Welcome back, dear readers to The Rabid Gamer. Now, normally I don’t just post reviews, but after yesterday’s bore, I thought I’d try a FUN game… I wandered all over the shops to see just WHAT could erase the painful memory of X-Men Destiny… and then I came across RAGE!

Where do I begin? Rage is one of those games that’s so easy to get lost in, I played for 6 hours before I realized what had happened. It’s visually stunning, with a huge array of weapons and vehicles to ride in, plus this is Bethesda, so I know we’re getting a good storyline!… Ok, THAT might have been a little too much to ask, but still the story keeps you playing (we’ll get back to that later).

Imagine driving along a dirt road. It’s cloudy as always, (this is after the apocalypse after all) but you just enjoy the majesty of the canyons. Every detail of the environment is just astonishing. Then you stop and say hello to people (people you may have just met in the game, but ones that our protagonist has known for a long time). The details of their expressive face are so well made, you actually start believing they’re real people. I swear, on some you could individually count each wrinkle on their face.

Then you get ambushed by monsters… what, couldn’t they wait until you finish your talk??? Ah well, blast the hell out of them and watch them regret ever messing with you!

“Alright, you paint a pretty picture, but what’s the story about??” FINE, be impatient! alright let me bring you up to speed.

Having slept snugly through an extinction-level event in a sealed government refuge, (how you got there is ofcourse a mystery…) you awaken to find that your fellow sleepers are smelling a bit ripe. Alone and unsure, you step out into the world, encounter some savage locals (what other kind would there be? It’s the apocalypse), and end up indebted to a local sharpshooter. He explains that survivors like you haven’t been seen in a long time, and proceeds to ask you for a favor. So begins your journey of helping out the friendly folks of the Wasteland with your natural affinity for driving, collecting, and kicking ass. Each new person you meet is a delight, thanks to stylish character design, expressive animation, and great voice acting. and a lot of these people are a hoot! Who’d have thought a sweet old lady would know so much about decapitation… personal experience? My neck hurts just thinking about it!

“Ok, so the story sounds nice, what was your problem with it?” … I was just getting to that, geez you lot are impatient! My problem is that the environment is so rich, the world is so huge… and yet there’s almost nothing to do. Hardly any side missions, not really a lot of reasons to come back to play it later. Sure it’s beautiful… but we want MORE.

Unfortunately, as this is a Bethesda game, we’re also treated to something very nasty… bugs… I don’t mean the ones that crawl around and get into places they shouldn’t… I mean nasty bugs that freeze your game… and if you get too caught up playing and forget to save (which happened to me)… when the bug hits, you get to start all over… isn’t that fun???

As a rabid gamer, I look for games that keep me playing. This definitely ticks that box. Unfortunately I also look for games that give you lots to do, and for me, I found Rage pretty lacking in that regard. For a game that’s so beautiful, it should really give you a reason to come back. My final rating, is a 7.5/10.

Feel free to rent it, but think twice about buying just yet.

Until next time, keep on playing, and keep on reading!