Melbourne Australia – September 15, 2011 – Impulse Gamer were given a hands on look at id Software’s most anticipated release, RAGE. Although we had just one hour available to us, we were able to test out a variety of facets of this first person shooter and more importantly, it was oozing with id gaming goodness with a few polite nods to Doom and Quake.

According to Tim Willits (Creative Director) who was at the hands on, RAGE is set in the not so distance future where mankind has been decimated by an asteroid impact. The asteroid is actually based on a real-world asteroid called Apophis which is scheduled to narrowly miss Earth in the coming years… or so the scientists lead us to believe. In classic id fashion, the player is indoctrinated into this world by a Hollywood type introduction that really gets your adrenaline started.

Your character fortunately survived the holocaust that was caused by Apophis as the world’s most significant people were put into cryogenic pods in order for them to reawaken once the disaster was over. The goal for these people were to help the survivors rebuild the Earth. Unfortunately things didn’t turn out too well for mankind and you awake in this post-apocalyptic world that is very reminiscence of Mad Max. Even the poster looks like the classic Road Warrior (Mad Max) poster.

Tim Willits who created the post-apocalyptic story of RAGE wanted to merge car combat with the first person shooter generation and from our small hands on, this implementation worked perfectly. As my character awoke from his cryo-pod, the game slowly puts you into the role of this character and before you know it, you are thrown into this violent world of survivalists, savages and deadly mutants. From my brief sojourn into the world of RAGE, I was pleasantly surprised at how flawless the gaming engine was, especially driving vehicles. Willits noted that they wanted to keep the gameplay smooth and removed a variety of features such as animation of getting into a vehicle and even numerous cover systems to make the title a fast paced action title. Ironically, it works.

The game does harken back to old school gaming such as when you defeat enemies, their weapons vanish and the only way to upgrade your weapons is to embark on particular quests for the various NPC’s littered through this world. In essence, the game is a combination of Quake meets Motorstorm but with 21st century graphics. The combat is quite hectic, especially with limited bullets which sometimes force you to rely on melee attacks. The cover system is basically the duck button but once again… it works.

You can even target certain parts of your enemies such as their legs or head. If you do happen to lose your health, the gameplay employs a defibrillator to bring you back or good old fashioned checkpoints are also available. Driving felt quite smooth in the game and my only post-release gripe is that even though the world seems quite sandbox, you are limited to where your vehicles can go, thanks to large “rubbish” piles or yellow poles. I did however like the use of a breadcrumb system which shows you exactly where you need to go.

With the release date of RAGE just around the corner, I’m actually even more eager to play this title as it’s not set in a world of Zombies or some offset of Call of Duty or Battlefield 3. id Software once again take the player on a journey and from the development code that I played, I can hopefully say that where in good hands, once again.

Bring it on!

Rage will be available on XBOX 360, PC and PS3 on October 6th 2011