Success often becomes its own unique sort of trap – everyone is familiar with sports figures who had an incredible season that they never matched again, and the same can be true for any industry, especially video games. As the creators of the Doom and Quake series, id Software has a track record of making revolutionary, industry-changing titles which often show everyone the future of gaming.

Rage is not one of them.

However, Rage is also not the incredibly disappointing release that many gaming outlets have claimed it is.

It is, in short, a game like many others – a game which offers some rewards, some frustration, some enjoyment and some bewilderment. It’s just that it’s id Software and fan expectations for anything they do are high and not easily met.

Taking its cue from recent disaster movies, Rage destroys the world not through war but by a meteor. Before the meteor hits, scientists and military personnel and other people with skills and knowledge useful for rebuilding society go into a form of suspended animation in vehicles called Arks, which then bury themselves deep beneath the world’s surface. When things are safe, the Arks emerge and their passengers set about making the world anew.

And when you emerge, you find a vastly different world. Towns and outposts built of junk and scrap around a surviving structure or two, bandits throwing all manner of weapons at you (and for some unexplained reason, a lot of those bandits have Cockney accents), vehicles reminiscent of the old Steve Jackson Car Wars RPG but feel like the driving in Red Faction: Guerrilla and so on. As players proceed through the game, it’s difficult not to think of Vaults and Enclaves … and bobbleheads. Yes, bobbleheads. You’ll find them in Rage.

Most, if not all, of the gameplay is consistent with a traditional first-person shooter. There’s the boss fight requiring players to hit a specific body part to damage the boss, there’s waves of enemies, there’s strafing, there’s crouching (and crouching behind an object is the only real cover mechanic in the game) … it’s all pretty typical stuff.

And really, that’s the core problem with Rage – it’s typical. It feels like a game that used Fallout 3 as a crib sheet for its plot and setting. It’s a game that makes the vehicle combat in Borderlands seem complex. It’s a game that pushes a player into a conflict between The Authority and The Resistance, and when the only real factions in the game have names that seem like placeholders, it suggests problems. And the end, without giving anything away, feels anti-climactic.

Despite that, Rage is a fairly solid game with few bugs (although there appears to be a significant problem with the game crashing whenever the player has to swap discs – as a tip, if your game requires disc swapping and swapping discs crashes the game, your game clearly wasn’t finished and that should have remedied in the release-day patch), pretty graphics and some fun ideas (like Sentry Bots), which offset the need to shoot an enemy two or three times in the face with a combat shotgun to take them down.

All things considered, Rage isn’t a triumph or a disaster – it’s just an average game which couldn’t live up to impossible expectations. Likewise, if this is the game that id has been developing since the last Doom game, players can and should reasonably expect it to offer more – more story, more locations, more mission types, more weapon upgrades and so on – and be disappointed that it didn’t.

With that said, let’s move on to accessibility.



Accessibility Issues / Concerns

First, players need to be aware that Rage, unlike a lot of console games, doesn’t auto-save very frequently (typically on zone changes). Players will have to initiate manual saves, and should do so often to avoid losing progress. However, Rage is rather unique in that it will let players save anywhere and at any time, and restart the game exactly where they left off – even if they save the game during combat. During one boss fight, I found myself saving each time I hit the vulnerable area on the boss, and reloading if I used too much ammo trying to hit it again. A feature like that – by itself – makes a game much more accessible, if only because you can reload as many times as you need to finish the battle, and loading a save doesn’t take a ridiculous amount of time.

As the above paragraph suggests, precision can be important. While players can defeat most enemies – including mini-bosses – by simply pouring enough bullets into them, headshots help significantly, especially against armored opponents (be warned that, as one example, many enemies will take two headshots with a sniper rifle to defeat). The crafting component of Rage allows players to make and deploy automated Sentry Bots which will automatically fight opponents, somewhat mitigating the need for precision. However, in early stages of the game, players will have to defeat enemies by themselves and those enemies can move, dodge, roll and take cover, in addition to wearing armor or being shielded.

Likewise, players have defibrillators to revive them after incapacitation, but the mini-game that activates a player’s defibrillator requires moving both sticks to aim at targets and pulling both triggers to determine how effective the defibrillator is.

Players with use of only one hand will experience problems consistent with first person shooters – the left trigger aims while the right trigger fires the weapon. The left bumper uses a hotkeyed item like healing bandages or grenades while the right bumper selects weapons and ammunition. However, while pressing the right bumper allows players to select a weapon by moving the right stick, selecting ammunition for that weapon is done with the left stick and must be done while the right bumper is held down.

Deaf gamers and players who use subtitles need to be aware that the subtitles are very small and often difficult to read. While the speaker is usually identified and the subtitles are in different colors to indicate different speakers talking simultaneously, it doesn’t make them any easier to read. Likewise, many enemies make noise and it isn’t always closed captioned or subtitled – players who can hear typically have a clear advantage in this case over players with hearing difficulties.

Gamers with a form of color-blindness shouldn’t encounter many, if any, problems – the edges of the screen fade and turn red as a player takes damage, but color typically isn’t used for meaning.

Rage isn’t the most accessible game, but id Software deserves credit for implementing some unique accommodating features in the game, such as allowing saves anywhere and at any time. While those aren’t enough to completely offset accessibility challenges, they are significant and meaningful and should make Rage less frustrating for gamers with accessibility concerns.



Mobility: 2
Visual: 9
Hearing: 1

My original purchase price: $59.99
Recommended purchase price: $34.99

At A Glance

Precision: Pouring bullets into enemies helps mitigate the need for precision, as do Sentry Bots that players can build, which will automatically attack enemies. Likewise, the ability to save anywhere and at any time means players can save their game in the middle of a boss fight to preserve their progress. Recommend rating of 3 out of 10.

Deaf Gamers: The game is subtitled, but not closed-captioned. Enemies make noise and it isn’t always subtitled, putting deaf gamers at a disadvantage. Recommend rating of 1 out of 10.

One-handed: Gamers with use of only one hand will experience difficulties consistent with first-person shooters. Ammunition selection may present challenges because players must use the left stick to select ammunition while continuing to hold the right bumper down. Recommend rating of 1 out of 10.

Subtitled: Subtitles are small and can be difficult to read. Recommend rating of 1 out of 10.

Color Blind: Edges of the screen turn red when a player takes damage, but Rage doesn’t really make use of color for meaning. Recommend rating of 9 out of 10.

Checkpoint / Save System: Rage is unique in that it doesn’t autosave often, usually only on zone changes, but allows saving at any time and any place (including during combat), unless a player is interacting with an NPC is talking. Recommend rating of 10 out of 10.