Thursday, January 26, 2012

Rage

[Post updated for clarity and grammar. Also it's now gluten free and is fortified with iron!]

It's been a long time since I've done a blog post, and it's been a long time since Rage came out. So most of you would either own Rage, or wouldn't care to own Rage. So, like most of my posts, this isn't a review, but I did plan this post in my head while playing the game.

I was very excited for it and I picked it up at launch. I was slightly disappointed, but mostly because I hyped myself up over the idea of a new id IP. The A.I. was amazing (it reacted in ways that were semi-predictable, but most shooters have the enemies doing things that you 100% see coming every time. So it was a massive step forward, but not so large of a leap that I feel I'm going into the field of video game A.I. too late), the textures were not as awesome as I wanted, but they had a wonderful amount of detail (playing on PS3). The guns sounded great, the cars handled realistically without being a racing sim (though the game felt like a racing game with an FPS mini-game a lot of the time), and the world was both original and strange without going too far in either direction. But, alas, the game had a lot of faults. Mostly, however, I found the faults were in the story.

[Super fast plot details for anyone who hasn't played the game. The governments of the world find out that an asteroid is going to hit Earth and destroy all life. They all decide to make Arks and store select people underground in them to survive the impact, and also decide not to tell anyone so as not to induce panic. These people are given magical nano-machines that basically revive you on death, help you heal over time, give you a HUD; basically anything a normal shooter likes to give you anyway. The Arks preserve everyone in a sleep state for, like, 100 years at which point you'll go above ground and restart humanity! The first group to come out of the Arks are military members, with everyone else following in 20 or so years. Some Arks, like your own, are staged to come out later than the others. And everyone else in your Ark is, for some reason, dead (likely a long time by the decay). So you're all alone, thrust into the wasteland. You're also wearing an Ark-suit. The plot is basically Fallout as a pure shooter, but it's set up well enough as to be a fun time! So, join me as we see this plot fail.]

The story was a pretty good one, but (much like the Halo games) the story wasn't much of the actual game. My biggest issue, however, was with the Authority and some of the raider groups. Or, more specifically, a lack of a problem. The Authority is, at no point in the game, a threat to you personally until you start shooting them/invading their bases (as in you can drive up to their defensive wall and they won't start shooting at you until you start shooting them). Everyone in the towns tells you they're evil and fascist, but the game doesn't show them in an offensive light until you've started killing them. Of course the Authority wants revenge/justice at that point! You see some floating robotic scanner things (think scanners from Half Life 2) in the first town after you stir things up a bit, but they don't really respond to you (even when they see and, presumably, scan you). Shouldn't the Authority have the ability to scan you (and others) remotely with these things and, I don't know, pick up those nano-machines all Ark survivors have? We also don't see this Authority killing civilians in the towns or really doing anything generic fascist-like that the townspeople seem to be insistent on. One of the Authority soldiers (after taking control of a subway town) will tell you to "pick up that can" in a very nice homage to Half-Life 2 and the Combine. A group that is shown to be evil before you ever get to pick up a crowbar and bash some skulls (and headcrabs) in! In this case, if you look down, you'll see there is a can of food on the ground. So this evil Authority soldier is pointing out a can of food on the ground and telling me to pick it up.

In this subway town (the Authority take it over after you complete this mission) you get tasked with killing a group of "raiders" who supply the town's power (because they're charging more money now or whatever). Now the mayor of this town seems way more evil than these raiders; and the same can be said of most of the raider groups. In this case you are tasked with killing them simply because the mayor wants cheaper power. The world is bloody gone, be happy you have power! So those raiders are walking around the town demanding protection money or looting your caravans? No, it's a group of Russians who have power plants. In one of the co-op missions (the first) you get to hear how the guy who gives you the sniper rifle in the main story got that rifle. It's a nice bit of backstory (that isn't needed, but it's probably more fun shooting wise than the main game) but his reason is also more evil than these Russian "raiders". The Russian group of raiders is drilling for oil in an old (abandon) prison. You are tasked with stopping them. This would be like America invading Canada because they started drilling for oil that they planned to export to the US anyway! The first raider group you fight (the ghost guys) are typical savage raiders, so killing them makes sense (although, even then you're doing it because the guy who saved you from them told you to rather than because you want revenge or something). But the British group is a bunch of drunks who tinker with cars (not evil, but not good. It seems likely they harass local populations, but you don't ever see it). And every other group seems to be pretty okay. One raider group (located where another Ark pops up) is said to be savage, killing anyone that enters their land and not speaking a language anyone understands. I felt bad killing these guys (though not as bad as the group or Russians [in hindsight that feels really racist of past-me]) because I didn't have a good feel for them being "bad guys" in the least. They defend their land, and if someone comes into it and doesn't leave (while being shouted at) then they get killed. I bet more than a few Native American tribes wish they had taken that stance when Europeans came to America (and some, of course, did).

I played the entire game waiting for plot twist. Waiting to take down part of the Authority only to find out that the group I had been working for was self serving, and used an Ark survivor knowing they would be naive and powerful. When the game ended (and, much like a fall, it's the sudden stop that kills you) I was left disappointed and wanting so much more. Not because id didn't bring me a good game, but because id could have brought me an orgasmically-amazing (amazingly-orgasmic?) game with a slightly better story and a slightly longer game. I look forward to the DLC that I pray comes [future me: it did. I bought it. I didn't beat it but plan to. Though I'm on PC this time around]. And the same with a Rage 2 [which will likely never happen]. But I hope Bethesda helps them bring in a good story teller. No id game has ever had a drop-dead amazing story. "Space Marine killing the spawns of hell" was fine for the 90s, and it still makes for a fun game today, but it feels dated. id doesn't need to make a story driven game (Halo isn't story driven, and yet it has so much story. Final Fantasy games are pure story these days), they can keep a linear game (like Half-Life) and still tell a fun story. I really look forward to seeing what the bring forth, and they will always be one of my favorite companies (if only because they bring some of the coolest new tech engines to the gaming world).

[I'd love to rewrite this post but it feels dishonest to do so. I'll likely play the game again and write another, better written, post about it. This post was updated for clarity and grammar, but not for content. 1/14/2015]