RAGE

Short review: forgotten FPS by ID software... so, no story (but this time, not even badass-ery) but GREAT shooting (or way more you'd expect from this game, and less from ID). Anyway, if you like short campaigns, great shooting and fall-out-like settings with little to no story to immerse yourself in, this is for you! P.S. the first time I played I thought It was an underlooked, great game with the misfortune to be released in the time of giants like Borderlands and Fall-out ... but replaying it after all these years I can see its flaws and redundancy more clearly.

The shooting in this game was good, and the driving was alright some of the time, but there is just some things about this game that i just didnt really click with in this game. I find it really hard to actually put my finger on the reasons why I wont actually be reccomending this game, but ill do my best to try. I feel like the game in a lot of ways had potential, but falls short in so many other ways. Where to begin. First off there is a screen tearing issue in this game that happens if you try to max out the settings, no clue how to fix it, not really my problem to fix, as i see it should have been fixed to begin with before release. The era of buggy releases is around the time this game was launched so im not surprised. The driving, its good but in a lot of ways its not good. -The timed events in this game & Driving: [Spoiler] The car breaksdown early game far too quickly untill you manage to do the races to get raceing credits for upgradeing the car. The issue here isnt really that, its that if you want to play this section of the game optimaly, (which i didnt first time i played blind through it) You have to purposely only win these events a second before your too slow, or to just barely beat your raceing oponent. If you plan on going as fast as possible, the game forces you to actually beat that same time less than 30-45 seconds faster than what likely was you trying your hardest to get your best time down the road. The next to beat time is always based on your previous time/score no matter what. This is also the case for other driving events in the game like the shooting races in the desert areas with clownboy and his dumb tv show. As well as the shooting events on kill T.V. or whatever its called i dont remember, or any other events that are the repeated ones that come up again. There is no way of you knowing what is and what isnt unless you played the game already. [/Spoiler] -The shooting: If you want the honest truth, shotgun and wingstick is enough to beat 99% of this game. However, youll find if you play on a harder difficulty, sponging becomes an issue and there is a limit to how much you ammo you can carry of a single gun type. This leads to a few other issues. One is that you basicly want to constantly fill up your ammo on multiple guns which costs actually a lot of your money in this game, which there are a few other expensive things like schematics, car repairs, upgrades for your guns ect that you will actually want to buy, but will find it hard because your spending thousands reloading after a mission. If your on a easier setting this will never be an issue tho, as the game is pretty easy. Secondly even on harder difficulty the wingsticks are actually invaluable, and are so good that you can just cut the heads of enemies consistantly if you are good at using them for 99% of this game and never need to use guns. -The issue with linear progression: If you want to collect everything, and youll be pissed if you miss a collectable like the cards, just watch a guide before you play this game. You are going to miss something and need to restart because you cant go redo an area you missed. There is no way to do this because most areas are re used with different routing and loot each time you go there. [Spoiler] If you dont consistantly collect these cards, you will struggle to make the money required before heading to the next main areas to buy the things you need. I will talk more about this in the next section. [/Spoiler] This game is so set on rails, that i feel like there is not much sense of exploring at all really besides collecting things. Lastly, [Spoiler] There are doors the are locked you need a crafted/bought grinder gear item to bust them open, they are cool but this means if you forget to make some, your not ever going to be able to go back and open it. [/Spoiler] Heres my last point to make, the card game at the bars. : [Spoiler] Before you go to the next main areas or quest hubs in this game, you basicly need to grind out all the money you can by winning these games because the quest rewards are not enough to sustain your ammo purchases, your repairing your car, or schematics ect. This game is very boring imho and if you didnt collect the right cards mentioned earlier, you are going to struggle beating the high earning hard modes. There is no way around that besides hacking/cheating in the game. You litearlly have to or youll get softlocked as there isnt much other ways to earn money once you clear the quests. This imo just sucks and i dont think makes for good game design. [/Spoiler] If you really wanna try this game, go for it, but after over 100 hours of it, i cant say i reccomend it. As per usual i reccomend getting it on a deep sale, and expect to find frustrating aspects along the way. I did find it bareable but it wasnt the best experience. And for that reason im giving a thumbs down. Sorry Devs.