Fifteen Years On, Rage Still Can’t Fix Its Car Controls

Rage opens with the asteroid 99942 Apophis hitting Earth on April 13, 2029, and it does not slow down from there. id Software’s shooter puts you behind the eyes of Nicholas Raine, a former U.S. Marine lieutenant who wakes in 2135 from an underground shelter called an Ark, 106 years after being put into stasis. He is alone and wanted by a government that calls itself the only government left. The premise is strong. The execution is uneven, and the unevenness is the whole story of this game.

Trailer, via HDGAME01.

The Eden Project and What Went Wrong

The Arks were the work of the Eden Project, an international effort to bury hundreds of cryogenic shelters and preserve enough people to rebuild after the impact. It failed. Raine’s Ark was heavily damaged, its other residents dead, its equipment destroyed. He wakes with no specific goal. That aimlessness is not just plot — it is the game’s problem in miniature.

General Martin Cross, who ran the Eden Project, sabotaged it before Apophis struck. He made sure only the Arks holding people loyal to him opened on schedule. Those survivors became the Authority. Every other Ark was meant to stay sealed forever. Raine’s surfaced only because its systems broke and it rose on its own.

Dan Hagar, Wellspring, and the Nanotrites

Raine steps onto the surface and is attacked by bandits almost immediately. Dan Hagar, a local settler, saves him and brings him to his settlement. Hagar warns that the Authority is hunting Ark survivors for an unknown purpose. Small jobs follow. Then the nanotrites injected into Raine’s blood before hibernation reveal themselves — they gave him superhuman abilities, and they made him valuable to the Authority. Hagar decides Raine’s presence is too dangerous and sends him to Wellspring.

Wellspring is where Rage spreads out. Raine fights bandits and mutants, ferries supplies, and meets Dr. Kvasir, an elderly scientist who once worked for the Authority. Kvasir describes the inhumane experiments the Authority ran, including the creation of the mutants. He connects Raine to the Resistance, which sends him to rescue its leader, Captain Marshall, from Authority imprisonment.

The Guns, the Wingsticks, the Cars

Combat is first-person, and the arsenal is the best thing here. Upgradeable firearms, a crossbow, and boomerang-like weapons called wingsticks for stealth kills. Each weapon takes several ammunition types — the crossbow fires metal bolts, electrified bolts, explosive bolts. Enemies split into two kinds: firearm carriers who take cover and trade shots, and melee attackers who charge. Driving breaks up the shooting. Races and checkpoint rallies, some armed, some not, let you upgrade your car.

1. The wingsticks — the most distinctive weapon in the game.
2. The crossbow’s ammunition variety, which rewards experimentation.
3. The armed races, which give the vehicle a reason to exist.
4. Dr. Kvasir’s account of the Authority’s experiments, the story’s high point.
5. The nanotrites, which explain Raine’s abilities without much effort.

Capital Prime and the Ending

The Resistance needs data showing the location of every Ark on the planet. Marshall wants to activate them all and build an army. The only way to transmit the activation code is from Capital Prime, the Authority’s main headquarters. Raine fights through it alone. The game ends with every remaining Ark surfacing at once. It is a cliffhanger dressed as a conclusion, and it lands flat.

What Rage Gets Right and Wrong

Rage received mainly positive reviews. Reviewers praised the combat mechanics, gameplay and graphics, and criticized the lack of story, characters and direction. That split is accurate, and it is also the fairest way to describe the game. The shooting is excellent. The world is thin.

It was first shown as a tech demo at the 2007 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, announced at QuakeCon, and built on id Tech 5. It was the last game id Software released under founder John Carmack’s supervision. A sequel, Rage 2, arrived on May 14, 2019, which tells you the ending did not kill the franchise.

Key facts

• Release: October 2011 (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360); February 2012 (OS X)
• Developer: id Software
• Publishers: Bethesda Softworks, Aspyr Media
• Engine: id Tech 5
• Platforms: PlayStation 3, PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac, Xbox 360
• Modes: single player, multiplayer, co-operative
• IGDB critic aggregate: 6.9 of 10

The combat carries Rage further than its story can. Every firefight is worth taking; almost nothing between them is. That is a real accomplishment and a real limitation, and 6.9 of 10 is where those two facts meet.

first-person shooter · id Software · post-apocalyptic · Rage · Rage 2 · video game review