good news is it's lots of fun to drive cars in the desolate future.
 
Id's applied the same logic to driving mechanics as it does to shotguns; make it satisfying, manly and constantly over the top. Rage's buggies and motors feel arcade fun to drive, with flips, big air and break-neck speed boosts scattered with abandon.
 
You're given your first motor early on in the game and from there on you'll tear through the wasteland to reach your various mission objectives and safe houses.
 
You can upgrade all manner of parts - including suspension, wheels and engine - that improve the performance and handling of your vehicle, but to purchase these you'll have to earn race tokens by either participating in race events or shooting up bandit cars in the Wasteland.
 
 
The arcade nature of driving guarantees that the race challenges - of which there are more than 20 - are a guaranteed laugh, with players forced to use gizmos such as shields, mines and auto-turrets to defend themselves from the relentless rockets your opponents fling at you. Or you can just race the old fashioned way... without mini-guns.
 
THE BITTER END
At the very least the decision to make driving a core part of Rage's gameplay increases the amount of variety in the campaign hugely - and that's arguably the game's strongpoint.
 
The amount of weapons, upgrades, gizmos and side-quests in Rage is significant, and even the enemies force you to approach combat differently, with mutants running blade-first towards you, bandits free-running across walls and the heavily-armoured Authority virtually absorbing gunfire.
 
It's a truly worthwhile single-player game, only let down at the end by a disappointing final third which, though we don't want to spoil details, concludes with a whimper. Which is a shame.
 
Rage does include a multiplayer mode - two of them to be exact - but despite occupying an entire Xbox 360 disc they're very much secondary to the great solo experience.
 
Legends of the Wasteland is a series of two-player co-op missions based on the stories you hear in the single-player campaign and Combat Rally takes the main game's race challenges online.
 
The latter is good fun and could grow a decent online following, while the former - story and meaty combat aside - isn't quite the meaty online combat you were looking for.
 
Both are more 'welcome additions' than compelling online time-sinks and it's as a single-player experience that Rage should be considered.
 
 
While story and structure may never have been what id games were about, expertly refined gameplay mechanics are what the fans have craved - and Rage has that, along with tonnes of variety. It might not be the perfect FPS those four years of development suggested, but get your hands on that shotgun and you'll know it was worth the wait.
 
computerandvideogames.comAndy Robinson
 
The verdict
SCORE
8.9
The house of Doom delivers a masterful single-player shooter with top notch gunplay, let down by a disappointing final third.