RAGE

id Software were once the kings of the first person shooter. They created the prototype grandaddy of the genre in Wolfenstein 3D, before refining it to perfection with the seminal Doom.

The Quake franchise followed soon after, and the remake of Doom, Doom 3, became their most recent work in 2004. So when Rage was announced, it was greeted with a great deal of excitement.

While I have to admit the game mechanics were enjoyable, aka the actual movement and shooting, and the graphics were quite good in places, the game seemed beset by more glitches and problems than it boasted good points.

First off it had no ending. The final level was utterly dull, and the game just stopped. No end boss, nothing.

Secondly the Tech5 engine had a lot technical problems, from blue and black streaks in the textures, to flickering, to texture pop in, to blurring. It really needs a bit of work on it.

Thirdly, it really wasn't visually much better than Doom 3 - still using the id hallmark of grey and brownstone and dusty atmosphere. It's starting to look slightly dated now.

Next; why was there a jump button? I know that's a strange question to ask, but to my recollection you only actually need to jump on one occasion throughout the whole game for progress. And that's on the final level. It's an otherwise completely redundant function.

The 'option' to accept or decline missions was the stupidest thing ever - unless it was a peripheral side quest, you HAD TO ACCEPT. Otherwise the game didn't progress.

Plus, why did they include that irritating screen shake when shot response which started in Doom 3? The entire game shakes madly when you get hit and you can't see a thing - this isn't a good thing. A small movement like in MW3 is fine, but this response was just irritating.

Also, what was the point in the driving side of the game? You drove from one town to the next bit, blew up some bandits, and that was it. The racing was totally tacked on and entirely unnecessary.

Following on from that, it pretended to be a sort of open ended non-linear game, when it was anything of the sort. You did things in a specific order and went in a straight line. Being blocked off by invisible walls and 'rubble' is really not very convincing any more.

I mean I know I sound like I hated the game, I actually didn't. The first time you see the Kraken in the Dead City was awesome, even if the fight with him was easy. And some of the visuals in places were really very good.

But then I recall the FPS equivalent of racing a course in reverse in driving games back in the day of Ridge Racer, and pretending that's a new course; exact same here. You have to do the Dead City twice, the second time in reverse. Bit of a cheap way to create a mission quite honestly.

This was a rough game, with a hint of quality about it.

But it does seem that the former pioneers of the first person shooter, id, have been overtaken now and their technology seems dated.

And coming from someone who rates Doom as the best game of all time, it's not like I'm biased against them.

And yet I rate it 4 out of 5 because for sheer fun, it's still a good game. Just, not quite at the level of quality id used to be known for.

When Rage first came out most of the anger it evoked was for the graphical bugs that plagued the PC version (my own included).

I am pleased to say subsequent patches seem to have sorted that and you should get a bug free experience if you play it now.

The game itself is simple and fun. It is a very good shooter from the makers of Doom.

It may look like Fallout 3 in style, but it is closer to it's 'Doom' roots. Missions are all pretty much 'go there and kill everything you meet' affairs, through a series of corridors and rooms.

It lost 1 star from me for it's very abrupt ending that leaves the plot just hanging in the air. I'm guessing that they are planning a Rage 2.

If so I will happily consider picking it up

You need to be quite good at driving games for this. Just as a FPS its great but the missions are a bit short on coop